L. Edward Wells

Families and Delinquency: A Meta-Analysis of the Impact of Broken Homes

Although the empirical evidence on the effects of family structure (specifically the issue of “broken homes”) on delinquency is substantial and varied, the research base seems incomplete and inconclusive. Very few incontrovertible generalizations can currently be stated; more specific statements regarding important variations across persons, types of delinquency, and family context are very tentative and approximate with inconsistent support. This paper attempts to resolve some of these inconsistencies through an empirical meta-analysis of existing research on broken homes and delinquency. Generally, we conclude that most of the variation in reported effects across the 50 studies is a result of methodological rather than substantive feature

The Effect of Parental Attachments and Direct Controls on Delinquency

Prior theories of delinquency and child development suggest that specific combinations of family factors should disproportionately decrease the probability of childrens deviance. Specifically, the impact of direct parental controls (e.g., discipline) on delinquency are thought to be conditional upon the level of indirect parental controls (e.g., parent-child attachments). However, the specific form of the interaction is unclear, given contradictory predictions in the literature. Our analysis of the national Youth in Transition data panel indicates that, although various measures of parental attachment and direct parental controls are consistently related to various types of delinquent behaviors, interactions between these variables are less evident than prior theory suggests.

Self-concept as a mediating factor in delinquency.

Self-reported data from a national panel survey are examined to determine whether self-esteem is a mediating event between evaluative social experiences (school, family and social support) and delinquency. Path analytic procedures are employed to test the most explicit causal paradigm of the self-concept-delinquency relation: the delinquency-as-self-enhancement model. Despite: (1) variations in the types of delinquency analyzed, (2) restrictions placed on the sample in testingfor possible contingent relations, and (3) variations in the time lags used to compute the regression coefficients, no substantial effect of self-esteem on subsequent delinquency was found when the effects of prior causal variables were partialled out. Additionally, no evidence of a self-enhancement effect (i.e., a positive effect of delinquency on subsequent self-concept) was discovered. These results are discussed in relation to prior research and social policy assumptions which focus on self-images as a key variable for reducing delinquency. The self-concept has figured prominently in many explanations of deviance and delinquency, particularly those theories which seek to explain individual deviance as the effects of

Community Policing in Small Town and Rural America

Community policing has become a popular approach. Discussions of community policing have focused on urban and suburban departments, generally ignoring rural and small town police organizations. Ironically, many of these departments have a history of practices that correspond directly to the principles of community policing. For example, officers in these agencies typically know the citizens personally, have frequent face-to-face contact with them, and engage in a variety of problem-solving activities that fall outside of law enforcement. In neglecting small town and rural police, researchers have denied themselves an important natural laboratory for studying community policing.

Rural Crime and Justice: Implications for Theory and Research

Theories of crime and research on crime and justice have usually been based on an urban model of social organization. Applying these theories and methods to rural settings provides an opportunity to understand them better and to make clear the assumptions upon which they are based. This article assesses current theories and methods regarding their ability to account for crime and justice in rural areas.

The small‐town police department

This conceptual article focuses on the small‐town municipal‐level police department, as a distinctive model within the mosaic of US policing. As an example of the success of a low‐tech, nonmilitarized, open systems model, the small‐town police department stands in stark contrast to its urban counterpart. As a result of its affinity towards generalization as opposed to specialization, the small‐town department has higher crime clearance rates and is organizationally receptive to the demands and requirements of community‐oriented policing. The small‐town police department’s absence of “professionalism” and militarism is key to its community connectedness, the foundation of its efficacy.

Patterns of Rural and Urban Crime: A County-Level Comparison

Community policing, crime mapping, and the recent attention to theories of social disorganization are all examples of the renewed appreciation for understanding the social and environmental context within which crime occurs. However, most studies of the ecological context of crime have focused on urban settings, with little research attention in less metropolitan areas. Despite a growing interest in rural crime, it remains an under-studied issue. The study reported here used a national county-level data set to consider whether variables commonly used to predict urban crime patterns can be applied similarly to more rural settings. The results showed that, although ecological and structural factors did a good job of predicting urban patterns of crime, they were less predictive of crime rates in more rural counties. Further, the constellation of variables that best predicted urban crime rates was not identical to the set that best predicted rural crime rates.

THE COUNTY SHERIFF AS A DISTINCTIVE POLICING MODALITY.

Argues that US county‐level policing is distinct from municipal policing. Examines differences between them in terms of historical, political, geographical, functional, organizational and regional variations. Suggests how research might be focused to explicate these differences. In particular, presents the idea of a militia, a group organized out of and by a community for its own protection. Contrasts this with the professional paramilitary model associated with large municipal departments. Points out that most police agencies are not large or urban. The greater part of the USA is policed by approximately 3,000 county‐level agencies. Proposes the militia model as a template for further research.

The Broken Homes Model of Delinquency: Analytic Issues:

Despite a sizable body of research extending across various academic disciplines, the question of the causal connection between broken homes and delinquency remains unresolved and ambiguous. A major weakness of this literature is the absence of any systematic conceptual specification of the broken home as a sociological variable. Although it appears intuitively simple, the broken home concept includes a number of distinct and variable issues that cannot be reduced to a simple dichotomy (broken/intact). Our intention here is analytic, aimed at constructing a conceptual/theoretical foundation for subsequent empirical analyses. We identify the variety of theoretical perspectives implicit in the research literature that have been used to explain broken home effects, focusing on different functional effects of the family and postulating different causal dynamics. We also consider the various ways that the broken home is measured in extant research, the problems with such measurements, and special difficulties in the measurement of delinquency in this substantive area.

A test of three models of bias in self-assessment

A sample of 1508 high school boys from a national longitudinal survey of academic abilities and beliefs was used to test self-enhancement, self-consistency and stability-contingent theory. Respondents completed standardized ability tests, self-ratings of those abilities and measures of self-esteem and stability of self-esteem. Self-enhancement theory predicts that persons low, in contrast to high, in self-esteem will overrate their ability relative to the standardized measures in order to increase esteem. Self-consistency theory makes the opposite prediction: in order to avoid inconsistency and hence psychological uncertainty, people will make self-ratings that are compatible with their level of self-esteem. A third model, the stability-contingent hypothesis, was also tested. This model predicts that subjects with unstable self-esteem will show enhancement effects while those with stable levels of self-esteem will show consistency effects. Little support was found for either enhancement theory or the stability contingent hypothesis. Instead, self-consistency effects seem to be operating for all our dependent measures.