Ling Ren

A Comparative Study of Youth Gangs in China and the United States: Definition, Offending, and Victimization

While the research on youth gangs in the United States has been around for generations, relatively little research on Chinese youth gangs has been published in Western journals. The purpose of this study is to examine the prevalence of the gang involvement of school-age youth in China and to explore whether or not some of the correlates associated with gang participation in the West, such as patterns of offending and victimization, are found in China. The data were collected from 7th, 8th, and 9th graders in both China and the United States using the same survey instrument, namely, the second International Self-Report Delinquency (ISRD-2). The results suggest that the U.S. sample has higher prevalence of self-nominated gang membership than the Chinese sample. In addition, the lifetime and last year participation rates in various criminal acts among the gang members in the Chinese sample were much lower than those in the U.S. sample. Last year prevalence of victimization was also examined between the gang members and nongang members in both samples. Finally, the definition of gang member identification was further explored to probe how culture, language, and social context can affect the understanding of a gang among the survey respondents.

Police Organizational Structures During the 1990s: An Application of Contingency Theory

Organizational structures within police agencies have been of center-stage interest to the advocates of reform and professionalization since the inception of modern American policing in the early 20th century. The purpose of this article is to test the utility of contingency theory in its application to police organizational structures during the 1990s. Three waves of data from 280 municipal city governments and their respective police departments were collected in 1993, 1996, and 2000. Use of the random-effects panel data method of statistical analysis enables the authors to assess the relationship between structural changes in police organizations and three hypothesized factors, namely, environmental complexity, organizational size, and adoption of new technology. This article’s principal findings suggest that they have remained stable. Moreover, only a few independent variables are consistently correlated with the adoption of structural arrangements in American municipal police departments during the 1990s.

Exploring the Utility of Self-Control Theory for Risky Behavior and Minor Delinquency Among Chinese Adolescents

Although scholarly interest in empirically assessing Gottfredson and Hirschi’s (1990) self-control theory continues to grow, there is little research available on evaluating its utility in China. The current study examines the power of self-control theory as an explanation of juvenile minor risky behavior as well as minor delinquent behaviors in China, while simultaneously considering the role of social bonds. The data were collected from a probability sample of 7th, 8th, and 9th graders in Hangzhou, China (N = 1,043) using the second International Self-Report Delinquency (ISRD-2) survey instrument. The results from the logistic regression analyses show that self-control is associated with both measures of Chinese youth deviance in the expected direction, suggesting that the youth with low self-control have a higher likelihood to report minor risky and delinquent behavior. The effects of self-control remain when controlling for social bonding measures. Among the social bonding factors, beliefs (pro-violence attitude) and family bonding were found to be the significant predictors of risky behavior and minor delinquency, respectively.

Political Culture Versus Socioeconomic Approaches to Predicting Police Strength in U.S. Police Agencies: Results of a Longitudinal Study, 1993 to 2003

A variety of theories have emerged that offer plausible explanations, one from the political institutional perspective and others from sociological perspective. There has been renewed interest in the effect of local political structure on police strength in the policing literature. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to assess the two main competing approaches that can explain variation in police employment across cities. The authors used a longitudinal data set collected from the same 280 cities in 1993, 1996, 2000, and 2003. A two-way fixed-effects panel model, used in the statistical analysis, indicates that the political culture approach, which focuses on local government structures, largely fails to contribute to the variation of police strength. The alternative socioeconomic approach better predicts police force levels across U.S. municipal police departments.

Mixed Method Measurement of Homicide Events in Comparative Research: An Illustration of the Potential of Qualitative Comparative Analysis

The purpose of the paper is to present some alternative conceptual and methodological approaches to the study of homicide in a comparative context. The authors argue that: (1) international homicide statistics are incomplete and unreliable for purposes of global description and comparison; (2) international quantitative measures of homicide rates are superficial and one‐dimensional; and (3) the commonly used definition of homicide as interpersonal violence is too narrow. It is suggested that certain types of comparative questions about homicide may be best answered by the use of the homicide event, and that we should broaden the research agenda to include both (interpersonal) homicide and collective homicide. An argument is made for a mixed method approach, taking full advantage of all qualitative and quantitative data sources available. Homicide‐related information from 21 countries representing all world regions is used to demonstrate how Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) (Ragin, 1987: 2000) is one method to produce a parsimonious description of typical homicide events in a comparative context. The paper makes a case for the importance of developing (descriptive) national homicide profiles as a first step towards developing and testing macro‐level explanations of cross‐national variations in homicide events.

Is bad stronger than good? The impact of police-citizen encounters on public satisfaction with police

Purpose – Drawing upon the negativity bias theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of positive and negative perceptions of police-initiated or citizen-initiated contacts on three distinctive dimensions of public satisfaction with police (PSWP). Design/methodology/approach – The data were obtained from a random-sample telephone survey of 1,143 residents in Houston in 2012. The OLS regressions were conducted with variables derived from the contact model and neighborhood context model that were often employed in the PSWP research. Particularly, five dichotomous variables were created to tap into the nature and quality of the police-citizen encounters. Findings – The results confirm the negativity bias theory that “bad is stronger than good,” suggesting that the negative-contact variables have stronger influences on PSWP than the positive-contact variables, net of neighborhood context and demographic background. Originality/value – This study expands the scope of the investigation on PSWP ...

The Impact of Race/Ethnicity and Quality-of-Life Policing on Public Attitudes Toward Racially Biased Policing and Traffic Stops:

This article examines the impact of race/ethnicity and quality-of-life (QOL) policing on citizens’ perceptions of racial bias and traffic stops. Using data obtained from a random-sample telephone survey of Houston citizens, respondents were asked whether they felt that the police treated citizens “equally” based on the race/ethnicity of the citizen as well as the race/ethnicity of the officer. These variables were then recoded to construct a nominal measure ranging from racially biased policing to absence of racially biased policing, with a middle category of “semiracially” biased policing. Results indicated that race/ethnicity was a significant predictor. In addition, the results strongly suggested that QOL policing was significantly associated with a decrease in respondents’ perceptions of racially biased policing. Finally, there was a significant relationship between racially biased policing and expected treatment of traffic stops made by the police.

Exploring the Dimensions of Public Attitudes Toward the Police

Public attitudes toward the police (PATP) have become a key area of policing research. Even a cursory review of the literature shows that few studies pay attention to the development of theoretical constructs concerning outcome variable(s)—PATP. The purpose of this study is to advance our knowledge of the psychometric properties of PATP. More specifically, drawing upon Easton’s theory of public support, we examine the discriminant validity of diffuse PATP and specific PATP and explore whether there is a neighborhood-conditioning effect in the response to items tapping into the concept of PATP. We use the two waves of telephone surveys collected in Houston, Texas in 2010 and 2012, which include responses from more than 2,500 residents. Confirmatory factor analysis is utilized to conduct the psychometric analysis, as it is an appropriate approach to testing theory-driven factor structures for the attitude-based constructs. The initial results were validated and then replicated. The results lend support for a two-factor model of PATP, where neighborhood is identified as a key moderator. Three important observations concerning measures of PATP are highlighted.

The Deterrent Effect of the Castle Doctrine Law on Burglary in Texas: A Tale of Outcomes in Houston and Dallas

From 2005 through 2008, 23 states across the nation have enacted laws generally referred to as “castle doctrine” laws or “stand your ground” laws. A castle doctrine law gives a homeowner the legal right to use force (even deadly force) to defend himself or herself and the family against an intruder. No study, however, has been conducted to evaluate its deterrent effects. The State of Texas enacted its castle doctrine law on September 1, 2007, and the subsequent Joe Horn shooting incident in Houston in November, 2007, served to publicize the Texas law to a great extent. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the deterrent effect of the Texas castle doctrine law and the subsequent Horn shooting on burglary in the two largest cities in Texas, Houston and Dallas. Daily data of residential and business burglary, over the period from January 1, 2007, to August 31, 2008, were obtained from the Houston Police Department and the Dallas Police Department. Interrupted time-series designs were employed in the study to analyze the intervention effects. The findings reported suggest a place-conditioned deterrent effect of the law and the Horn shooting; both residential and business burglaries were reduced significantly after the shooting incident in Houston, but not in Dallas.

Self-Control, Risky Lifestyles, and Victimization A Study With a Sample of Chinese School Youth

Although the self-control–victimization link is now well established both theoretically and empirically within the North Atlantic circle, empirical testing of this linkage is lacking in the Far East where self-control has always been an intrinsic feature of its traditional culture. More recently, the coupling of lifestyle–routine activities theory with self-control has resulted in better understanding of both the individual and situational contexts associated with victimization experiences. This study examines the predictive power of low self-control on various forms of victimization and the mediating effects of risky lifestyles on such relationship in the Chinese setting. The data were collected from a sample of 2,961 high school students in a southern Chinese city. The results of logistic regression reveal that low self-control is positively associated with both violent and property victimizations, net of social attachment and demographic factors. In addition, risky lifestyle factors partially mediate the effects of low self-control on victimization.