Social Isolation and Lethal Violence Across the Metro/Nonmetro Divide: The Effects of Socioeconomic Disadvantage and Poverty Concentration on Homicide*

Abstract This study extends the macro‐level criminological research tradition by examining the links between socioeconomic disadvantage, poverty concentration, and homicide in metropolitan and nonmetropolitan U.S. counties. Most research in this tradition has tested structural theories using urban areas as the unit of analysis. This “urban bias” has resulted in a limited understanding of the social forces driving violence in nonmetropolitan areas. To partially address this problem, we link the literature on the spatial and social organization of nonmetropolitan communities with the social isolation perspective from the urban poverty literature. We hypothesize that the spatial concentration of poverty drives up rates of homicide in both metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas regardless of levels of socioeconomic disadvantage. Negative binomial regression for 1,746 nonmetropolitan and 778 metropolitan counties suggest that both socioeconomic disadvantage and poverty concentration elevate homicide in metropolitan areas. However, in nonmetropolitan counties only socioeconomic disadvantage has a significant impact. We conclude by discussing the implications of these differential findings for the social isolation perspective.     

Employee privacy and the “theory of the firm”

Bruce Kobayashi and Larry Ribstein apply the “theory of the firm” to worker privacy with specific application to the employer’s ability to monitor employee performance and behavior. They take the theory to drive toward a much reduced role for law in favor of regulation by contract. This essay unpacks their theory. It faults the theory for its failure to come to grips with the possibility of monopsony in the labor market, its failure to appreciate the “public goods” nature of privacy policies and the related assumption that the employer’s ability to adopt and apply privacyinvasive policies is invariably a product of a consensual armslength bargain. This essay is revised and expanded from the author’s Introduction to the 2003 Supplement to Matthew Finkin, Privacy in Employment Law (2d ed. 2003) 2003 Supplement.     

Community Wildfire Events as a Source of Social Conflict*

Abstract The literature notes that natural disasters, including wildfires, that damage human settlements often have the short‐term effect of “bringing people together.” Less recognized is the fact that such events can also generate social conflict at the local level. This study examines the specific sources of such social conflict during and after community wildfire events. Examining qualitative data generated from six case studies of wildfires in the American West, we suggest that integrating the theories of Weber, Giddens, and Habermas with community interaction theory provides a context for understanding such conflict. Rationalized forms of interaction and problem solving imposed by extra‐local organizations during and after wildfire events are often resisted by local actors who are also inhibited from acting due to local capacity limitations. Thus, conflict occurs when social relations are disembedded by non‐local entities, and there is a perceived loss of local agency.     

Once More With Feeling: Ethnographic Reflections on the Mediation of Tension in a Small Team of Call Centre Workers

This article explores the labour process of a team of call‐centre workers based in a multi‐client call centre in the West Midlands. Founded on the basis of a 13‐month ethnographic study into workplace resistance in call‐centre environments, this article provides insights into control in call centres, focusing on sexuality, internal team dynamics and discipline. It is argued that control is exerted through management and information technology but it is crucially exerted laterally in the team and sexuality is an important medium of such control. This article focuses specifically on how worker sexuality is deployed to regulate the tension between contradictory imperatives faced by workers. The article then considers the emotional content of the call‐centre labour process, arguing that the apparent resolution of potentially contradictory logic, in fact, depends upon the development by call‐centre workers, encouraged by more senior employees, of informal, pseudo‐sexualized client relations at the point of production. Crucially however the fieldwork reveals that the demands placed upon customer service representatives are subtly gendered.     

Culture Wars in State Education Policy: A Look at the Relative Treatment of Evolutionary Theory in State Science Standards*

Objectives. Students of public policy have recognized that not all policies are completely or mostly shaped by socioeconomic factors. Some policies, known as morality policies, derive from the deeply held values and beliefs of effective participants in the policy‐making process. To better understand this distinct policy category and where it exists, policy analysts must test for the impact of both socioeconomic forces and explanatory factors developed in morality politics theory (particularly religious contexts). This study attempts to explain differences in state science education standards with regard to stipulated instruction in evolutionary theory as morality policy. Methods. A cross‐sectional study of the American states employing ordinary least squares and logistic regression analysis assesses the impact of popular evangelical adherence over the presence of evolution‐friendly state science standards, ceteris paribus. Results. Socioeconomic factors inadequately explain the variation in state science standards. Furthermore, these standards are morality policies with clearly defined religious implications and are better explained by state religious divisions than by other cultural forces such as state ideological context. Conclusion. This study demonstrates that some policies have clear implications for religious beliefs and may represent a subcategory of morality policy. These kinds of policies are better explained by religious contexts than other political and cultural determinants of morality policies.     

Animal behavior in urban ecosystems: Modifications due to human-induced stress

Wildlife-human interactions are increasing in prevalence as urban sprawl continues to encroach into rural areas. Once considered to be unsuitable habitat for most wildlife species, urban/suburban areas now host an array of wildlife populations, many of which were previously restricted to rural or pristine habitats. The presence of some wildlife species in close proximity to dense human populations can create conflict, forcing resource managers to address issues relating to urban wildlife. However, evidence suggests that wildlife residing in urban areas may not exhibit the same life history traits as their rural counterparts because of adaptation to human-induced stresses. This creates difficulty for biologists or managers that must address problems associated with urban wildlife. Population control or mitigation efforts aimed at urban wildlife require detailed knowledge of the habits of wildlife populations in urban areas. This paper describes the history of wildlife in urban areas, provides examples of wildlife populations that have modified their behavior as an adaptation to urban stresses, and discusses the challenges that resource managers face when dealing with urban wildlife.     

Ancestral Inference in Population Genetics Models with Selection (with Discussion)

A new algorithm is presented for exact simulation from the conditional distribution of the genealogical history of a sample, given the composition of the sample, for population genetics models with general diploid selection. The method applies to the usual diffusion approximation of evolution at a single locus, in a randomly mating population of constant size, for mutation models in which the distribution of the type of a mutant does not depend on the type of the progenitor allele; this includes any model with only two alleles. The new method is applied to ancestral inference for the two‐allele case, both with genic selection and heterozygote advantage and disadvantage, where one of the alleles is assumed to have resulted from a unique mutation event. The paper describes how the method could be used for inference when data are also available at neutral markers linked to the locus under selection. It also informally describes and constructs the non‐neutral Fleming–Viot measure‐valued diffusion.     

A Content Analysis of Violence in American War Movies

In a content analysis of movie violence, we randomly selected twelve top-grossing American war films from four decades (1970 to 2002). We coded for implements of violence, length of violence, gore, and violence directed at noncombatants. We hypothesized that recently released war movies would be more violent than those released earlier. We found that films released since 1990 did contain more violence compared to others. Further, the intensity of gore increased in recently released movies.