Joseph G. Weis

Correlates of Delinquency: The Illusion of Discrepancy between Self-Report and Official Measures.

This paper reviews the research literature concerning the extent to which studies of delinquency that use official records produce results compatible with studies of delinquency that use self-reports of adolescents. Particular attention is given to sex, race, and social class as correlates of delinquency. The notion that official and self-report methods produce discrepant results with respect to sex, race, and class is largely illusory. In reaching conclusions of discrepancy several techniques have been used in the literature; the most general is the assumption that self-reports and official data tap the same domain of behavior. When the domain limitations of self-reports are recognized (and other illusory techniques are abandoned), the conclusion of general consistency between self-reports and official correlates for sex, race, and class emerges. This consistency and other evidence from victimization surveys, studies of the reliability and validity of self-reports, and studies of biases in criminal justice processing, suggest that both official data and self-reports provide valid indicators of the demographic characteristics of offenders, within the domain of behavior effectively tapped by each method. (abstract Adapted from Source: American Sociological Review, 1979. Copyright

Time and Distance as Solvability Factors in Murder Cases

There is no empirical research on solvability factors in murder investigations. This paper analyzes data collected in the first study to provide such, focusing specifically on the extent to which information on time and distance among locations of a murder incident are related to solvability. The results show that the more information on the times and distances separating where the victim was last seen, the location of the original contact between the victim and the killer, where the initial assault occurred, the murder site, and the body recovery site the more likely a murder case will be solved. These findings have profound implications for the management and conduction of murder investigations.

The Rarity of “Unusal” Dispositions of Victim Bodies: Staging and Posing

The act of leaving a victims body in an unusual position is a conscious criminal action by an offender to thwart an investigation, shock the finder and investigators of the crime scene, or give perverted pleasure to the killer. The unusual position concepts of posing and staging a murder victim have been documented thoroughly and have been accepted by the courts as a definable phenomenon. One staging case and one posing case are outlined and reveal characteristics of those homicides. From the Washington State Attorney Generals Homicide Investigation and Tracking Systems database on murder covering the years 1981–2000 (a total of 5,224 cases), the relative frequency of unusual body dispositions is revealed as a very rare occurrence. Only 1.3% of victims are left in an unusual position, with 0.3% being posed and 0.1% being staged. The characteristics of these types of murders also set them apart: compared to all other murders, in staged murders the victims and killers are, on average, older. All victims and offenders in the staged murders are white, with victims being disproportionately white in murders with any kind of unusual body disposition. Likewise, females stand out as victims when the body is posed, staged, or left in other unusual positions. Whereas posed bodies are more likely to include sexual assault, often in serial murders, there is no evidence of either in the staged cases. Lastly, when a body is left in an unusual position, binding is more likely, as well as the use of more “hands on” means of killing the victim, such as stabbing or cutting weapons, bludgeons, ligatures, or hands and feet. Erratum to this paper appears in 49(6).

Projecting crime rates: An age, period, and cohort model using ARIMA techniques

The object of this paper is to generate forecasts of U.S. index property and violent crimes. A three-step procedure is employed. First, the age-specific crime rates are decomposed into age, period, and cohort effects. Then the period and cohort effects are characterized using regression and transfer functions, respectively. Finally, these statistical models are used to generate forecasts of the period and cohort effects and hence forecasted values of the age-specific crime rates. The forecasts are compared with existing data and found to be quite accurate. Issues concerning the forecast efficiency of this approach compared to that of others are also discussed.