Lynne M. Vieraitis

The impact of women's status and gender inequality on female homicide victimization rates: evidence from U.S. counties

Feminists have long argued that structural inequality between men and women influences the prevalence of female homicide victimization. In the present study, a cross-sectional analysis was performed using data on 3,083 U.S. counties in 2000 to assess the impact of women’s absolute status and gender inequality along educational, employment, income, and occupational dimensions and patriarchal culture on their risk of homicide victimization. The findings indicate that only women’s absolute status contributes to our understanding of cross-sectional variation in female homicide rates across U.S. counties and lends support to Marxist feminist theory.

“Striking out” as crime reduction policy: The impact of “three strikes” laws on crime rates in U.S. cities

During the 1990s, in response to public dissatisfaction over what were perceived as ineffective crime reduction policies, 25 states and Congress passed three strikes laws, designed to deter criminal offenders by mandating significant sentence enhancements for those with prior convictions. Few large-scale evaluations of the impact of these laws on crime rates, however, have been conducted. Our study used a multiple time series design and UCR data from 188 cities with populations of 100,000 or more for the two decades from 1980 to 2000. We found, first, that three strikes laws are positively associated with homicide rates in cities in three strikes states and, second, that cities in three strikes states witnessed no significant reduction in crime rates.

Assessing the Impact of Gender Inequality on Female Homicide Victimization Across U.S. Cities A Racially Disaggregated Analysis

To expand our understanding of gender inequality and violent crime, this study provides an assessment of the relationship between gender inequality and lethal violence against women. The authors use a cross-sectional design with racially disaggregated census data for 158 large U.S.cities in 1990 to assess the degree to which womens absolute status and their status relative to men affect their risk of homicide victimization. Overall, the findings suggestthat although certain measures of womens absolute and relative socioeconomic status are related to female homicide victimization rates, when race-specific measures are used, theeffects hold only for White women.

Women's status and risk of homicide victimization: An analysis with data disaggregated by victim-offender relationship

Several feminist theories predict that womens socioeconomic status, both absolute status and their status relative to men, influences the prevalence of violence against women, with some suggesting a positive correlation and others a negative one. Although each theory provides insight into the possible causal connection between womens status, gender inequality, and violence, empirical tests of these relationships are inconclusive. The present study addresses this issue by using a cross-sectional design with 2000 census and crime data to assess the impact of womens absolute status and gender inequality along educational, employment, income, and occupational dimensions and their risk of homicide victimization by intimate partners and nonintimates. The findings indicate that womens absolute status is significantly correlated with female homicide victimization rates by intimate partners. However, tests for equality of regression coefficients between the intimate and nonintimate partner models suggest that these differences may be attributed to random chance.

Bridging the Gap Between Research and Practice: How Neutralization Theory Can Inform Reid Interrogations of Identity Thieves

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how theoretically driven research can be beneficial to law‐enforcement personnel in their day‐to‐day jobs. Such information can be used as an educational tool to assist students in understanding the value of theory and research and its applicability in the field. Specifically, we show how research guided by neutralization theory can be used by police to better elicit confessions from guilty suspects when using the Reid interrogation technique. Using data from 59 federally convicted identity thieves, we provide an illustration of how interrogators can use this information to develop functional themes during the interrogation.

Do Women and Men Differ in Their Neutralizations of Corporate Crime

Neutralization theory has commonly been used to understand the motivations of street offending, and recent studies have examined the use of neutralization techniques by corporate and white-collar offenders to account for their crimes. However, few researchers have explored whether this process is gendered. Using data from master of business administration (MBA) students, this study examines how gender influences intentions to inhibit or promote the sale of Panalba, a hypothetical pharmaceutical drug known to harm people, as well as how gender moderates the relationship between techniques of neutralization and corporate offending decisions. Results show that while there are bivariate gender differences in corporate offending decisions and in some of the techniques of neutralization, there are few gender differences in the effect of techniques of neutralization on corporate offending decisions. Directions for future research are highlighted.

Understanding Identity Theft Offenders’ Accounts of Their Lives and Crimes

Researchers typically label acts as “white-collar” based on the respectable status of the offender (populist perspective) or on the characteristics of the offense (patrician perspective). However, some crimes, such as identity theft are not easily classified into either of these categories. The current study is designed to contextualize previous research and to situate the crime of identity theft within these two broad perspectives of white-collar crime. To do this, 59 identity thieves incarcerated in federal prisons were interviewed to offer the offenders’ perspectives on existing research describing characteristics of thieves and the techniques they employ to complete their crimes. Results show that identity thieves are a diverse group in terms of demographic characteristics (age, race, gender, and social class), employment, and criminal histories. They employed a variety of methods to both acquire information and convert it to cash. The most common methods of acquiring information were to buy it from others or to steal it from mailboxes or trashcans. They also used numerous methods to convert these identities into valuable goods, which included accessing existing accounts, applying for new credit, and obtaining loans. Thus, the findings show that identity theft is difficult to classify as white-collar crime.

Assessing the Impact of Changes in Gender Equality on Female Homicide Victimization: 1980-2000

Numerous studies have tested the feminist hypothesis that gender inequality affects homicide rates by analyzing Census and Uniform Crime Report data for a single time period. Although these “snapshot” tests are important, they do not capture the “change” element that is implied by these hypotheses. According to feminist perspectives, gender inequality and gender equality could increase homicide rates, the former increasing the structural disadvantage of women relative to men and the latter representing a “backlash” effect. Women’s absolute status may also be an important predictor of homicide victimization. Furthermore, it is quite possible that this process is dynamic and therefore the change in equality over time may be more important than the actual level of equality at any given time. The present study measures the impact of gender equality and women’s absolute status on female homicide victimization using city-level data from 1980 to 2000. In general, the results suggest that changes in gender equality and women’s absolute status have decreased women’s rate of homicide victimization, and the negative effect of gender equality appears to have grown stronger over time; however, these results are not uniform across victim–offender relationships.

Accounting for Identity Theft The Roles of Lifestyle and Enactment

White-collar offenders are thought to be particularly adept at excusing and justifying their crimes. Whether this is due to their personal backgrounds or the characteristics of their crimes is, as of yet, unknown. To shed light on this issue we explore the various justifications and excuses given by identity thieves. Using data from semistructured interviews with 49 federally convicted identity thieves we show that they all provided numerous accounts for their crimes, with denial of injury being the most common. We also find that the use of accounts varies by the lifestyles these offenders live. That is, those seeking to live as conventional citizens call forth different accounts than those who have a criminal lifestyle.

When Prisoners Get Out: The Impact of Prison Releases on Homicide Rates, 1975-1999

Although studies examining the relationship between prison populations and homicide rates find significant negative impacts, no published studies have examined the impact of prison releases on homicide. The issue here is whether release rates directly affect crime, independently of any impact they might have through their impact on prison populations. We examine this question by regressing homicide rates on prison release rates, prison population, and numerous control variables using panel data for 46 states from 1975 to 1999. The results provide no evidence of a significant positive relationship between prison releases and homicide. Similar to prior studies, however, we found that prison population growth has greatly reduced homicide rates. The main policy implication of these findings is that those leaving prison have no greater propensity to commit homicide than those entering or remaining in prison.