AGE,DIFFERENTIAL EXPECTATIONS,AND CRIME DESISTANCE*

We specify an individual-level model linking crime desistance to estimates of legal risk, differential expectations, degree of past success at legitimate and criminal pursuits, and age. OLS and logistic regression procedures are used to estimate the model using longitudinal data on serious, previously imprisoned offenders. As predicted, age decreases estimates of the likely payoffs from crime and legitimate employment. Contrary to predictions, age is unrelated to the perceived legal risk of renewed criminal participation. Age, past success at avoiding confinement, expectations of success from crime, and level of education are significant predictors of crime desistance. Neither the perceived legal risk of crime nor expectations of success through straight pursuits significantly predict desistance. We suggest an interpretation for these anomalous findings.     

The Female Body,Work, and Reproduction in Deland,Cather, and Dreiser

After the turn of the century and in large part motivated by the Suffragist movement, women in America were working both to support families at home and for surplus spending money, as Nan Enstad documents. Census reports from the time reveal women working at everything from menial labor to banking and canalboat captaining (Albertine 240-49). Correspondingly, the popular literature of the early twentieth century tells the stories of working- class women in which work, instead of men, becomes the seductive force from which young women must be rescued (Hapke 6). In spite of the popularity of these dime-novels, contemporaneous works like Margaret Deland's The Iron Woman (1911) and Willa Cather's O Pioneers! (1913) also exist that show working women as executing important leadership work, instead of factory work or domestic labor, that was not typically assigned to women at the time. Furthermore, in going beyond the common turn-of-the-century tale of the oppressed factory girl, these works instead show an important and unique relationship between women and work that has yet to be considered by scholars of American literature.     

Participatory Budgeting in Midwestern States: Democratic Connection or Citizen Disconnection?

What participation mechanisms connect citizens and city officials? Do they produce valued outcomes? Surveys of elected officials suggest that microlevel mechanisms such as direct citizen contact are more valuable in meeting participation goals than are mechanisms focusing on macrolevel concerns. However, there is a disconnect between perceptions about value and the use of mechanisms. State‐level participation requirements and a city manager have little effect on the value of a mechanism. These findings raise some questions: why are microlevel participation mechanisms favored, why do some mechanisms have value even though respondents have little experience with them, and why is there a misalignment between participatory goals and the mechanisms used?     

Equality and Sharing: Views of Household Across the Iron Curtain

Before they reunified, the two Germanies provided a natural experiment in whether law could rectify what many have seen as injustice between men and women in the household. East German legislation mandated that equal hours of housework be contributed by husband and wife, while West Germany allowed the couple to reach any arrangement they chose. This paper explores the predicted and actual consequence of the two regimes for labor force participation, divorce, and equality within marriages.