Dee Wood Harper

Homicide Followed by Suicide: An Integrated Theoretical Perspective

Homicide followed by suicide is an extremely rare event, requiring an integrated theoretical understanding that goes beyond explaining it as either homicide or suicide. Police reports, newspaper articles, and interviews with families, friends, and neighbors connected with 42 homicide–suicide cases that occurred in greater metropolitan New Orleans between 1989 and 2001 form the empirical base of this study. A homicide followed by suicide typology predicated on thematic context, including victim–perpetrator relationship, age, sex, race, ethnicity, and occupation in addition to precipitating factors, motivation, type of fatal injury, and location of event, is discussed. An integrated theoretical model using structural conflict intensity factors; elements of the social stress–strain perspective focusing on frustration, failure and anomie; and power dominance issues is presented. Although additional research is certainly called for, these sociological autopsies raise important methodological and theoretical questions for future exploration.

Comparing tourists crime victimization.

This Department publishes research notes, conference reports, reports on the work of public agencies and associations, field (industry) reports, and other relevant topics and timely issues. Contributions to this department are submitted to its two Associate Editors: Research Notes to Juergen Gnoth (Department of Marketing, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. Email jgnoth@commerce.otago.ac.nz ) and Conference Reports to Russell Smith (Hospitality and Tourism, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639798, Rep. of Singapore. Email arasmith@ntu.edu.sg ). Unsolicited conference and agency reports will not be accepted.

Analysis of zero-inflated clustered count data: A marginalized model approach

Min and Agresti (2005) proposed random effect hurdle models for zero-inflated clustered count data with two-part random effects for a binary component and a truncated count component. In this paper, we propose new marginalized models for zero-inflated clustered count data using random effects. The marginalized models are similar to Dobbie and Welshs (2001) model in which generalized estimating equations were exploited to find estimates. However, our proposed models are based on a likelihood-based approach. A Quasi-Newton algorithm is developed for estimation. We use these methods to carefully analyze two real datasets.

Changes and Challenges in Crime and Criminal Justice After Disaster

While prosocial behavior is widely observable after disaster, there is undeniable evidence that antisocial behavior also occurs in the immediate and longer term aftermath of disaster. We begin by examining the crime that occurred in New Orleans in the immediate wake of Katrina and the circumstances that facilitated it. We also take a longer term look at one of New Orleans’ most intractable crime problems, that of murder. We explore Katrina’s direct and indirect effect on murder rates in New Orleans, including innovative law enforcement responses to this crime. We conclude with a discussion of policies and practices relevant to reducing crime in the immediate and longer term wake of disaster that incorporate law enforcement and other initiatives.

The Social Construction of Deviance, Conflict and the Criminalization of Midwives, New Orleans: 1940s and 1950s

Midwives in mid-twentieth-century New Orleans went from practicing unhindered to being demonized in the media and targeted by the criminal justice system, thanks to the actions of three concerned groups. After the prosecution of female midwives began and their practice was suppressed, male medical doctors gained control over the provision of abortions in the city as well as the supervision of midwifery. Employing content analysis, we find that the historic record largely supports an interpretation of these events from a conflict theory, a radical feminist, and a social constructionist perspective.

An Artificial Intelligence System Suggests Arbitrariness of Death Penalty

The arguments against the death penalty in the United States have centered on due process and fairness. Since the death penalty is so rarely rendered and subsequently applied, it appears on the surface to be arbitrary. Considering the potential utility of determining whether or not a death row inmate is actually executed along with the promising behavior of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) as classifiers led us into the development, training, and testing of an ANN as a tool for predicting death penalty outcomes. For our ANN we reconstructed the profiles of 1,366 death row inmates by utilizing variables that are independent of the substantive characteristics of the crime for which they have been convicted. The ANNs successful performance in predicting executions has serious implications concerning the fairness of the justice system.

The Resilience of Crime

The Resilience of Crime. This chapter explores how organized illegal activities are able to reorganize and flourish following disruption by disaster. In our examination of the drug market in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, we observe that new dealers, more users, and a smaller sales space facilitated the reorganization of the drug market and attendant lethal violence. We also observe that lethal violence declined as the market stabilized in the years after the storm and as the city underwent some important demographic changes. We contend that social learning and deterrence theories are useful in understanding drug market participation correlates, especially gang membership, and we provide prescriptions for prevention that are rooted in these theories.

The Resilience of Communities

The Resilience of Communities. Resilience is a hot topic in disaster research; and in this chapter, we investigate factors that can serve to diminish resilience and potentially facilitate crime. We begin by examining types of disaster and find that natech and technological disasters may diminish resilience. We then examine community characteristics and here, we focus on resilience’s counterpart, vulnerability. We find that certain community characteristics, including high proportions of racial and ethnic minorities, children and the elderly, women, the disabled, and those with low socioeconomic status, increase vulnerability to loss of life and property as a result of disaster. Finally, we examine official response characteristics and find that an ineffective official response may diminish resilience. We contend that an examination of these factors in tandem will lead to a greater understanding of resilience and to resilience’s role in reducing disaster crime.

The Case for a Criminology of Disaster

The Case for a Criminology of Disaster. For decades, the study of human behavior in disasters has been under the purview of sociology. Disaster sociology has delivered indispensable insights about behavior in disasters, but may have cut off a potentially valuable avenue of investigation with the claim that antisocial behavior and crime in disasters are rare. In this chapter, we examine the two disasters that served to challenge this claim, Hurricanes Hugo and Katrina. The crime that verifiably occurred in the wakes of these storms necessitated a departure from the usual sociological explanations of behavior in disaster and opened the door for criminological explanations. We then provide detail on what appear to be the most useful theories for explaining crime in disaster, thereby setting the stage for the remainder of the book.

Property Crime in Disaster

Property Crime in Disaster. Disaster sociologists have long claimed that looting in disasters is a rarity. In this chapter, we investigate this claim by examining burglary after a number of disasters. In our examination, we utilize methodological techniques that are more typical of criminology. We find that in contrast to disaster sociologists’ claims, burglary rates increase after disaster in certain circumstances, including when the affected area has poor socioeconomic conditions prior to the disaster’s impact and when formal and informal guardianship are absent in the aftermath. We contend that social disorganization, routine activity, and general strain theories are useful in understanding disaster burglary, and we provide prescriptions for prevention that are rooted in these theories.