STRUCTURAL INEQUALITY AND HOMICIDE: AN ASSESSMENT OF THE BLACK‐WHITE GAP IN KILLINGS*

This paper examines the relationship between race and violent crime by directly modeling the racial gap in homicide offending for large central cities for 1990. We evaluate the role of black‐white differences in aspects of both disadvantage and resources in explaining which places have wider racial disparities in lethal violence. The results show that where residential segregation is higher, and where whites' levels of homeownership, median income, college graduation, and professional workers exceed those for blacks to a greater degree, African Americans have much higher levels of homicide offending than whites. Based on these results, we conclude that the racial homicide gap is better explained by the greater resources that exist among whites than by the higher levels of disadvantage among blacks.     

THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF VENGEANCE: A TEST OF BLACK'S MODEL*

The current research tests Black's (1990) model of vengeance through interviews with prison inmates. Drawing on a case‐control method, each respondent describes a matched pair of conflicts: the crime of vengeance and a similar nonviolent conflict from the same time period. The quantitative data are used to estimate the impact of conflict structure on conflict management. Conditional logistic regression models offer mixed support: relational distance and functional independence increase the odds of vengeance, but the remaining theoretical variables do not. The qualitative data are used to illustrate the quantitative patterns and unearth parallels between premodern and modern violence.     

儒家孝义思想对传统中国国家司法主义的影响——以“复仇”制度为论域的思考

“复仇”制度作为宗法伦理社会的伴生物,孝义是其得以产生并持续存在的精神基础。离开了“孝”,“复仇”制度便不可能产生和长期存在下去。在对“复仇”的态度上,各朝代的统治者从一定程度的肯定到逐步的限制,到最后的明令禁止“复仇”。其态度的变化反映了儒家孝义思想与传统中国国家司法主义之间矛盾的日益凸显。虽然“复仇”制度在国家司法主义的挤压下活动的空间大大的萎缩,但对“复仇”制度禁而不止的现象却与封建社会相始终。在法治现代化进程中,破除“人情大过国法”的观念,除了在理论上进行宣传“法律至上”的观念,在全社会树立法律意识以外,更为根本的是加速我国社会从传统的农业社会向以市场经济为特征的工业社会的转型。