Assessing Risk of Victimization through Epidemiological Concepts: An Alternative Analytic Strategy Applied to Routine Activities Theory*

Cet article fait appel aux concepts et aux techniques de l'épidémiologie pour examiner la capacité de la théorie des activités routinières à expliquer le risque de victimisation criminelle. En allant au-delà de l'identification des facteurs de risque de victimisation, les auteurs se demandent comment les changements des facteurs de causalité pourraient influer sur ce risque dans la population générale. lis trouvent que les prédicteurs établis avec des méthodes plus traditionnelles expliquent la plus grande partie du risque, mais que certains sont moins importants pour la compréhension du risque de la population dans l'ensemble en raison du petit nombre de personnes qui leur est associé, tandis que d'autres sont plus utiles parce qu'ils s'appliquent à un plus grand nombre de personnes.
This paper draws upon concepts and techniques from epidemiology to examine the ability of routine activities theory to account for the risk of criminal victimization. Moving beyond the identification of risk factors for victimization, we ask how changes to causal factors might affect the risk of victimization in the general population. We find that predictors identified with more traditional methods account for the bulk of the risk, but that some are less important for understanding overall population risk because of the small numbers of people associated with them, while others are more helpful because they apply to larger numbers.     

WHY THE DEMOCRAT-REPUBLICAN PARTISANSHIP GAP VARIES FROM POLL TO POLL

Polls taken in late 1980 and 1984 varied by up to 20 pointsin the spread they reported between Democratic and Republicanidentifiers. We found three systematic and sizable differencesacross polls: polls that sample only voters, polls that emphasize"today" or the present in their question wording, and pollsthat are taken close to election day (at least in circumstanceslike those of 1984) tend to favor the party currently advantagedin the presidential race.     

SHIFTING PRODUCTION BOTTLENECKS: CAUSES,CURES, AND CONUNDRUMS

We examine the phenomenon of shifting production bottlenecks from an analytic perspective. We quantify the propensity of a work center to be a bottleneck, defined as maximal queue length, using a simple Jackson production network model. Comparison of the analytic model against an empirical simulation-based model shows that the two are in good agreement. A scalar measure of bottleneck shiftiness is proposed and used to investigate several policies for mitigating shiftiness. Simulation experiments show that several commonly observed managerial policies for coping with shifting bottlenecks actually increase shiftiness, but that shiftiness declines when the capacity of nonbottleneck resources is increased.     

MORE INFORMATION IS NOT ALWAYS BETTER: THE CASE OF VOLUNTARY PROVISION OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY

We use a new U.S. survey on pro‐environmental behaviors, attitudes, and knowledge and find that individuals engage in activities that they believe are more effective in reducing carbon emissions, regardless of whether or not these beliefs are accurate. We find that low provision of the public good is greater among people who believe they cannot do much for the environment and do not consider themselves environmentalists. A policy implication of our results is that the effect of more accurate information on the provision of the public good is ambiguous. (JEL Q50, Q54, C10)     

Marital splits and income changes: Evidence from the British Household Panel Survey

We provide new evidence about what happens to people's incomes when their or their parents' marital union dissolves using longitudinal data from waves 1--4 of the British Household Panel Survey. Marital splits are accompanied by substantial declines in real income for separating wives and children on average, whereas separating husbands' real income on average changes much less. Results are shown to be robust to the choice of income de®nition and degree of economies of scale built into the household equivalence scale, and are validated with information about respondents' assessments of how their personal ®nancial circumstances changed. In addition we analyse the extent to which the welfare state mitigates the size of the income loss for women and children relative to men, and document the accompanying changes in social assistance bene®t receipt and paid work, and maintenance income receipt and payment.     

Other Voices

This column is devoted to informing VGQ readers of important articles in other journals. All articles are published by the American Personnel and Guidance Association unless otherwise noted. Single copies of back issues may be ordered from APGA Publication Sales, Two Skyline Place, Suite 400, 5203 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, Virginia 22041.     

WHY DON'T POOR COUNTRIES CATCH UP? A CROSS-NATIONAL TEST OF AN INSTITUTIONAL EXPLANATION

Early neoclassical analyses predicted that poor countries would grow faster than wealthy countries, because of technological advances and diminishing returns to capital in the latter. The reverse has occurred: poor countries are falling back rather than catching up. We suggest here that deficient institutions underlie this divergence. Employing various indicators of institutional quality, including the rule of law, the pervasiveness of corruption, and the risk of expropriation and contract repudiation, we show that the ability of poor countries to catch up is determined in large part by the institutional environment in which economic activity in these countries takes place. (JEL O00, O10)     

The Limits of Support in Foster Care

Correspondence to Stephen Nixon, School of Continuing Studies, The University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT; E-mail: Continuing-Studies{at}bham.ac.uk Summary This study was designed to explore the support provided forfoster carers during crises. A sample of sixty-seven fostercarers who had experienced an allegation of abuse against amember of their immediate family were questioned, with a specificfocus on their support needs and experiences during the periodof investigation and its aftermath. Data were also gatheredfrom a smaller sample of twenty family placement social workerswho worked with a sub-sample of these foster carers in orderto establish their perceptions of the issues. Shock, anger,bitterness and a sense of isolation were the prevailing emotionsexperienced by foster carers. It was found that the formal supportoffered by the child-care agencies was not used by 76 per centof foster carers. For most carers there was a lack of congruencebetween the type of support they needed and the support providedby the child-care agency. A number of other useful findingsemerged which are discussed in relation to crises in fostercare. The implications for foster care practice are substantial andrelate to the optimum provision of support for foster carersin such crises. It is suggested that the key role of socialworkers is to encourage and enable foster carers to establishtheir own close network of personal support in anticipationof such events.     

Developing a Community Attitude Assessment Scale

The Community Attitude Assessment Scale (CAAS) measures citizens'attitudes toward 15 community Life Areas (e.g., Education, Employment,and Health) on four dimensions—Importance, Influence,Equality of Opportunity, and Satisfaction. Residents generallyrate these Life Areas high on Importance and Equality of Opportunity,but feel only limited Satisfaction with them and perceive themselvesas having fairly low Influence on their operations. The scaleis discussed as an instrument, and in terms of community theory,attitude theory and research, and public policy applications     

TREND OF SUBJECTS PUBLISHED IN ECONOMICS JOURNALS 1969–2007

We describe the evolution of subject areas published in economics over four decades and calculate the percentage of articles published in each Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) subject category, with and without weighting by Eigenfactor.com 's Article Influence (AI). Finance, Development, and Industrial Organization have seen their share of total articles rise over the past four decades while Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, and Labor have seen their share fall. We use JEL codes to define specialty journals and find that more specialty journals tend to increase the overall percentage share for that subject. This effect is ambiguous when re‐weighted by AI. (JEL A11, A14)