Elizabeth Griffiths

Traveling to Violence: The Case for a Mobility-Based Spatial Typology of Homicide

According to routine activities theory, crime is the result of an intersection between victims and offenders in both time and space. We introduce a spatial typology that identifies five combinations of victim and offender mobility to homicide incident locations: internal, predatory, intrusion, offense mobility, and total mobility types. The authors’ argue that the joint mobility pattern of the victim and offender is the mechanism underlying routine activities theory, and made explicit by the spatial typology. Using information on the 420 homicides in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, between 1987 and 1995, we demonstrate that the majority of homicides involve at least some mobility on the part of victims and/or offenders. Our results also indicate that mobility to homicide incident locations is most associated with event characteristics such as motive, rather than with characteristics of the participants. With most offenders committing the homicide outside of their own neighborhood, levels of lethal violence in a community are influenced more by the interaction among nonlocal participants than by the violent actions of local residents.

Neighborhood Dynamics of Urban Violence: Understanding the Immigration Connection

Social disorganization is the dominant framework linking neighborhood patterns of immigration to local rates of crime and violence despite inconsistent findings and evidence to the contrary. Using tract-level census data from 1970 to 1990 and Chicago homicide data from 1980 to 1995, this study explores whether and how the changing face of immigration is (un)related to homicide patterns within the contemporary urban environment. The results show that stable and consistent growth in foreign born is not associated with neighborhood trends in violence, whereas growth in recent arrivals occurs almost exclusively within the safest neighborhoods of the city. This research highlights the need to distinguish recent waves of immigrants/migrants from their historic counterparts.

Urban Code or Urban Legend Endorsement of the Street Code Among Delinquent Youth in Urban, Suburban, and Rural Georgia

Elijah Anderson’s subcultural explanation for the adoption of the “code of the street” has directed scholarly attention toward specific cultural norms and scripts that encourage or sanction violence in disadvantaged urban neighborhoods. We provide an explicit test of the general assumption that the code of the street is predominantly endorsed by youth residing in urban communities. Using data on 2,183 juvenile offenders committed to the State of Georgia’s Department of Juvenile Justice between July 2002 and December 2003, we examine youths’ strength of endorsement of code-specific attitudes. Importantly, these delinquent youth formerly resided in Georgia zip codes of varying degrees of urbanism, from highly urbanized to isolated rural areas. The findings suggest a considerable generalizability in strength of endorsement of the street code among delinquent youth residing in very distinctive types of territorial units. These analyses illustrate that the contemporary preoccupation among criminologists with an urban-based theory of the code may be misguided; the street code has broader reach than the inner city and is, in general, neither race-specific nor more strongly endorsed among delinquent youth in highly urbanized areas.

Clearing the Misty Landscape: Teaching Students What They Didn't Know Then, But Know Now

The central goals of teaching are to educate students about the course material and stimulate their intellectual development more generally. Yet faculty have few avenues to assess teaching effectiveness on these fronts, and students have few opportunities to reflect upon their own growth as scholars and citizens. This article details an exercise that can be used in the classroom to accomplish active reflection on the educational experience for both teachers and students. While the exercise described in this paper has been employed in a small advanced undergraduate seminar in sociology, it can be adapted for both larger classes and courses in other disciplines. This two-part exercise reinforces the value of investing in education, stimulates critical thinking, and encourages the retention of course material for students.

Household Structure, Coupling Constraints, and the Nonpartner Victimization Risks of Adults:

Victimization studies consistently find that household structure influences the risk of personal and property victimization among adult household members, with those in “traditional” homes enjoying the most protection from victimization and lone parents experiencing the greatest vulnerability. Drawing on the concept of coupling constraints , which represents space-time limitations on adults’ routine activities, this study builds upon and extends research on the household structure— victimization relationship by considering how the presence and age of children shapes adult victimization risk. Data from 11,952 urban respondents in the Canadian General Social Survey (1999) confirm that adults’ life course stage, captured in age-graded responsibilities to children, has an independent and direct influence on nonpartner victimization. The heightened victimization risk experienced by lone parents relative to other types of households is largely explained by their parental coupling constraints.

Sentencing on the Evidence

The type and quantity of evidence in a case is a critical factor for deciding guilt but should have little or no influence on the sentencing determinations of judges post conviction; this is because case evidence goes to guilt decisions by triers of fact, whereas sentences are imposed upon those already convicted. This study examines the effects of evidentiary type and the total quantity of physical evidence in a case on length of custodial sentence. The results demonstrate that violent felony cases with forensic evidence and those cases with more varied pieces of physical evidence result in longer custodial sentences for convicted defendants. Thus, the findings indicate that inculpatory evidence in criminal trials has enduring effects post conviction and, more broadly, suggest that judicial discretion at sentencing is, at least in part, influenced by the judge’s confidence in the defendant’s guilt.

Relationship (A)Symmetries and Violence: Comparing Intimates and NonPartners

Violence between social equals differs in character from violence between persons in asymmetrical relationships. Specifically, issues of contention motivating violence vary by the relative status of opponents, such that violence over symbolic issues is more common between symmetrical than asymmetrical opponents. Recent studies have substantiated these predictions in nonpartner relationships. Using data from interviews of incarcerated women, this study explores how intimate partner violence compares with violence between nonpartner opponents. We find that intimate partner violence is more likely to involve symbolic issues compared with violence between all kinds of nonpartner opponents. Consequently, intimate partnerships might be viewed as hypersymmetrical.

Is There Such a Thing as “Defended Community Homicide”?: The Necessity of Methods Triangulation

Abstract Data on homicides in Buffalo, New York, are analyzed to demonstrate the importance of “methods triangulation” for assessing the validity of quantitative measures. Defended community homicides are quantitatively operationalized as acts that occur in the offenders community against a nonlocal victim. Poisson models provide strong support for the existence of defended community homicide, which is significantly more common in residentially stable and racially homogenous neighborhoods. However, subsequent qualitative analyses of the victim and offender characteristics and motives of these homicides undermine the “defended community” concept. Qualitative analyses are necessary to assess the validity of quantitative measures in criminological research.