Unemployment and the homicide rate: A paradox resolved?

The heretofore perplexing relationship between the unemployment and homicide rates is reevaluated through a dynamic, macro social indicator model of the postwar United States. Whereas prior research has failed to demonstrate consistently an empirical connection between economic conditions and crime rates, it is shown here that when attention is given to both the level of unemployment and recent changes in unemployment, the relationship between the unemployment rate and the homicide rate becomes more intelligible. The level of unemployment is negatively related to the homicide rate while annual changes in unemployment are positively related to the homicide rate. These paradoxical effects of unemployment remain even after controlling for other theoretically-relevant variables. Interpretation of the results revolves around the dichotomy of motivation and opportunity as components of human behavior.     

Issues in Ecological Risk Assessment: The CRAM Perspective

In 1989, a Committee on Risk Assessment Methodology (CRAM) was convened by the National Research Council (NRC) to identify and investigate important scientific issues in risk assessment. One of the first issues considered by the committee was the development of a conceptual framework for ecological risk assessment, defined as "the characterization of the adverse ecological effects of environmental exposures to hazards imposed by human activities." Adverse ecological effects include all biological and nonbiological environmental changes that society perceives as undesirable. The committee's opinion was that a general framework is needed to define the relationship of ecological risk assessment to environmental management and to facilitate the development of uniform technical guidelines. The framework for human health risk assessment proposed by the NRC in 1983 was adopted as a starting point for discussion. CRAM concluded that, although ecological risk assessment and human health risk assessment differ substantially in terms of scientific disciplines and technical problems, the underlying decision process is the same for both. Therefore, CRAM recommended that the 1983 risk assessment framework be modified to accommodate both human health and ecological risk assessment. CRAM defined an integrated health/ ecological risk assessment framework consisting of the four components: Hazard Identification, Exposure Assessment, Exposure-Response Assessment, and Risk Characterization. CRAM further provided recommendations on the scope of issues to be addressed in ecological risk assessment, critical research needs, and mechanisms for providing more detailed guidance on the scientific content of ecological risk assessments.     

SATANISM IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICA:

Sociological discourse has generally represented Satanism as a harmless, law-abiding alternative religion. Conversely, the antisocial and criminal aspects of Satanism have been the focus of most lay writing and media exposure. Such academic and popular portrayals are reflecting different facets of Satanism's heterogeneous nature. Through reexamining the literature, this article provides a conceptual framework for analyzing the differences between sociological and lay depictions. The term "Satanic Establishment" is used to refer to the respectable forms of Satanism, whereas the "Satanic Underground" denotes the reputed criminal elements of Satanism. With the Satanic Establishment and Underground at opposite positions, a Satanic continuum of social acceptability is proposed.     

Shiftwork locus of control: Scale development

Shiftwork is a significant feature of occupational life for many people. It can have disruptive effects on sleep, health, social activity and performance. It is likely that beliefs about personal control will influence the individual-shiftwork relationship. This paper has two aims; first, to put forward the thesis that shiftwork-specific personal control expectancies may moderate the disruptive impact of shiftwork, and second, to report the development and preliminary validation of a shiftwork-specific locus of control scale. The scale demonstrated satisfactory psychominary qualities in terms of factor structure, internal reliability, construct validity and test-retest reliability. Variables associated with better coping with shiftwork such as alertness, flexibility of sleeping habits and the structured use of time correlated positively with shiftwork locus of control. In contrast, shiftwork locus of control was found to be inversely related to shiftwork problems such as sleep disturbance, poor mental well-being and work stress.     

Intra-urban migrant lifelines: A spatial view

The term intra-urban migrant lifeline refers to the sequence of residential movements made by a household within a single urban area. This study examines spatial aspects of lifelines and the relationship between such aspects and the spatial structure of the city. Spatial aspects are defined in terms of distance, directional, and sectoral biases. A variety of techniques for identifying such biases are critically discussed. The approach applied is one that transforms the spatial pattern of migrations so as to accent the spatial biases in question. Measurement of the biases is accomplished by application of standard ellipse techniques to the transformed distributions. Data for the study traces migrant lifelines for a sample of households in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for the period 1950 through 1965. Differences in locational and social-economic characteristics of households are shown to be reflected in the spatial morphology of their respective lifelines. In general the migrant lifelines show a fairly restricted distance bias, a directional bias towards the center of the city, and a low degree of sectorality. This is in contrast to expectations generated by previous work on lifelines. Reconciliation of the findings here with previous findings employs a model that considers both the space preferences of intra-urban migrants and the set of vacancies available to them.     

Effect of consumption choices on fluxes of carbon,nitrogen and phosphorus through households

Households are an important scale of analysis for human ecosystems because they are a major source of pollutants and could thus be a new focus for pollution management, particularly for education-based source reduction strategies. The household is also a meaningful unit for analysis of human ecosystems, being common to all human cultures. This study develops a Household Flux Calculator (HFC) to compute C, N, and P fluxes for scenarios intended to represent three levels of household consumption: low, typical, and high. All three scenarios were developed for suburban households with two adults and two children in the Minneapolis-St. Paul (Twin Cities) metropolitan area, Minnesota. Calculated ratios of fluxes between high and low consumption households were 3.5:1 for C, 2.7:1 for N and 1.4:1 for P. Results suggest a high level of discretionary consumption that could be reduced without a substantial reduction in standard of living. Thus, modest changes in behavior in high consumption households would greatly reduce fluxes of C, N, and P without major changes in lifestyle.

The Shape of South African Society and its Challenges

South Africa's negotiated settlement and its transition to democracy reads like a modern fairy tale. A brief review of South Africa's social indicators serves to temper some of optimism about the country's future. The indicators reflect the society's quality of life which has been shaped by its turbulent history. Political “caste formation”, changing political alliances, the reforms intended to forestall the demise of apartheid, and the race for global competitiveness have left indelible marks on the society's social indicators. A comparison of living conditions in South Africa with those of roughly comparable economies indicates that the country lags behind in securing overall and widespread socio-economic upgrading of the population at large. A review of a cross-section of South African indicators and their trends over time shows that South Africa is still a very deeply divided society with a very large backlog in socio-economic development. There is evidence of breakdown in the society's social cohesion. Popular expectations of future quality of life indicate that the euphoria following on the first democratic elections has been replaced by a sense of realism among all sectors of the population. It is concluded that quality of life as reflected in South Africa's social indicators may get worse before it improves. The challenge will be to avoid new forms of economic “apartheid” which would depress the quality of life of marginal sectors of the population at the expense of the economically privileged.     

Educational Attainment and Mortality in the United States: Effects of Degrees,Years of Schooling,and Certification

Researchers have extensively documented a strong and consistent education gradient for mortality, with more highly educated individuals living longer than those with less education. This study contributes to our understanding of the education–mortality relationship by determining the effects of years of education and degree attainment on mortality, and by including non-degree certification, an important but understudied dimension of educational attainment. We use data from the mortality-linked restricted-use files of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) sample (N = 9821) and Cox proportional hazards models to estimate mortality risk among U.S. adults. Results indicate that more advanced degrees and additional years of education are associated with reduced mortality risk in separate models, but when included simultaneously, only degrees remain influential. Among individuals who have earned a high school diploma only, additional years of schooling (beyond 12) and vocational school certification (or similar accreditation) are both independently associated with reduced risks of death. Degrees appear to be most important for increasing longevity; the findings also suggest that any educational experience can be beneficial. Future research in health and mortality should consider including educational measures beyond a single variable for educational attainment.