Bill McCarthy

When Crime Pays: Capital, Competence, and Criminal Success

Several theoretical traditions offer insights into individual success in conventional activities. We extend this work, suggesting that explanations of success also apply to crime: although prosperity in licit or illicit activities has several unique antecedents, success in either endeavor is influenced by common faactors. Most research on conventional success focuses on the effects of human and social capital, and criminal forms of these are important for illegal success. We argue that various aspects of conventional personal capital -- a heightened desire for wealth, a propensity for risk-taking, a willingness to cooperate and competence -- also play important roles in both legal and illegal prosperity. We demonstrate the importance of various types of capital, particularly the salience of personal capital, with data on drug-selling income.

Mean Streets: The Theoretical Significance of Situational Delinquency Among Homeless Youths

Contemporary sociological theories of delinquency emphasize bakcground and developmental factors while neglecting adverse situational conditions. This study uses data from youths on the street and in school to test an integration of strain and control theories that spans background and situational factors. After background and situational factors. After background and street exposure variables are controlled for and after school and street samples are combined, there is consistent evidence of the effects of adverse situational conditions: hunger causes theft, and problems of unemployment and shelter produce prostitution. These findings broaden and increase theoretical understanding of street life and crime.

Surviving on the Street: The Experiences of Homeless Youth

This article documents the living conditions of a sample of adolescents (N = 390) who had left home and were living on the street in Toronto, Canada The majority of these youth had spenta considerable amount of time without adequate shelter, food, or income; furthermore, many were involved in a variety of illegal activities and had been incarcerated or suicidal Multiple regression analyses revealed that the most consistent predictors of hunger, criminal activity, and incarceration were conditions of street life itself: thelack of secure shelter and the length of time on the street. Overal4 the living conditions of these youth closely parallel those of homeless adults. Although there are differences between adults and adolescents who live on the street, the similarities suggest that it may be inappropriate to label the latter runaways and to consistently separate adults and adolescents into two completely distinct homeless populations.

Love, Sex, and Crime: Adolescent Romantic Relationships and Offending:

Scholars are often pessimistic about adolescent dating, linking it to increases in depression, interpersonal violence, conflict with parents, school failure, associations with delinquents, substance use, and offending. Yet, the various dimensions of dating may have opposing consequences. The closeness offered by adolescent romantic love may fill an important void found between the weakening of bonds with parents and the onset of adult attachments, and it may discourage an array of negative outcomes, including involvement in crime. Adolescent sexual activity, in contrast, may increase offending, in part by augmenting the strain created by relationships. When coupled with a romantic relationship, however, sex is likely less stressful and consequential for crime. In this article, we analyze patterns of romance, sexual behavior, and adolescent crime with panel data from the nationally representative Adolescent Health Survey. Findings support our expectations regarding differential effects of romance and sex. We conclude by discussing the implications of these results for understanding adolescent delinquency, social attachments, and development.

Danger and the Decision to Offend

Humiliation; incarceration; stigma; loss of income, freedom, and respect: most research on offending emphasizes these sanctions. Yet classical theorists recognized other costs including physical harm. We revive this abandoned insight, arguing that danger—the possibility of pain—figures largely in peoples decisions to offend. Although modern states typically eschew violence, many victims, vigilantes, and others assault offenders. This violence is typically more certain, swift, and severe than other sanctions, and fear of injury likely deters many potential offenders. Yet the possibility of pain may be irrelevant to individuals who boldly believe in their unassailability. Consistent with our hypotheses, we find that perceptions about danger are significantly associated with involvement in theft, drug selling, and prostitution among homeless youth, and that these effects are independent of perceptions about a crimes excitement, profit, or other returns. Our results suggest that dangers play a key but typically neglected role in the genesis of these crimes.

Streetlife and delinquency.

The correlation between class and delinquency often observed in areal studies and assumed in prominent sociological theories is elusive in studies of individuals commonly used to test these theories. A restricted conceptualization of class in terms of parental origins and the concentration of self-report survey designs on adolescents in school have removed from this area of research street youth who were once central to classic studies of delinquency. We argue that street youth experience current class conditions that cause serious delinquency, and that life on the street is an important intervening variable that transmits indirect effects of control and strain theory variables, including parental class origins. Data gathered from nearly 1000 Toronto school and street youth are analyzed with important implications for the conceptualization of class and delinquency, testing and integrating sociological theories of delinquency, the measurement of delinquency, and the use of cross-sectional and longitudinal research designs. Our findings especially encourage incorporation of street-based samples into research on class-based aspects of theories of delinquency.

A Gendered Theory of Delinquency and Despair in the Life Course

The paper pays particular attention to gender-and age-linked differences in forms of indirect, relational and direct, physical forms of delinquent aggression, as well as to sequential links of these forms of delinquent aggression to depression and drug and alcohol abuse. A power-control theory of the gender-delinquency relationship that draws attention to differences in familial control practices is then linked to these variations in the expression of delinquency and despair. We extend the focus of power-control theory to address how parental agency and support for dominant attitudes or Schemas influence involvement in different forms of delinquency and despair. This extension emphasizes that differences in structure, particularly between more and less patriarchal households, result in degrees of difference and of kind in non-normative outcomes. The paper concludes with a call for increased diversity in the measurement of delinquency and despair and for the development of opposite-sex sibling samples to explore gender-and age-linked differences in non-normative phenomena.

Sex Work: A Comparative Study

Explanations of adult involvement in sex work typically adopt one of two approaches. One perspective highlights a variety of negative experiences in childhood and adolescence, including physical and sexual abuse, family instability, poverty, associations with “pimps” and other exploiters, homelessness, and drug use. An alternative account recognizes that some of these factors may be involved, but underscores the contribution of more immediate circumstances, such as current economic needs, human capital, and employment opportunities. Prior research offers a limited assessment of these contrasting claims: most studies have focused exclusively on people working in the sex industry and they have not assessed the independent effects of life course variables central to these two perspectives. We add to this literature with an analysis that drew on insights from life course and life-span development theories and considered the contributions of factors from childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Our comparative approach examined predictors of employment in sex work relative to two other low-income service or care work occupations: food and beverage serving and barbering and hairstyling. Using data from a study of almost 600 workers from two cities, one in Canada and the other in the United States, we found that both immediate circumstances and negative experiences from early life are related to current sex work involvement: childhood poverty, abuse, and family instability were independently associated with adult sex work, as were limited education and employment experience, adult drug use, and marital status.

Stigma, sex work, and substance use: a comparative analysis

Stigma is a widely used concept in social science research and an extensive literature claims that stigmatisation contributes to numerous negative health outcomes. However, few studies compare groups that vary in the extent to which they are stigmatised and even fewer studies examine stigmas independent and mediating effects. This article addresses these gaps in a comparative study of perceived stigma and drug use among three low-income feminised service occupations: sex work, food and alcoholic beverage serving, and barbering and hairstyling. An analysis of longitudinal data shows positive associations between sex work, perceived stigma, and socially less acceptable drug use (for example, heroin and cocaine), and that stigma mediates part of the link between sex work and the use of these drugs. Our overall findings suggest that perceived stigma is pronounced among those who work in the sex industry and negatively affects health independently of sex work involvement.

Second-hand effects of college drinking and educational experiences: Findings from an analysis of pooled cross-sections

Abstract Aims: Research from several countries has demonstrated the prevalence of exposure to alcohol’s second-hand effects. This study adds to this literature with an examination of the relationships between exposure and grades and school satisfaction among the US college and university students. Methods: The study used pooled cross-sectional data from the four rounds (1993, 1997, 1999 and 2001) of the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study (N = 53,061). Random samples of students at four-year colleges and universities completed self-report mailed surveys and provided information on the frequency of their exposure to alcohol’s second-hand effects, their own drinking behaviour, college grades, school satisfaction and backgrounds. Findings: Multilevel, multivariate logit analyses showed significant, negative associations between exposure to second-hand effects and both grades and school satisfaction (p < 0.05). These effects were pronounced among abstainers and light drinkers compared to students who consumed alcohol more frequently. Drinking level also moderated the relationship between exposure and satisfaction with college: this association was significantly larger for abstainers and infrequent drinkers (p < 0.05). Conclusions: The majority of students reported exposure to alcohol’s second-hand effects; this exposure was negatively associated with grades and satisfaction with school. Colleges and universities could help reduce the negative consequences of second-hand exposure by providing all students – abstainers and drinkers alike – with information on its negative consequences. They could also create more opportunities for students to live and socialize in alcohol-free settings.