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.     

CERTAINTY VS. SEVERITY OF PUNISHMENT

Recent research has generated conflicting findings regarding the role of employment and earnings versus criminal justice sanctions in reducing crime. Further disagreement exists over the relative effectiveness of increased certainty versus increased severity of punishment as deterrents to crime. This paper uses a large data set containing criminal and labor market histories of a broad sample of young male arrestees to estimate an economic model of crime. Deterrence, incapacitation, and criminal human capital effects are measured, and the effects of employment and earnings on criminal activity are estimated. The results largely reconcile the conflicting findings from previous research.     

Social Structure, Crime and Criminalization: An Empirical Examination of the Conflict Perspective*

Using available data from a variety of secondary sources, this research examines the empirical validity of arguments maintained by conflict theorists about the interrelations among economic inequality, the incidence of crime, and the official crinrinalization of people through arrest. The reported findings, although not definitive, suggest that official criminalization may be a function of the structure of dominant/subordinate relations within populations, rather than the incidence of crime. These findings are dependent, however, on whether the incidence of crime is measured by official or unofficial statistics on criminal activity. The implications of the findings are discussed, and we conclude that they lend some support to conflict criminology and suggest that further aggregate tests using structural variables are desirable.     

Strategic Mobsters or Deprived Migrants? Testing the Transplantation and Deprivation Models of Organized Crime in an Effort to Understand Criminal Mobility and Diversity in the United States

The aim of this research is to study the emergence and mobility of organized crime in the United States. Focusing on Albanian organized crime in New York City, it investigates whether organized crime groups move abroad easily and reproduce their territorial control in a foreign country. This research explores the relevance of two perspectives on organized crime: the transplantation/importation model, and the deprivation model. Findings are based on analysis of court documents, interviews with law enforcement officials, Albanian immigrants, and Albanian offenders. The study did not find strong support for either the transplantation or the deprivation model of organized crime. There is no evidence of strategic organized crime transplantation. The findings suggest that the mobility of organized crime groups is functional and varies across criminal markets, and that not only economic foundations but also social forces and symbolic rewards of criminal migration need to be examined for better government policies.     

ORGANIZED CRIME OR INDIVIDUAL CRIME? ENDOGENOUS SIZE OF A CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION AND THE OPTIMAL LAW ENFORCEMENT

This article develops a simple but general criminal decision framework in which individual crime and organized crime are coexisting alternatives to a potential offender. It enables us to endogenize the size of a criminal organization and explore interactive relationships among sizes of criminal organization, the crime rate, and the government's law enforcement strategies. We show that the method adopted to allocate the criminal organization's payoffs and the extra benefit provided by the criminal organization play crucial roles in an individual's decision to commit a crime and the way in which he or she commits that crime. The two factors also jointly determine the market structure for crime and the optimal law enforcement strategy to be adopted by a government. (JEL K4 )     

Clarifying Criminological and Social Psychological Theory: A Second Look at the Relationship between Injustice and General Strain Theory

Research in social psychology and criminology reveals a great deal of overlap when explaining the relationship between injustice and criminal or deviant behavior. The organizational justice literature examines how the major forms of justice (distributive, procedural, and interactional) combine and interact to influence criminal or deviant behaviors in the workplace. While general strain theory (GST) recognizes that injustice is an aspect of strain that fosters criminal coping in multiple contexts, it does not detail the additive and interactive effects that these types of injustice may have on crime. Nevertheless, GST can provide a useful theoretical lens for understanding how injustice facilitates criminal behavior. This article provides an overview of major findings regarding the relationship between injustice and crime according to a GST framework, concluding with a discussion of new directions for future research.     

Criminal history and assault of dating partners: the role of type of prior crime, age of onset, and gender

Some studies of assaults on intimate partners have found that most of the perpetrators are not violent outside the family, which suggests a specialized type of crime. However, other studies found domestic violence offenders tend to have extensive criminal histories. To further investigate the extent to which partner assaults are part of a more general pattern of criminal behavior or a specialized type of crime, we studied the dating relationships of 653 university students. Thirty-one percent reported assaulting a partner in the previous 12 months. The rate of assault on partners by females did not differ significantly for males (29%) and females (32%). We also found high rates of other self-reported crime, and much higher rates by males. For example, over one half of the male students and almost one third of the female students reported having stolen money. The male students reported an average of 3.4 crimes committed, and the female students an average of 1.4 crimes. These high crime rates and gender differences are consistent with many previous studies. Logistic regression analysis revealed that a history of prior criminal acts is associated with an increased probability of assaulting a partner. The relationship was greater when there was prior violent crime compared to property crime, when there was early onset of criminal behavior, and when the offender was female. The implications of the findings for understanding partner assaults, criminal careers, and gender differences in the etiology of violence against intimate partners are discussed.     

Police Crime: The Criminal Behavior of Sworn Law Enforcement Officers

This essay examines the criminological conceptualizations and research on police crime, that is, the criminal behavior of sworn law enforcement officers. It starts with an overview of the conceptualization of police crime as it relates to organizational and scholarly perspectives of social deviance. Police deviance is often conceptualized to include various misconduct, corruption, and/or crime committed by police organizations and police officers. This essay focuses on police crime resulting in the arrest of a sworn law enforcement officer and is organized within a conceptual framework that incorporates five types of police crime: sex‐related police crime, alcohol‐related police crime, drug‐related police crime, violence‐related police crime, and profit‐motivated police crime.     

RISKS AND MITIGATING FACTORS IN DECISIONS TO ACCEPT STUDENTS WITH CRIMINAL RECORDS

Social work educators have few guidelines to help them evaluate master''s of social work applicants with criminal records. This study surveyed 280 field supervisors and asked them to rate their likelihood of rejecting a student with a criminal record depending on crime type and mitigating factors. Results found that supervisors' perception of risk was influenced by the nature of the crime, mitigating factors related to the crime, and, in some crime categories, agency type and personal characteristics of the respondent. Field supervisors' appraisals of risk diverged somewhat from criminological research, which generally uses mitigating factors rather than crime type to evaluate risk of recidivism.     

Women,crimes, and judicial dispositions: A comparative examination of the female offender

Utilizing records from the Seattle Police Department, we explored questions of a new “masculinized” female offender and a “chivalrous” criminal justice system. Crime‐specific arrest statistics provided a means to study both questions. Arrest statistics were recoded three separate ways: according to traditional views of the “masculinity” of an offense; legalistic crime categories; and seriousness ratings. These three categories were compared by sex across a four‐year period. Comparisons of final dispositions provided the basis of a final look at the “chivalry” issue. The findings suggest that females are not making great inroads into either traditionally masculine crimes or crime in general, and while there is little in the data to suggest prejudicial treatment based on sex, chivalry is supported by certain arrest and disposition 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.     

Crime and social interactions: a developing country case study

The paper investigates the relationship between social interactions and crime for the case of a developing country that has shown increasing crime rates in recent years. Social interactions are defined as any type of relationship of an individual with other individuals that can affect his/her behavior. We use a unique data set to investigate whether interaction among individuals of the same family and/or a neighborhood or community had any influence on the criminal behavior of individuals who are already convicted. The data set was constructed through interviews at the Papuda State Jail in Brasilia, Brazil. The results are in line with a growing literature on the study of criminal behavior and demonstrate that strengthening family and community relationships can be a desirable way of fighting crime in the context of developing countries.     

Exploring the Social Construction of Crime by Neighborhood: News Coverage of Crime in Boston

ABSTRACT

Information disseminated by the news shapes the way that the public perceives criminal events, often providing a distorted view of crime. Previous research has largely overlooked neighborhoods in discussions of how the news portrays crime. This study examines the ways that the news media report the neighborhoods in which homicides, robberies, and assaults are committed. Multiple theoretical perspectives rooted in the law of opposites and racial typification provide differing explanations for the reporting of crime. Using Boston as a test site, this study employs a content analysis of The Boston Globe crime articles to identify the neighborhoods in which instances of homicide, robbery, and assault receive coverage. A comparison with official crime data from the Boston Police Department suggests differences in neighborhood reporting trends for robbery and assault but not for homicide. Specifically, the news media tend to disproportionately report more robberies and assaults in neighborhoods with lower levels of neighborhood disadvantage. Implications for the social construction of crime and neighborhoods as well as criminal justice response for disadvantaged neighborhoods are discussed.     

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.     

The Myth of the Computer Hacker

The seriousness of computer hacking is not exaggerated, it is far worse than that. The computer hacker has attained the status of myth; society associates all computer crime with a mythical perpetrator that bears no resemblance to reality. This paper will argue that in the early stages of the myth the computer hacker was regarded as a highly skilled but mentally disturbed youth who has an unhealthy association with computers. The new reality of electronic commerce resulted in pressures that culminated in the computer hacker becoming regarded as a dangerous criminal. A thorough analysis of the statistics will demonstrate that the majority of computer intruders are neither dangerous nor highly skilled, and thus nothing like the mythical hacker.     

THE SEX RATIO AND WOMEN'S INVOLVEMENT IN CRIME: A CROSS-NATIONAL ANALYSIS

By extending an influential theory relating societal-level sex ratios to women's life circumstances (Guttentag and Secord 1983), this article formulates hypotheses linking the sex ratio with three dimensions of women's involvement in crime: (1) women's victimization, (2) the protection given to women by the criminal justice system, and (3) women's criminal offending. These hypotheses are then tested with data from approximately 60 countries. The results suggest that a relative undersupply of women (i.e., a high sex ratio) decreases significantly women's criminal offending rate (as indicated by the ratio of female–to–male arrest rates for theft). The hypothesis that the sex ratio increases the protection from crime afforded women (as indicated by the percent of rape cases solved by police) receives guarded support. These findings accord with the sex-ratio thesis, which suggests that in high sex-ratio societies women will be highly valued and their roles limited to the family, where opportunities to commit property crimes are minimal. Contrary to our hypothesis, however, the sex ratio does not significantly influence the female homicide victimization rate. Finally, the level of socioeconomic development, as measured by a multi-item index, is shown to have a substantial influence on sex differences in homicide victimization and theft offending.     

Status,socialization, and identities: Central factors to understand disparities in crime

Although issues related to disparities and inequalities have long been assessed in criminological research, the orthodox approaches to understanding these differences have historically been largely rooted in cultural deficit or individual pathology perspectives. Progressive scholars have long condemned these failings of orthodox criminology, calling for group‐based theories of crime, with some scholars attempting to heed the call. Although such specific articulations are worthwhile endeavors, they still often overlook the intersectional, multileveled, and historically rooted lived experiences of diverse people. To best understand disparate pathways to and from criminal behavior and entanglements with the criminal justice system, variations in historically rooted social statuses, unique socialization experiences, and how these influence various intersecting emergent identities must be acknowledged and better accounted for in empirical work. Building on Potter's call for a disruption of criminology and taking an interdisciplinary approach, I posit an integrative structured identities model as a potential framework for understanding within and between group disparities in crime. How this model may be achieved empirically as well as the potential theoretical and policy implications are discussed.     

STRESS EXPOSURE, RACE, AND YOUNG ADULT MALE CRIME

A recent revision of strain theory, Robert Agnew's (1992) general strain theory (GST), has stimulated research testing its principles, central of which is the notion that exposure to stressors is positively associated with criminal behavior. The present research extends prior scholarship in three important ways: (1) assessing the role that race and ethnicity play in understanding the stress-crime relationship, (2) testing GST principles on an underexamined group of crime prone individuals (i.e., young adults), and (3) examining the stress-crime association with a substantially more comprehensive set of measures of stressors than prior evaluations. Central to our findings is the result that racial differences in criminal involvement are largely reducible to exposure differences, with blacks typically exposed to significantly more stressful events over their lifetimes than members of other racial/ethnic groups.     

Biographical pathways into criminality: understanding the relationship between dyslexia and educational disengagement

Since the 1960s, studies in the psycho-sciences have implied that people with dyslexia are at increased risk of engaging in criminal behaviours. There are two common themes that have emerged from this research. Firstly, studies that employ a psycho-medical model imply that the correlation between dyslexia and crime is embedded within neurological physiology of individuals. Secondly, an educational approach has developed which suggests that, because of the educational failure of (some) people with dyslexia, it is easy for this group to drift into criminality. The aim of this study is to investigate the phenomena of dyslexia and conceptualise criminal behaviour from the perspective of people with this condition. By using biographies, this will go beyond an individualised approach to redefine dyslexia and crime using a social model perspective.