Leslie W. Kennedy

Risky lifestyles, routine activities, and the General Theory of Crime

Gottfredson and Hirschis A General Theory of Crime proposes that low self-control is a cause of criminal behavior. Several recent studies, showing mixed support, test this theory for understanding crime and imprudent behavior. In this paper we reassess the general theory of crime and highlight the importance of proximate causes, including routine conflict, in explaining the propensity toward violence. Drawing from the insights provided by routine activities theory, we operationalize risky behavior. We analyze data collected in 1994 in a survey of respondents from two Canadian provinces. Our results show that elements of low self-control do not directly affect crime, although measures of self-control have strong effects on imprudent behavior which relate, in turn, to offending. Adding measures of proximate causes, we are better able to understand criminal offending and victimization by respecifying the general theory of crime.

Leading Causes of Unintentional and Intentional Injury Mortality: United States, 2000–2009

OBJECTIVES We have described national trends for the 5 leading external causes of injury mortality. METHODS We used negative binomial regression and annual underlying cause-of-death data for US residents for 2000 through 2009. RESULTS Mortality rates for unintentional poisoning, unintentional falls, and suicide increased by 128%, 71%, and 15%, respectively. The unintentional motor vehicle traffic crash mortality rate declined 25%. Suicide ranked first as a cause of injury mortality, followed by motor vehicle traffic crashes, poisoning, falls, and homicide. Females had a lower injury mortality rate than did males. The adjusted fall mortality rate displayed a positive age gradient. Blacks and Hispanics had lower adjusted motor vehicle traffic crash and suicide mortality rates and higher adjusted homicide rates than did Whites, and a lower unadjusted total injury mortality rate. CONCLUSIONS Mortality rates for suicide, poisoning, and falls rose substantially over the past decade. Suicide has surpassed motor vehicle traffic crashes as the leading cause of injury mortality. Comprehensive traffic safety measures have successfully reduced the national motor vehicle traffic crash mortality rate. Similar efforts will be required to diminish the burden of other injury.

Risk Terrain Modeling: Brokering Criminological Theory and GIS Methods for Crime Forecasting

The research presented here has two key objectives. The first is to apply risk terrain modeling (RTM) to forecast the crime of shootings. The risk terrain maps that were produced from RTM use a range of contextual information relevant to the opportunity structure of shootings to estimate risks of future shootings as they are distributed throughout a geography. The second objective was to test the predictive power of the risk terrain maps over two six‐month time periods, and to compare them against the predictive ability of retrospective hot spot maps. Results suggest that risk terrains provide a statistically significant forecast of future shootings across a range of cut points and are substantially more accurate than retrospective hot spot mapping. In addition, risk terrain maps produce information that can be operationalized by police administrators easily and efficiently, such as for directing police patrols to coalesced high‐risk areas.

Uncleared Homicides: A Canada/United States Comparison

Beginning in the 1960s, there has been a marked decline in clearance rates of homicides, a finding that has generated little interest among criminological researchers. This article presents a comparative analysis of homicide clearance in Canada and the United States using data generated by the Canadian Centre of Justice Statistics and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations Supplementary Homicide Reports. Using logistic regression, homicide clearance is predicted on the basis of specific victim and offense characteristics for cases in Canada versus the United States and in Ontario versus New York State. The results indicate that the model is a good fit for homicide clearance in both countries as a whole. Whereas the homicide weapon, circumstances surrounding the offense, age, and gender of the victim were found to be significant homicide clearance predictors in New York State, only the circumstances surrounding the offense emerged as an important predictor in Ontario.

Male street youths' conflict: The role of background, subcultural, and situational factors

Using a sample of 125 homeless male street youth, we examine the formation of values that support violence and how these attitudes influence violence under different situational conditions. Findings indicate that abusive backgrounds, anger, violent peers, and the successful use of violence as a conflict management strategy are important in understanding the acquisition of values that support violence. These subcultural values in turn make street youths more sensitive to harm in dispute situations, and leave them more likely to demand reparation for harm and to persevere and use force to settle disputes. These youths are more likely to become immersed in disputes in which conflict is intense and which involve male harmoders. Finally, they are more likely to escalate conflict in public places. We discuss findings in terms of experiences and expectations that these youths bring to social interactions.

Significant Others and Fear of Crime among the Elderly

The authors examine demographic, environmental, behavioral, and social psychological factors that affect fear of crime among the elderly. Using a structural equation model, relevant variables are examined. Confirming earlier studies, elderly women are found to be more fearful than other groups. Further, social isolation, type of housing, length of residence, and area of the city are all related to fear of crime in a predicted direction. The fearful individual expressed low satisfaction with the job being done by the police in providing protection from crime. Social interaction with neighbors and friends reduces the fear of crime among the elderly. Surprisingly, the more they socialize with their relatives, the more fear they express.

Women who kill their children

Women rarely kill. In Canada, when they do, they most often kill their spouse or lover. The second most frequent target (or women killers is other family members, including their children (Silverman &: Kennedy, 1987).1 Recent research has focused on the female homicide rate as a component of all homicide (Block, 1985; Browne &: Flewelling, 1986; Browne &: Williams, 1987; Gillis, 1986; Riedel, 1987; Silverman &: Kennedy, 1987; Ward et aI., 1969). Meanwhile, a growing literature has turned attention to the circumstances surrounding spousal homi(:ide, with special emphasis placed on lhe battered woman who strikes out and kills her spouse or spouse surrogate (sec, for instance, Barnard et al.. 1982; Browne, 1986, 1987; Fiura-Gormally, 1978). Much of the literature on spouse killing is either anecdotal, clinical, or case study, and some is highly ideological (see, for instance, Benedek, 1982; Browne 8c Palmer, 1975; Chesney-Lind, 1986; Edwards, 1985; Jones, 1980; Star, 1982). In contrast, the cases in which women kill children have received much less attention in the research literature. In what ways these homicides are distinctive from spousa l homicides, specifically in terms of the characteristics of offenders and vic:tims, the circumstances o( the murders, and the motivations atlached to the offenders, will provide the focus of this paper. The insights that are gained by the comparisons should help us broaden our understanding of female-perpetrated homicide.

Using Dasymetric Mapping for Spatially Aggregated Crime Data

With availability of crime data to the public via sources such as the Uniform Crime Reports, and increasing geographic information system (GIS) capabilities for mapping crime, macro-level studies of crime have advanced knowledge of how crime is distributed over large areas. Choropleth mapping, commonly used in macro-level studies, visually displays data by assigning the number of crimes or crime rate to the corresponding spatial unit and using different shades or textures for each value or classified values creating a thematic map. However, crime incidents or crime rates are not dispersed evenly within spatial units, and choropleth mapping masks the underlying nuances of the distribution. Artificial boundaries, along with variations in the size of the unit of analysis, can further distort the true distribution of crime. Dasymetric mapping provides a methodology for refining the distribution of crime within a spatial unit. It does so by using additional data, such as land use and census data, to provide a realistic estimate of how crime may be distributed within the units of analysis. Dasymetric mapping is also useful in creating density maps to reveal clusters of crime normally masked with choropleth maps. This paper will show how dasymetric mapping can estimate the spatial distribution of aggregate level residential burglary within political boundaries in Massachusetts based on land use and housing data.

The Process and Structure of Crime: Criminal Events and Crime Analysis

Criminology has developed strong methodological tools over the past decades, establishing itself as a competitive, sophisticated, and independent social science. Perhaps because of its emphasis on matters of design, methodology, and quantitative analysis, criminology has had few significant advances in theory. Advances in Criminological Theory is the first series exclusively dedicated to the dissemination of original work on criminological theory. The Process and Structure of Crime, the ninth volume in this landmark series, is a thorough overview of the conceptual and empirical issues raised by the adoption of a criminal event perspective, which takes into account the multifaceted character of human behavior. This book is divided into three sections: conceptual bases of criminal events, the criminal event perspective itself, and responses to criminal events. Contributors analyze and explore a wide range of topics, including: how interpersonal routines are structured through past experience; the influence of social context on interpersonal routines; criminal opportunity and its impact on criminal events; the significance of neighborhood context; the effect of victimization and fear; how problem-oriented policing efforts need to be informed by and reflect the problems of repeat offenders, repeat victims, and hot spots of crime; and finally, how changes in the physical environment constrain or limit criminal opportunities. This fascinating work will be beneficial to criminologists, sociologists, and scholars of legal studies. Contributors to this volume include: Leslie W. Kennedy, Erin Gibbs Van Brunschot, Robert F. Meier, Mark Warr, Christopher Birkbeck, Luis Gerardo Gabaldon, Kriss A. Drass, Terance D. Miethe, Julie Horney, Jeffrey Fagan, Deanna L. Wilkinson, Robert J. Buskirk, Jr., Vincent F. Sacco, Ross Macmillan, John E. Eck, Paul J. Brantingham, and Pat Brantingham.

Homicide in urban Canada: Testing the impact of economic inequality and social disorganization*

Homicide in Canada is regionally distributed, rising from east to west. This study demonstrates a reduction in the regional effect through a convergence in homicide rates between eastern, central, and western Canada in Census Metropolitan Areas with higher levels of inequality and social disorganization. The implications of the findings for research on homicide rates are discussed.