Allen E. Liska

Social Structure and Crime Control Among Macrosocial Units

Recent research, drawing on the conflict perspective, has examined the effect of the racial/economic composition of macrosocial units on the capacity for crime control (arrest rates). The results show that there is considerable variation in arrest rates between cities and that racial/economic composition substantially affects them, independently of reported crime rates. The effects are specified by type of arrest (property and personal) and race of offender (white and non-white).

Perspectives on the Legal Order: The Capacity for Social Control

This research focuses on the size of municipal crime-control bureaucracies-police departments. The consensus perspectives assumes that the legal order reflects social consensus and that the size of crime control bureaucracies is a response to reported infractions of that order (reported crime rates). The conflict perspectives assumes that the legal order reflects the interests of the powerful and that the size of crime-control bureaucracies is a response to perceived threats to such interests. Work by Turk and Blauner suggests that the size of crime-control bureaucracies reflects the relative size of groups dissimilar to authorities and the extent to which such groups are segregated. The above perspectives are tested for 109 U.S. municipal police departments from 1950 to 1972. Empirical support for the conflict perspective is strongest (1) in the South and (2) after the civil disorders of the 1960s.

Ties to Conventional Institutions and Delinquency: Estimating Reciprocal Effects.

Social control theory hypothesizes that ties to conventional institutions control or inhibit most people most of the time from acting on deviant motives. Our research examines the relationship between juvenile delinquency and ties to conventional institutions, defined by recent researchers as attachment to parents and school. Assuming a recursive causal structure, extant research regresses delinquency on social attachment. The findings, showing a negative effect of attachment on delinquency, have been used to support social control theory. We question the recursiveness assumption. It seems reasonable to assume that delinquency is as likely to affect attachment as attachment is to affect it. Our research estimates a nonrecursive model using OLS crosslag and simultaneous equation methods. The findings suggest that the effects are reciprocal and contingent on social status and, thus, raise serious questions about the validity of extant research as a test of social control theory. (abstract Adapted from Source: American Sociological Review, 1985. Copyright

Feeling Safe by Comparison: Crime in the Newspapers

Fear of crime has emerged as a significant social issue. Survey research suggests that it has significantly increased since the mid-1960s and that it has become a component of the stresses, strains, and health of contemporary urban life. Causal research, for the most part, treats fear as a characteristic of individuals and examines how it is affected by other individual characteristics, such as age, sex, class, and race. Our research treats fear as a characteristic of social units (cities) and examines how it is affected by the structural and cultural characteristics of those units, such as crime rates and the newspaper coverage of crime. The sample consists of the 26 cities used in the National Crime Survey (NCS). Data on the fear of crime are obtained from the NCS; data on structural characteristics are obtained from a variety of sources, including the Uniform Crime Reports (VCR), NCS, and the U.S. census; and data on newspaper coverage are obtained from a content analysis of the newspapers of the 26 cities. The results show that the effect of newspaper coverage is complex, with some forms of coverage increasing fear and other forms of coverage decreasing fear, and that the effect of official crime rates is mediated through the newspaper coverage of crime.

Emergent Issues in the Attitude-Behavior Consistency Controversy

In this paper we review recent efforts to examine attitude-behavior inconsistency as a multivariate research problem. Rather than either assuming a one to one relationship or documenting the contrary, recent researchers have reconceptualized the problem as identifying the conditions which affect the relationship. Although numerous variables have been examined in the recent literature, most of the multivariate research seems to be addressed to three underlying issues: one, the extent to which measurement invalidity may depress the observed attitude-behavior relationship; two, the extent to which other competing but unmeasured attitudes may depress the observed attitude-behavior relationship; and, three, the extent to which attitude incongruent social norms may depress the observed attitude-behavior relationship.

Violent-Crime Rates and Racial Composition: Covergence Over Time

Considerable research reports that racial composition strongly affects violent-crime rates. Unfortunately, most research ignores the possibility that violent-crime rates may affect racial composition. Using a sample of U. S. cities, the authors examine the reciprocal effects of racial composition and violent-crime rates over the last 40 years. While racial composition strongly affects the change in violent-crime rates from 1980 to 1990, it only minimally affects changes in rates for the previous three decades; but violent-crime rates (especially robbery) substantially affect the change in racial composition for all four decades. Indeed, robbery rates appear to play a significant role in the white flight from central cities.

Functions of Crime: A Paradoxical Process

Sociologist have long been interested in the functions of deviance and crime for the social order. Following Durkheim, functionalists argue that crime or the reaction to it (punishment) brings people together, thereby building social solidarity and cohesiveness, which in turn decreases crime. Recently, theory and research on the fear of crime argue, to the contrary, that crime or the reaction to it (fear) does not bring people together; rather it constrains their social interaction, thereby undermining instead of building social solidarity and cohesiveness. Additionally, opportunity (routine-activities) theory and research suggest that constraining social interaction to safe sites and times limits the opportunities for crime. This article attempts to combine the fear-of-crime and opportunity (routine activities) research traditions in one model. The model first examined is a recursive one in which robbery constrains social interaction that affects other crimes. Then a nonrecursive model where robbery constrains social interaction that affects both other crimes and robbery is examined. Results suggest a model in which crime becomes stabilized through a negative feedback loop,as proposed by funcionalists, but through processes more akin to the proposed in routine-activities theory. As robbery increases, so does the fear of crime that constrains social interaction. Although possibly undermining social solidarity, this process constrains opportunities for crime, thereby decreasing both robbery and other crimes.

The Significance of Aggregate Dependent Variables and Contextual Independent Variables for Linking Macro and Micro Theories

Group-level properties have played a significant role in social science theory and research. Since the 1970s, however, they have been criticized for explaining only an insignificant proportion of the variance of a variety of variables, such as suicide and academic achievement. We believe that the ensuing methodological debate, although certainly important, has obscured some important theoretical questions. In this paper we examine the usefulness of aggregate dependent variables, whose ratio of between-unit to within-unit variance may be small, in testing macro theory and in linking micro and macro theories; and we examine the usefulness of contextual independent variables in testing micro theory and in linking micro and macro theories.

Crime prevention in a communitarian society: Bang-jiao and tiao-jie in the people's Republic of China

This paper examines two important strategies of community crime prevention in contemporary Chinese society: bang-jiao and tiao-jie. Bang-jiao refers to community efforts to reintegrate offenders into the community. Tiao-jie refers to community groups designed to resolve disputes among neighbors and family members, and in doing so, to reduce crime. We describe these strategies, discuss their philosophical underpinnings, and identify the features of Chinese society that support their implementation. We also explore their effectiveness with survey data from a sample of offenders in Tianjin, China. Our empirical analyses suggest that bang-jiao and tiao-jie may indeed be important structural mechanisms for crime control in a communitarian society.

Organization of Ownership and Workplace Theft in China

This article examines the relationship between the organization of ownership and workplace theft in China. The authors argue that China offers a particularly useful context for studying this topic because it is one of the few countries in the world where multiple forms of ownership have become common following recent economic reforms. The authors consider two basic forms of ownership: public and private. Using data from a sample of inmates in the Chinese city of Tianjin, the authors assess the effect of these different forms of ownership on perceived levels of theft in the inmates’ organizations prior to incarceration. The results indicate that, contrary to what might be expected on the basis ofWestern theory and research, public ownership is associated with higher levels of workplace theft than private ownership. The authors suggest that public ownership in China has lead to a diffusion of responsibility and an organizational culture that is conducive to workplace theft.