Criminology最新文献

Despite extensive theorizing on the employment–crime link, little discussion has taken place on the mechanisms through which job gains and losses affect behavior. We draw on prospect theory and the loss aversion principle, which suggests people are more sensitive to losses than gains, to assess how individuals contend with transitions in employment and income. Using fixed-effects and asymmetrical fixed-effects models, we analyze 36 months of retrospective information for a sample of incarcerated males collected as part of the Second Nebraska Inmate Study. First, we assess whether job losses are more likely than job gains to generate financial stress and find support for the loss aversion principle. Second, we explore how people might compensate for changes in job and income status by engaging in risk-taking behaviors (illegal earnings, gun carrying, and offending versatility). We find the positive relationship between job and income loss on the probability of reporting illegal earnings and crime versatility is stronger than the negative relationship between job and income gain and these behaviors. Financial stress, however, does not attenuate the relationship between losses and risk-taking behaviors. We discuss the implications for theory and policy.

Anticipatory stress—or worries about the future that produce emotional distress—may explain some of the deleterious repercussions of incarceration for health. We use nearly 500 interviews with incarcerated men and their family members to describe anticipatory stress stemming from the stressor of jail incarceration, a commonly experienced but understudied type of confinement distinct from prison incarceration. We identify and explain how jail incarceration involves a powerful confluence of factors that give rise to anticipatory stress about adjudication, family relationships, the well-being of loved ones, and reintegration. We describe three types of anticipatory stress proliferation between incarcerated men and their families. First, anticipatory stress commonly proliferates from incarcerated men to their children's mothers and their own mothers, with anticipatory stress being particularly salient when it involves the possibility of major changes, system irrationality, and powerlessness. Second, family members can experience anticipatory stress regardless of whether their incarcerated loved one reports anticipatory stress, shaped in part by men's extensive criminal legal contact. Third, family members with weak relationships with incarcerated men generally do not experience anticipatory stress despite the anticipatory stress endured by their incarcerated loved ones. This study provides a framework for understanding how other stages of criminal legal contact contribute to health inequalities among incarcerated people and their families.

Did governments shift funding from their social welfare functions to their criminal justice functions after the 1980s? Studies investigating this possible “punitive turn” have been inconclusive and have been conducted at the state or national scale. Cities, however, are increasingly important as government responsibility devolves downward and social movements target municipal police budgets. This study contributes to ongoing academic and political debates about welfare-state retrenchment and police department funding using data on 390 U.S. cities between 1990 and 2019. In contrast to conventional explanations for budgetary restructuring that foreground across-the-board cuts or macroeconomic causes, this study proposes a fiscal crisis model that emphasizes localized budget deficits, beliefs about policing's primacy, and police agencies’ political power. Data reveal gradual and considerable municipal budgetary restructuring toward law enforcement between 1990 and 2019, with police funding growing 32% relative to social spending. Fixed-effects regression models with asymmetric predictors find that when municipal revenues fell by 10%, cities reduced police expenditures by an associated 1% and social service expenditures by 4%, with parks and housing seeing the biggest cuts. During austerity, municipalities cut police shallowly and temporarily while cutting social services deeply and enduringly, accelerating welfare-to-carceral realignment.

Research has typically focused on how certain types of business establishments are associated with the location of crime on street blocks. Studies in this genre, however, often have not accounted for the general business context of the block on which a business is located. This study uses a large sample of blocks in Southern California to test whether the context of businesses matters. We assess whether a nonlinear relationship exists between the total businesses on a block and crime, whether differences exist based on broad categories of businesses—consumer-facing businesses, blue-collar businesses, and white-collar businesses—and whether the mixing of businesses on a block impacts crime. The study finds strong evidence that blocks with more business mixing have higher levels of crime. A 1 standard deviation increase in business mixing is associated with 35%–95% more crime. The relationship between business mixing and crime is moderated by the size of the population on the block. Evidence also shows differences in relationships with crime between consumer-facing and white- or blue-collar businesses. Only modest evidence shows that specific business types are related to crime levels after accounting for this general business context.

Although minor forms of criminal justice contact are increasingly used to identify immigration violators, little research has been conducted at the intersection of immigration and misdemeanor justice. As a result, citizenship remains undertheorized in punishment research and fundamental questions remain unanswered. In this article, we introduce the “crimmigrant” punishment framework to conceptualize the unique case processing consequences for non–U.S. citizens and undocumented immigrants. We then draw on rich case data from all misdemeanor arrests in Texas and California between 2006 and 2018 to establish four notable findings. (1) Misdemeanors are common and consequential. We observe more than 1.4 million misdemeanor arrests involving non–U.S. citizens, the overwhelming majority of which resulted in criminal charges and formal punishments. (2) The offenses that funnel noncitizens into the misdemeanor system are similar to those of U.S. citizens; however, we do observe an appreciable number of arrests linked to noncitizens’ legal status (e.g., giving false information). (3) Once in the misdemeanor system, noncitizens, and especially undocumented immigrants, are significantly more likely to be convicted and incarcerated compared with similarly situated U.S. citizens. (4) These disparities are more severe in Texas than in California.

Research continues to explore factors that contribute to high rates of attrition among sexual assault cases. Comparatively little is known, however, about prosecutorial, as opposed to police, decision-making in these cases. Using a mixed-method approach to analyze (1) 175 case files from a midsize policing agency in the West with trained sexual assault investigators and (2) detailed prosecutor notes from 52 corresponding cases, we explore patterns in three key outcomes: (a) arrest, (b) referral for prosecution, and (c) charging. Logistic regression results indicate that fewer variables predicted case outcomes compared with previous studies, suggesting that specially trained officers may be more adept at dismissing “rape myth” factors. Qualitative analysis of prosecutorial case notes, however, revealed that prosecutors tended to compare specific case elements to an envisioned “ideal” case, which frequently aligned with some pervasive rape myths prevalent in society. Prosecutors focused heavily on convictability, anticipating how a potential jury would respond to the case. Although specially trained investigators may better disregard extralegal rape-myth factors, these myths still plague decision-making at the prosecutorial stage indirectly via concerns for juror interpretation of the facts. We find strong support for the “downstream” perspective of prosecutorial decision-making.

Although men are overrepresented among the perpetrators of high-profile, white-collar crime, examinations of public-sector corruption typically reveal little-to-no gender differences in participation. Drawing from Steffensmeier's theory of gender inequality in the criminal underworld and Tomaskovic-Devey and Avent-Holt's relational theory of inequality, we argue that this apparent equality conceals systematically different patterns of engagement. We hypothesize that bureaucrats and other facilitators are more willing to collaborate with men than with women. Because public-sector corruption markets are not male dominated, we argue that “gatekeepers” of both genders systematically exclude women from lucrative illegal collaborations. We further hypothesize that patterns of gender inequality are more pronounced in riskier and more profitable public-sector corruption. We test these hypotheses with data from an original nationally representative survey conducted in Russia in 2018 using models that incorporate controls for explanations that locate gender differences in crime engagement in offender attributes. Our results demonstrate that gender differences in public-sector corruption are a function of coordination among multiple actors. These relational dynamics advantage Russian men over women in that they are more likely to use less costly types of remuneration and to engage in high-stakes exchanges with bigger material yields.

Private short-term letting via Airbnb has exploded in the last decade, yet little is known about how this affects neighborhood crime rates. We estimate the association between Airbnb short-term letting activity and six types of police-reported crime in London, as well as an intervening mechanism, collective efficacy. We estimate these associations with maximum likelihood dynamic panel models with fixed effects (ML-SEM) using data on Airbnb lettings in 4,835 London neighborhoods observed for 13 calendar quarters. We explore mechanisms for the observed effects using multiple lag specifications and by disaggregating lettings into entire properties and spare rooms. We find that Airbnb activity is positively related to robbery, burglary, theft, and violence. These associations are attributable to lettings for entire properties rather than for rooms. Furthermore, associations are contemporaneous, as is consistent with an opportunity mechanism, rather than delayed, as would be consistent with a social control mechanism. Similarly, we find that the association between Airbnb activity and crime is not mediated by collective efficacy. Overall, these results suggest short-term letting contributes to neighborhood crime and these effects are more likely to be attributable to changes in criminal opportunity than erosion of neighborhood social control.

Despite compelling arguments that prison work influences officer mental health, little attention has been devoted to directly and rigorously assessing this relationship. Even less attention has been attributed to the potential impact of critical incident exposure on mental health outcomes among officers. Drawing from a longitudinal sample of correctional officers from three prisons in Minnesota, the current study develops and then tests a resiliency-fatigue model by examining the impact of the accumulation of work-related critical incident exposures on symptoms related to posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, and anxiety. As critical incident exposures accumulate, mental health symptoms are found to become more pronounced. The analyses also reveal evidence that mental health symptoms only increase to problematic levels once the accumulation of critical incidents reaches or surpasses an inflection point. The results underscore the importance of understanding the diverse groups affected by prisons and have downstream implications for incarcerated persons, as well as for prison systems more broadly.

The role of street networks in shaping the spatial distribution of crime has become a foundational component within environmental criminology. Most studies, however, have focused on opportunistic crime types, such as property offenses. In this study, we instead research a theoretically distinct phenomenon by examining the placement of venues that host criminal activity. In particular, we study the relationship between network structure and the placement of illicit massage businesses, which operate on the intersections of illicit and legitimate activity by hosting illicit commercial sex under the guise of legitimate massage. We model their placement as a function of two network metrics: betweenness, which measures a street's usage potential, and a variant called “local betweenness,” which measures the potential of nearby streets. Multilevel models are used to examine the importance of these street-level metrics while accounting for tract-level covariates. Our findings demonstrate that, unlike property crimes, illicit massage businesses tend to be located on streets that are themselves quiet but that are close to areas of high activity. Such locations seem to combine accessibility and discretion, and therefore, represent ideal conditions for such businesses to thrive. Our findings can inform problem-oriented approaches to prevent the harms associated with illegitimately operating businesses.