Jodi Lane

Women's and men's fear of gang crimes: Sexual and nonsexual assault as perceptually contemporaneous offenses

Perceptually contemporaneous offenses are crimes that are coupled in peoples minds when they express fear. Previous studies have shown that fear of rape predicts womens fears of other crimes. This study examined the differential effects of sexual and nonsexual assault as offenses that may be coupled with specific gang crimes. For both women and men, once physical harm is accounted for by controlling for fear of nonsexual assault, fear of rape explains much less variance than it does when it was included alone. We argue that fear of physical harm, not the sexual intrusion in rape, has the strongest effect on fear for both women and men.

Adult Versus Juvenile Sanctions: Voices of Incarcerated Youths

This article reports findings from face-to-face interviews with youthful offenders in Florida, about half of whom had been transferred to the adult system and half of whom were retained in the juvenile system. The focus is on the youths’global assessments of the impact of their correctional experiences relevant to subsequent offending. The overall impact of each recalled correctional disposition was rated (ranging from beneficial impact to negative impact). For respondents who had experienced multiple correctional dispositions, comparisons were made about the relative impact of low-end versus deepend juvenile commitments and juvenile versus adult sanctions. Youths believed deep-end juvenile placements were most beneficial. Those programs were viewed as having provided education or life skills. When youths viewed adult sanctions as being beneficial, the benefit was linked to the time and pain of prison confinement. Those youths who attributed positive impact to prison had “skipped” deep-end juvenile placements.

Subcultural Diversity and the Fear of Crime and Gangs

Fear and gangs were two of the most important factors driving crime policy in the 1990s. Policy makers and the media blamed gangs for much of the violence occurring across the nation and for public fear. This article examines fear of crime and gangs in Orange County, California, as measured by a randomized survey of 1,223 respondents conducted in 1995 by The Orange County Register newspaper. The authors find that the factors predicting fear of crime and fear of gangs are different. In addition, they find that concern about subcultural diversity is a strong predictor of both types of fear.

Can You Make a Horse Drink? The Effects of a Corrections Course on Attitudes Toward Criminal Punishment

Some experts argue that attitudes toward criminal punishment are difficult to change, whereas others claim that the public, if given the facts, would be less punitive. This study used a pretest-posttest survey design to examine the effects of a university corrections course on attitudes toward the punishment of offenders, and compared subject responses to those of a comparison group enrolled in another criminology course. Students answered knowledge questions and specified punishment choices for crime scenarios. The findings indicate the course as a whole had a significant effect on punishment choices, but specific knowledge change was not the crucial factor in decreasing punitiveness.

Fear of violent crime among men and women on campus: the impact of perceived risk and fear of sexual assault.

Prior research has consistently shown that women are more afraid of crime than men despite the fact that men are much more likely to be victims of all crime except sexual assault and intimate partner violence. The “shadow of sexual assault” hypothesis argues that women’s fear of sexual assault shadows their fear of other types of crime, particularly violent crime. Building on prior research by Ferraro (1996) and Fisher and Sloan (2003), this study examines the individual and combined impact of perceived risk and fear of sexual assault on fear of robbery and assault among college students. Findings indicate that fear of sexual assault is the stronger predictor of fear of crime for women and that perceived risk is the stronger predictor for men.

Fear of Gang Crime: A Qualitative Examination of the Four Perspectives:

Crime has gone down, but fear remains high. This high fear level indicates that the recent hard-hitting policy focus on crime and gang suppression is not sufficient to calm public fears. Fear-of-crime researchers have developed four theoretical perspectives grounded in social disorganization theory to explain fear on the basis of environmental factors other than crime. These perspectives are similar in their focuses on urban community factors as key elements, but they differ in how they construct the thought processes of individuals who are afraid. This study uses qualitative data from focus groups conducted in 1997 in Santa Ana, California, to describe in residents’own words how they think about gang crime and their reasons for being afraid. It confirms that each theoretical perspective on fear of crime is important and shows how each of them is connected to the others in the thoughts of these residents.

JUVENILE OFFENDERS AND ADULT FELONY RECIDIVISM: THE IMPACT OF TRANSFER

ABSTRACT We examined adult felony recidivism for 475 matched pairs in Florida. Each pair, matched on seven factors, contained one juvenile transferred to adult court and one retained in the juvenile justice system. We found that transfers were more likely to re-offend and were more likely to commit violence after they turned 18 years of age. This was true even after controlling for additional case details (e.g., victim injury, weapon use, gang involvement). Get tough policies that transfer juvenile offenders to criminal court may “backfire” and have a criminogenic rather than deterrent effect.

Getting In (and Staying In) When Everyone Else Wants to Get Out: 10 Lessons Learned from Conducting Research with Inmates

The current study aims to provide researchers interested in conducting research using inmates with information and recommendations based on our experiences studying jail inmates. While prior research has begun to identify lessons learned about obtaining access to criminal justice agencies and lessons about establishing positive researcher–practitioner relationships during the process, little is known about the specific challenges associated with data collection efforts after obtaining access to facilities. Therefore, this article aims to provide researchers with information and recommendations primarily on the issues and challenges of studying inmates after gaining entry to correctional facilities. Ten lessons are offered that highlight a variety of challenges that arise from conducting research with inmate populations.

Understanding Gang Membership and Crime Victimization Among Jail Inmates: Testing the Effects of Self-Control

Although previous research has examined factors related to gang membership and offending, research on the relationship between gangs and victimization is limited. The present study builds on previous research and examines gang membership, victimization, and self-control among 2,414 jail inmates. Results from self-report surveys indicate that gang members are more likely than nonmembers to be victimized by property and personal crimes. Among nongang members, those with lower self-control are more likely to be victimized by property and personal crime. Among gang members, lower self-control is associated with personal crime victimization whereas higher self-control is related to property crime victimization. Overall, gang members are victimized more than nongang members, and self-control is an important factor for victimization among gang and nongang members.

Researcher-Practitioner Collaboration in Community Corrections: Overcoming Hurdles for Successful Partnerships

Funding agencies now generally require that projects include an evaluation component as part of their grant proposals, but there are no clear guidelines to help researchers and practitioners work together once funding is awarded. The authors of this article have experience working together as the evaluators and program manager on a recently completed four-year demonstration project designed to provide multiagency services to youth on probation in South Oxnard, California. We believe that our experiences can help other researchers and practitioners to understand practical and philosophical components of collaboration. We first discuss our differing perspectives on key issues and resulting tensions that arose. Next, we discuss strategies that we used to create a good working relationship, as well as the benefits that we gained from this partnership.