Modernization,Female Social Roles,and Female Crime: A Cross-National Investigation*

This paper examines the relationship between modernization and female crime rates and tests a model which incorporates female participation in various social roles as an intervening variable. Modernization is predicted to have positive, direct effects on female property crime, as well as positive, indirect effects through female role participation. Data from approximately forty countries were analyzed using correlational and regression techniques. The results offer little support for the general model. GNP/cap exhibits positive, direct effects on female theft and fraud but only minor indirect effects. The net effects of the several female role-participation variables are generally small. Differences by type of female crime are examined and several possible explanations for the results are explored.     

Persistence of Suburban Violent Crime Rates: An Ecological Analysis

Abstract

A lagged endogenous variable structural model of 1970 suburban violent crime rates is constructed and evaluated using a sample of 252 large suburbs for which 1960 and 1970 official crime data were available. It was found that suburban crime rates are persistent, that employment specialization and percent low income affect change in violent crime rates, and that suburban age, density, employment specialization, percent low income, percent Black, and region have substantial indirect effects on 1970 crime rates through earlier areal crime rates. Despite theoretical expectations, population growth and age composition exerted no significant direct or indirect effects on violent crime or changes in violent crime rates.     

THE INFLUENCE OF FEAR OF CRIME, GENDER, AND SOUTHERN CULTURE ON CARRYING FIREARMS FOR PROTECTION

This research examines the influence of fear of crime, gender, and a southern cultural tradition on the frequency of carrying firearms for protection against criminal victimization. Analysis of carrying guns for protection, as opposed to having them in the home or owning them for this purpose, is argued to remove some methodological problems plaguing much previous research. Fear of crime is not found to be a significant predictor of carrying; however, gender and cultural context do have predictable influences. Males and persons residing in a traditionally southern cultural context carried guns most frequently, compared to others, for protection against crime. One important finding is an interaction effect between gender and culture: southern culture levels the difference between genders by increasing female more than male carrying of a gun. Theoretical and research implications are discussed.     

DIRECT AND INDIRECT EFFECTS OF RELIGION ON BIRTH TIMING:

The effect of being Catholic on first-birth timing (hereafter, birth timing) varies according to how the dependent variable is measured. When birth timing is measured as age at first birth, Catholics' is slower than non-Catholics'; measured as duration from marriage, Catholics' is more rapid. Structural equation models for discrete data showing these findings explain that Catholics marry later than non-Catholics. The direct effect of being Catholic is to speed birth timing, while the larger, indirect effect (through marital status) is to slow it.     

CRIMINAL DETERRENCE IN THE REDUCED FORM: A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON EHRLICH'S SEMINAL STUDY

Ehrlich [1973] is perhaps the best known and most influential study of criminal deterrence. Ehrlich's structural estimation of a three-equation simultaneous system found large and significant direct deterrent effects of penalties on crime rates. However, recent theoretical results show that higher penalties may indirectly increase crime rates by reducing the probability of conviction. Hence, a reduced-form model is needed to learn the total effect of penalties on crime rates. Using such a model, we find that the marginal deterrent effects reported by Ehrlich vanish. This result generates much different policy implications than those widely adopted following Ehrlich's publication.     

THE THREAT OF VICTIMIZATION: A THEORETICAL RECONCEPTUALIZATION OF FEAR OF CRIME

Prior analysis in fear of crime research designates fear of crime as the dependent variable and designates independent variables that cause its existence. Two independent variables that are often discussed as causes of fear of crime are perceived risk and constrained behaviors. This paper critiques this conceptualization of fear of crime and argues that the focus of study should not be fear of crime but a larger construct called “the threat of victimization.” The threat of victimization consists of three components; the emotive component (fear of crime), the cognitive component (perceived risk), and the behavioral component (constrained behaviors). Therefore, fear of crime is not a consequence of perceived risk and constrained behaviors, but is instead involved in a complex reciprocal relationship with these two variables. This theoretical argument and its implications will be explored.     

Modeling Fear of Crime and Perceived Victimization Risk: The (In)Significance of Neighborhood Integration

The bulk of fear–of–crime research has been limited to one questionnaire item that asks respondents to assess their personal safety by answering "how safe they feel alone in their neighborhoods at night." More recently, however, studies have pointed to the multidimensional nature of fear of crime and perceived risk of victimization. Following this line of inquiry, we investigate the potential impact of several variable sets on three measures of fear of crime or risk perception—the traditional risk assessment of being alone at night, a measure of worry about crime, and a more general assessment of neighborhood safety. Of particular interest are the relative effects of neighborhood integration variables on the measures of fear/risk. A comparison of the effects of neighborhood integration variables with a set of perceived neighborhood disorder, routine activities, socio–demographic characteristics, and victimization experience variables reveals that the neighborhood disorder (incivilities), income, and crime prevention measures produce the most consistently significant effects on fear of crime and perceived risk. Contrary to our expectations, neighborhood integration variables appear to be relatively unimportant.     

Culture,Region, and Cross‐National Violent Crime

Past cross‐national crime research has focused on structural factors with considerably less attention paid to cultural predictors. We extend the culture of honor thesis by identifying the importance of cultural gender inequality and test a direct measure of it on cross‐national violent crime rates. While prior research typically uses regional variables as proxies for culture, by using a direct cultural measure we are also able to identify whether culture contributes to explaining the regional associations found previously. Based on national surveys of 153 nations and more than a million respondents, this study is able to explore cultural, structural, and regional predictors of violent crime rates cross‐nationally. Two regions, Latin America and sub‐Saharan Africa, are far above the rest of the world in terms of violent crime rates. It turns out that most of the standard structural variables found to be important in previous cross‐national studies no longer have significant effects when controls for these two regions are imposed. On the other hand, we find that our measure of cultural gender inequality has one of the largest associations with violent crime rates, net of region, and also explains portions of both regional associations.     

The relative frequency of offensive and defensive gun uses: results from a national survey

Some controversy exists about the relative frequency of criminal and self-defense gun use in the United States. Using data from a national random-digit-dial telephone survey of over 1,900 adults conducted in 1996, we find that criminal gun use is far more common than self-defense gun use. This result is consistent with findings from other private surveys and the National Crime Victimization Surveys. In this survey, all reported cases of criminal gun use and many cases of self-defense gun use appear to be socially undesirable. There are many instances of gun use, often for intimidation, that are not reported to the police and may not appear in official crime statistics.     

A routine activities approach to suburban arson rates

Cohen and Felson's theory of “routine activities” is evaluated using 1980 arson rate data for 676 American suburbs. Influences of criminal motivation (percent poor, percent unemployed, percent black and percent youth), criminal opportunities (percent old housing, percent multiple housing and the number of commercial/industrial establishments), guardianship (police employment, police expenditure and female labor force participation) and ecological niche (employment concentration and median house value) on suburban arson rates for 1980 are estimated using maximum likelihood (LISREL) techniques. Consistent with the routine activities model, a multiplicative effect of the pre‐conditions for crime on crime rates are also estimated. Motivation, opportunities and guardianship were found to have direct and/or indirect additive effects on arson rates, thus supporting the “routine activities” model. A multiplicative effect of the preconditions of crime was also found.     

Exploring the Effects of Conditioning Factors on the Strain–Crime Association: A Test on Incarcerated Chinese Women

A key assumption of general strain theory (GST) is that various factors condition the effects of strains on crime. Past research examining this conditioning hypothesis tended to focus on youth samples and use gender as a control variable. Using survey data from Chinese female inmates, this study tests the strain–crime relationship posited in GST as well as the hypothesized effects of the conditioning factors. Regression results show that different types of strains have distinct effects on respondents’ odds to commit violent over property crimes. Conditioning factors are found to moderate the strengths of strains toward respondents’ likelihood to commit property crimes over violent crimes.     

Reconsidering the Unusual Suspect: Immigration and the 1990s Crime Decline

The United States experienced a dramatic decline in crime during the 1990s. A number of explanations for this decline have been put forth, including demographic shifts, economic trends, stricter gun control laws, and changes in drug markets. A widely reported explanation is that the surge of immigration during the 1990s was the main cause for that decade's crime decline. Although the claim has received considerable attention, it has yet to be tested empirically using national‐level data. In order to fully test the immigration‐1990s crime decline relationship, we use national‐level homicide and Census data from 1990 to 2000. Our results reveal four key findings: (1) crime declined for nearly all groups during the 1990s; (2) non‐Latino blacks contributed the most to the crime decline, by a wide margin; (3) both overall and black homicide declined the least in areas with the highest levels of immigration; and (4) we find no evidence that immigration indirectly lowered non‐immigrant crime rates by revitalizing communities. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings.     

NEIGHBORHOOD DISORDER AND INDIVIDUAL COMMUNITY CAPACITY: HOW INCIVILITIES INFORM THREE DOMAINS OF PSYCHOSOCIAL ASSESSMENT

This article examines contextual models to bring together the disorder and community capacity perspectives, since both are grounded in social (dis)organization theory and cumulative causation. We analyze how individual and neighborhood characteristics, social and physical disorder, and crime affect three individual community capacity outcomes: city quality of life, neighborhood safety, and household moving intentions. The “broken windows” downward spiral suggests that neighborhood incivilities may decrease multiple psychosocial assessments, or, individual community capacities. Consistent with prior research, we find that social and physical disorder decreases all three outcomes. Second, we find that both disorders also mediate neighborhood effects, including socioeconomic status and residential stability. Third, these direct and indirect disorder effects are not altered by prior victimization or neighborhood crime rates. Reducing disorder will, in turn, improve three distinct domains and geographic scales of individual community capacity, and can also reduce the adverse effects of other local area capacity deficits.     

A SIMPLE MODEL OF OPTIMAL HATE CRIME LEGISLATION

We present a simple model of the effects of hate crime legislation. We show that even if the direct harm to victims of hate crime is the same as for other crimes, because of other differences in the effects it may still be optimal to exert a different level of law‐enforcement effort to deter or prevent hate crime. These differences also have previously unrecognized effects on the optimal level of effort by potential hate crime victims to avoid being victimized, thus affecting the efficiency of government policies that encourage or discourage such effort. In some cases, the optimal level of government effort may be lower for hate crimes than for other crimes. Our analysis suggests a role for policy tools that influence individual avoidance effort directly. We discuss the implications of our results for similar types of crime, including terrorism. (JEL K42, K14, D02)     

Fear of Crime Among Older People: A Reassessment of the Predictive Power of Crime-Related Factors*

The impact of victimization experiences and crime-related variables on act-specific fear of crime are reinvestigated. Perceived risk and vulnerability to crime were expected to mediate the influence of demographic and crime-related variables on fear. The results of this study suggest that fear of property loss is more explainable by crime-related variables than is fear of violent victimization. Perceptual variables diminish the direct impact of victimization experiences and local crime rate on each type of fear of crime. However, particular demographic and crime-related variables have different effects on fear of property loss and fear of violent crime. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research on the social determinants of fear of crime among the elderly.     

FOUR USEFUL FINITE MIXTURE MODELS FOR REGRESSION ANALYSES OF PANEL DATA WITH A CATEGORICAL DEPENDENT VARIABLE

This paper describes and contrasts two useful ways to employ a latent class variable as a mixture variable in regression analyses of panel data with a categorical dependent variable. One way is to model unobserved heterogeneity in the trajectory, or change in the distribution, of the dependent variable. Two models that accomplish this are the latent trajectory model and latent growth curve model for a categorical dependent variable having ordered categories. Each latent class here represents a distinct trajectory of the dependent variable. The latent trajectory model introduces covariate effects on the composition of latent classes, while the latent growth curve model introduces covariate effects on both the "intercept" and the "slope" of growth in logit, which may vary among latent classes.
The other useful way is to model unobserved heterogeneity in the state dependence of the dependent variable. Two models that accomplish this are introduced for a simultaneous analysis of response probability and response stability, and the latent class variable is employed to distinguish two latent populations that differ in the stability of responses over time. One of them is the switching multinomial logit model with a time-lagged dependent variable as its separation indicator, and the other is the mover-stayer regression model.
By applying these four models to empirical data, this paper demonstrates the usefulness of these models for panel-data analyses. Example programs for specifying these models based on the LEM program are also provided.     

Rural Disadvantage and Malaria in Less‐Developed Nations: A Cross‐National Investigation of a Neglected Disease

Although often forgotten among people in affluent nations, malaria represents a leading global health concern in poor, rural countries. Malaria is traditionally thought of as a rural disease, given the close proximity of rural households to mosquito disease vectors. However, more insight is needed to investigate the larger social, economic, and environmental conditions that perhaps interact with rurality to explain why some nations continue to have high levels of prevalence of this preventable and eradicable parasitic infection. We employ structural equation modeling to efficiently test for both direct and indirect effects of rurality. The results demonstrate that rurality works in important indirect ways; although rurality has indirect links to malaria through export agriculture, health spending, and sociohealth resources, careful decomposition of the indirect effects illustrates that the indirect effects through heath spending and sociohealth resources are most important. Overall, the findings suggest that rural vulnerabilities to malaria are not inherent and can be largely addressed by increasing public health provisions among rural populations.     

PM effect size estimation for mediation analysis: a cautionary note,alternate strategy,and real data illustration

As research on mediation has grown, so too has interest in identifying ways to assess the size of indirect effects in a mediation analysis. One such estimate – the ratio of the indirect effect to the total effect (P_M) – was tested in a sample of 21,297 children from the Early Childhood Developmental Study. Results showed that the two independent variables – low self-control and externalizing behavior – correlated equally well with a common mediator (mathematical thinking). Moreover, the two pathways shared the same mediator and dependent variable (subsequent externalizing behavior). Despite this, P_M was three times larger in the self-control-initiated pathway than in the externalizing-initiated pathway, based on a stronger correlation between prior and subsequent externalizing behavior than between low self-control and externalizing behavior. The comparison pathways approach, where pathways mediated by mathematical reasoning are contrasted with pathways mediated by a control variable (general knowledge), is offered as an alternative to effect size measurement in mediation research.     

Contributions of the National Incident-Based Reporting System to Substantive Knowledge in Criminology: A Review of Research

The National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) data have been available to the research community for about a decade. The advantages of NIBRS over other official statistics such as summary Uniform Crime Reports, Supplementary Homicide Reports, and the National Crime Victimization Survey have contributed to better evaluation of a number of theoretical perspectives in criminology and criminal justice, and have helped in suggesting possible policy implications. This paper reviews studies using the NIBRS data in the areas of crime clearance, crime rates disaggregated by situational context (including domestic violence, race-specific crime, and gun crime), and lethal and non-lethal outcomes of violent encounters. The paper also discusses limitations of the NIBRS data and cautions for its use, along with future research possibilities.     

Being in two minds about a single currency: A UK perspective on the euro

Recent public opinion polls show that the majority of UK citizens are opposed to replacing the pound by the euro. In this paper, we report an initial attempt to elucidate some of the psychological bases of this adherence to the status quo. We tested a latent variable model which postulates that there are two kinds of attachment to national identity, cultural and instrumental attachment, each having both direct and indirect influences upon anti-euro sentiment. The former kind of attachment reflects the symbolic aspects of nationhood, whilst the latter captures the benefits of citizenship, such as the quality and delivery of social goods. Secondly, we investigated the extent to which people's expectations about euro benefits mediates the impact of attachment on anti-euro sentiment. It was found that only cultural attachment had a direct, amplifying effect upon anti-euro sentiment, whilst both forms of attachment had indirect effects via their opposite influences upon euro benefits. Cultural and instrumental attachment respectively had attenuating and amplifying effects on the latter, which itself tended to act as an attenuator on the level of anti-euro sentiment.