James F. Short

Poverty, Ethnicity, and Violent Crime

* Introduction * Measuring Violent Crime: Trends and Social Distributions * Levels of Explanation of Violent Crime * Community and Neighborhood Contexts of Violent Crime * The Role of Unsupervised Youth Groups in Violence * Levels of Explanation of Violent Behavior Committed in Groups * Explaining Violent Crime: The Macrosocial Level of Explanation * The Individual Level of Explanation: Biobehavioral Influences and Control * Explaining Violence: Learning, Personality, and Social Contexts of Poverty, Race, and Ethnicity * Controlling Violent Crime

Toward a Sociology of Organizational Crime

This paper identifies as organizational crimes those illegal actions taken in accordance with operative organizational goals which do serious harm either physical or economic, to employees, consumers, or the general public. The idea of whitecollar crime is insufficient to deal with this phenomenon because it seldom recognizes physical impact or the peculiar features of crime in an organizational setting. Public evaluation of the seriousness of an offense is based on the seriousness of its effect. But legally these offenses are judged by their potential rather than their actual consequences so that, in sharp contrast to common crime, parties are seldom held accountable for harmful acts. Organizational illegality is shielded by difficulties attendant on efforts to establish criminal intent, to determine individual responsibility, and to apply traditional civil-criminal distinctions. We survey patterns of physical impact of illegal and dangerous organizational behavior upon their victims, which suggest the magnitude of the problem, the failure to perceive its social risks, and the need to develop data sources and do further research in this area.

Suicide and homicide : some economic, sociological and psychological aspects of aggression

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Differential Association and Delinquency

An important task of research in the field of juvenile delinquency, and indeed in sociology and science generally, is the testing of theories set forth in the literature but not previously subjected to empirical inquiry. The social sciences contain many such theories, based on case studies, historical examples, or the synthesis of other theoretical and empirical work. Some of these become virtually sacrosanct through continued usage, particularly in textbook form, though they remain untested in any systematic way.

Risk and Misfortune: The Social Construction of Accidents

Characterizing accidents Rationality and the emergence of accidents Risk and the accident today Preventing accidents The social production of fatal accidents The production of everyday accidents.

Socioeconomic Status and Delinquent Behavior

Assumptions frequently made as to the differential status distribution of delinquent behavior are questioned. Data obtained from samples of institutionalized and non-institutionalized high-school-age pupils in western and midwestern communities revealed insufficient evidence to reject the hyothesis that there is no significant difference in the amount of delinquent behavior of boys and girls in different socioeconomic strata. The slight differences that were found favored the low-status group as often as the high-status group. the findings have implications for etiological theories based upon the assumed status differential in delinquent behavior.

Perceived Opportunities, Gang Membership, and Delinquency

Certain aspects of the opportunity structure paradigm were operationalized in a study of delinquent gangs in Chicago. Negro and white lower-class gang boys were compared with lower-class nongang boys from the same neighborhoods, and with middle-class boys, of the same race. The ranking of the six race-by-class-by-gang-status groups on official delinquency rates corresponded more closely to ranking on perceptions of legitimate opportunities than to ranking on perceptions of illegitimate opportunities, which is consistent with the assumption that illegitimate opportunities intervene after legitimate opportunities have been appraised and found wanting. Gang members perceived legitimate opportunities as available less often than nongang boys, lower-class boys, less often than middle-class, and Negro boys, less often than white. Differences in perceptions of illegitimate opportunities were in the reverse direction, as expected. Language: en

Values and Gang Delinquency: A Study of Street-Corner Groups

Deduced from three theoretical positions on gang delinquency, hypotheses concerning the values of gang, non-gang lower-class, and non-gang middle-class boys were tested with a semantic differential. Contrary to expectation, the data indicated no differences between gang, lower-class, and middle-class boys, both Negro and white, in their evaluation and legitimation of behaviors representing middle-class prescriptive norms. These middle-class behaviors were also rated higher than deviant behaviors governed by middle-class proscriptive norms. The samples differed most in their attitude toward the deviant behaviors, tending to form a gradient, with gang boys most tolerant, middle-class boys least tolerant.

Nuclear Waste: Knowledge Waste?

A stalled nuclear waste program, and possible increase in wastes, beg for social science input into acceptable solutions. Nuclear power is re-emerging as a major part of the energy portfolios of a wide variety of nations. With over 50 reactors being built around the world today and over 100 more planned to come online in the next decade, many observers are proclaiming a “nuclear renaissance” (1). The success of a nuclear revival is dependent upon addressing a well-known set of challenges, for example, plant safety (even in the light of improved reactor designs), costs and liabilities, terrorism at plants and in transport, weapons proliferation, and the successful siting of the plants themselves (2, 3).

WOMEN IN TOXIC WORK ENVIRONMENTS: A CASE STUDY OF SOCIAL PROBLEM DEVELOPMENT*

In 1975, the Bunker Hill Company of Kellogg, Idaho, refused to give fertile female employees jobs involving exposure to lead unless they were sterilized. This paper analyzes the development of the Bunker Hill controversy using the Spector and Kitsuse model of social problem development. We refine the model by considering the resources needed by the claims-making groups within each stage of development. Then we suggest modifications to the model to account for government involvement in the construction of social problems.