MAINTAINING RESEARCH ACCESS IN POLICE ORGANIZATIONS

Abstract This paper explores certain of the general problems associated with maintaining research access in police organizations. Among the problems researchers are likely to encounter are difficulties in communicating and winning the acceptance of street-level patrol officers, problems in developing a mutually acceptable field role, and threats of premature termination. The solutions suggested include specific and repeated efforts to inform patrol-level officers of the research, emphasis of the occupational features of the traditional participant-as-observer role, and making specific plans to deal with attempts at premature termination.     

LEARNING TO BE BAD: ADVERSE SOCIAL CONDITIONS,SOCIAL SCHEMAS,AND CRIME*

In this article, we develop and test a new approach to explain the link between social factors and individual offending. We argue that seemingly disparate family, peer, and community conditions lead to crime because the lessons communicated by these events are similar and promote social schemas involving a hostile view of people and relationships, a preference for immediate rewards, and a cynical view of conventional norms. Furthermore, we posit that these three schemas are interconnected and combine to form a criminogenic knowledge structure that results in situational interpretations legitimating criminal behavior. Structural equation modeling with a sample of roughly 700 African American teens provided strong support for the model. The findings indicated that persistent exposure to adverse conditions such as community crime, discrimination, harsh parenting, deviant peers, and low neighborhood collective efficacy increased commitment to the three social schemas. The three schemas were highly intercorrelated and combined to form a latent construct that strongly predicted increases in crime. Furthermore, in large measure, the effect of the various adverse conditions on increases in crime was indirect through their impact on this latent construct. We discuss the extent to which the social‐schematic model presented in this article might be used to integrate concepts and findings from several major theories of criminal behavior.