American Journal of Criminal Justice最新文献

The potential impact of drought and low precipitation on crime rates is of growing importance in the era of worsening climate change. Evidence shows that drought and meteorological factors have impacts on the social interactions, familial behaviors, and economic opportunities of the communities affected. Informed by strain theories and displaced aggression, this study seeks to understand the relationship between drought levels and the incidence of violent crime across counties in California between 2010 and 2019. Using open-source data, the current study examines if changes in monthly drought levels are associated with the incidence of violent crime, paying particular attention to the role of agriculture in California counties and how the impact of drought accumulates overtime. Our findings suggest a small, positive relationship between drought and violent crime incidence in California counties and that this impact is lagged rather than immediate. Additionally, we do not find a difference between agriculture and non-agricultural counties in terms of the impact of drought nor do the effects of drought compound within counties.

In recent years, gun violence has surged in many cities along with increasing demands for effective intervention and prevention. Researcher-practitioner partnerships (RPPs) have been identified as a promising practice to effectively respond to a particular community’s gun violence with appropriately aligned intervention and prevention programs. However, recently, numerous sources have called for RPPs to include the perspectives of those with lived experiences as part of the RPP model, yet inclusion of these voices can present unique challenges for research translation. This case study contributes to the budding understanding of these specific RPPs by documenting the experienced procedures and challenges of a local community-engaged RPP. Specifically, we describe the development of this partnership, the research partner’s activities during the planning phase of this partnership, and, primarily, outline and assess the challenges encountered through the inclusion of community partners and voices during this phase and discuss the impact of these challenges on project progress. Documented challenges included weighing community perceptions of crime versus empirical data, putting the “cart before the horse,” and managing expectations. These challenges contributed to goals, roles, and expectations being misaligned with the focus of the partnership, competing priorities and recommendations for implementation strategies, and resistance to research translation. We conclude with tangible recommendations for the initiation of a community-engaged approach to RPPs, focusing on how to preemptively circumvent or more adeptly navigate these distinctive challenges.

This study builds on the body of research examining whether racial disparities in criminal justice can be attributed to bias. The purpose of the current study was to examine whether there is a relationship between aggregate levels of bias and race-specific incarceration rates in U.S. counties. With data from the Vera Institute of Justice, the U.S. Census Bureau, and the Harvard Project Implicit, this study uses county-level estimates of implicit and explicit biases via Multilevel Regression with Poststratification to assess the relationship between those two types of biases and Black and White prisoners in 2,825 county jails across the U.S. using negative binomial regression. Results indicate that pro-White/anti-Black explicit and implicit bias are associated with a higher population-adjusted number of Black prisoners, and fewer White prisoners, even after controlling for socioeconomic covariates and arrest rates. This research provides compelling evidence that racial bias may contribute directly to racial inequity in jail populations and that bias can be understood as a collective phenomenon impacting social systems.

This study tested the effect of COVID-19 restrictions on calls for service related to drugs, alcohol, and mental health. The calls for service regarding these outcomes before, during, and after COVID-19 restrictions were aggregated into daily counts (N = 3,213). Two different measures, including count and rate, were used for these outcomes. The results of the multivariate analyses, which included negative binomial regression for the count measures, ordinary least squares (OLS) regression for the rate measures, and daily interrupted time series analyses, indicated that calls related to drugs and mental health significantly increased during the COVID-19 restrictions. However, while alcohol-related calls also increased, this rise was not statistically significant. The limitations and implications of the study are discussed.

With rising concerns surrounding police misuse of power and necessary responses to major crimes on college and university campuses, it is important to examine the potential militarization of campus police departments. While the militarization of non-campus police receives significant attention, there are distinct differences between these departments and police departments on campuses. To help shed light on militarization on college campuses, we rely on data from the Department of Defense (DOD) 1033 Program, which provides police departments an opportunity to request surplus military equipment. This request process includes justifications for why they need the item, allowing insight into the perceptions and duties of campus police officers. Using constructivist grounded theory, we qualitatively code 1,613 justifications by college and university police departments in the United States. Results suggest that while campus police departments have many commonalities with standard police departments, they also face unique challenges that they use DOD material to meet including the consistent presence of crowds, unique environmental contexts, and the ever-present risk of active shooters. 

This study examined the consequences of domestic violence (DV) in light of the multiple changes to the lifestyles and routine activities of households during the Covid-19 pandemic using incident-level data from the National Crime Victimization Survey. Through logistic regressions, we first examined odds of injury among DV victims. We then examined odds of severe injury among DV victims who experienced injury. We compared the pre-pandemic odds of these injurious outcomes to these odds in two distinctive periods during the Covid-19 pandemic — March 2020-March 2021 and April 2021-December 2022. Study results suggest that the risk of both “any injury” and “severe injury” was higher between March 2020-March 2021 in comparison to the pre-pandemic period. Findings further suggest that the risk and severity of DV victims’ injury after April 2021 were not significantly different from the pre-pandemic era. Implications for policy and practice are discussed. 

Despite an extensive body of literature centering around the fear of crime, victim fear, especially as it is affected by policing, remains understudied. To fill this research gap, we use National Crime Victimization (NCVS) data to analyze whether and to what extent police can influence fear of crime among violent crime victims, and whether variables inherent within propositions outlined by Black (1976) interact with police effort and actions, including whether an arrest was made in the case, to predict such fear. Findings suggest that few such variables interact with whether an arrest was made, and no variables interact with police effort in impacting victim fear. Specifically, only living in an urban area and renting rather than owning one’s home interact with an arrest being made in one’s case in predicting victim fear such that living in an urban area and having one’s case cleared with an arrest results in greater fear whereas being a renter whose case is cleared with an arrest yields decreased fear. Further, like earlier empirical work, we find that police effort itself increases victim fear while an arrest being made, in and of itself, has no significant effect on victim fear. A deeper analysis into our results and directions for future research are also discussed.

Across the United States, a significant proportion of people in jails and prisons suffer from some form of substance use disorder. In recent years, opioids have become a concern as the country has entered an epidemic in which opioid overdoses occur with relative frequency. Given that drugs have a significant impact on all aspects of crime, some jails and prisons in the U.S. have started implementing medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) programs to, one, save lives, but also help address one criminogenic need associated with criminal behavior. This study used a retrospective quasi-experimental design to generate a comparison group (357 incarcerated persons) to a group of individuals who received treatment for opioid use disorder (357). Using competing risks models, results provide evidence that MOUD does reduce recidivism among those who have received it. Results also suggest that when, paired with traditional substance use disorder treatment, MOUD can have a somewhat higher magnitude of effect. These results suggest that the use of MOUD should be expanded across the U.S.

While previous research demonstrates the negative consequences of victimization at school, less research has examined the link between victimization in school and adherence to the code of the street. Using two waves from the Gang Resistance Education and Training (G.R.E.A.T.) data, the current study investigated the impact of school victimization on street code adherence. Results indicated a general measure of school victimization was significantly associated with increased street code adherence at a later wave. We disaggregated this measure to assess the relationship between specific indicators of school victimization and increased street code adherence. Being attacked or threatened while traveling to or from school or while at school, having rumors or lies spread about oneself, and having sexual jokes or gestures directed at youth at school were related to street code adherence. Having things stolen at school and being made fun of for appearance or speech were not significantly associated with street code adherence. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications for these findings.