Paul E. Bellair

Violent-Crime Rates and Racial Composition: Covergence Over Time

Considerable research reports that racial composition strongly affects violent-crime rates. Unfortunately, most research ignores the possibility that violent-crime rates may affect racial composition. Using a sample of U. S. cities, the authors examine the reciprocal effects of racial composition and violent-crime rates over the last 40 years. While racial composition strongly affects the change in violent-crime rates from 1980 to 1990, it only minimally affects changes in rates for the previous three decades; but violent-crime rates (especially robbery) substantially affect the change in racial composition for all four decades. Indeed, robbery rates appear to play a significant role in the white flight from central cities.

Explaining racial and ethnic differences in adolescent violence: Structural disadvantage, family well-being, and social capital

This article integrates theory and research in criminology and urban sociology to specify a contextual model of differences in adolescent violence between whites and five racial-ethnic groups. The model views these differences as a function of variation in community contexts, family socioeconomic well-being, and the social capital available to adolescents and families. Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Survey, we show that white-black and white-Latino differences in violence are explained by community and family disadvantages, respectively. American Indians are the sole group for whom differences relative to whites are not fully explained. Theoretical and public policy implications of the findings are discussed.

Linking Local Labor Market Opportunity To Violent Adolescent Delinquency

Most criminological theory is cast at either the macro or micro level. Developmental and integrated theories are an exception as they combine community characteristics such as neighborhood poverty with micro-level processes. What remains lacking, however, is attention to labor market conditions. The authors address this gap by testing a contextual model that links local labor market structure, adolescent attachments, and violent delinquency. Analyses draw from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Our findings suggest that low-wage, service sector employment opportunity directly increases the likelihood of violent delinquency. A small proportion of this effect is mediated by school achievement and attachment. The low-wage service sector effect uncovered remains when important micro-level processes including prior violence are controlled. The authors conclude by discussing the persistent low-wage service sector effect, the intervening processes we do uncover, and implications for future theoretical development and research on local labor markets.

Contemporary Disorganization Research: An Assessment and Further Test of the Systemic Model of Neighborhood Crime:

The systemic model posits that informal control reduces crime and that social networks reduce crime indirectly by stimulating informal control. The systemic literature consistently supports the informal control-crime relationship but reveals wider variation in the measurement and effects of network dimensions. Recognizing this pattern, some scholars advocate an explicit distinction between networks and informal control. We formally address that issue with analysis of the measurement structure of multiple network and informal control indicators using data collected in 300 Seattle neighborhoods. Results reveal several distinct network dimensions that are themselves distinct from informal control. Regression analysis supports the systemic model: informal control reduces crime victimization, and networks exhibit an indirect, negative effect through informal control. Consistent with prior research, some network measures have a positive, direct effect on crime. We conclude that a distinction between networks and informal control is essential when testing and evaluating the systemic model.

Tobacco use by male prisoners under an indoor smoking ban.

INTRODUCTION Most correctional facilities have implemented tobacco restrictions in an effort to reduce costs and improve prisoner health, but little has been done to evaluate the impact of these policy changes. Patterns of tobacco use among prisoners were explored to determine the impact of incarceration in a facility with an indoor smoking ban on tobacco use behaviors. METHODS Recently incarcerated male inmates (n = 200) were surveyed about their tobacco use prior to and during incarceration. RESULTS Tobacco use was prevalent prior to arrest (77.5%) and increased during incarceration (81.0%). Though the number of cigarette smokers increased during imprisonment, per-capita cigarette consumption declined by 7.1 cigarettes/day (p < .001). Despite widespread tobacco use, most participants recognized that smoking is a cause of lung cancer (96.0%) and heart disease (75.4%) and that it can be addicting (97.5%). Most tobacco users (70.0%) reported a desire to quit, with 63.0% saying they intended to try quitting in the next year. CONCLUSIONS Indoor smoking bans do not promote cessation in prisons but may reduce the amount of tobacco consumed. Though smoking is commonplace in prisons, most prisoners recognize the risks involved and wish to quit. This creates an ideal setting for intervention. Evidence-based cessation assistance should be made freely available to all incarcerated smokers.

Low-Skill Employment Opportunity and African American-White Difference in Recidivism

Previous contextual analyses of recidivism are limited by a focus on traditional disadvantage indicators. The authors examine whether those indicators, including poverty, family composition, high school dropout, and unemployment explain disproportionate involvement in serious criminal recidivism among African American relative to White ex-prisoners. Given the fundamental necessity of finding employment after release, the authors move beyond traditional measures and investigate the availability of low-skill employment opportunity in the industries that prior research suggests are most likely to hire ex-prisoners (retail and manufacturing). To address the issue, the authors collected and geo-coded data for a representative sample of 1,568 Ohio ex-prisoners released on community supervision during the first six months of 1999. Contextual analysis reveals that race difference in serious recidivism is explained by low-skill employment opportunity in manufacturing and that it is contingent on levels of neighborhood disadvantage and unemployment.

Gang Membership, Drug Selling, and Violence in Neighborhood Context

A prominent perspective in the gang literature suggests that gang member involvement in drug selling does not necessarily increase violent behavior. In addition it is unclear from previous research whether neighborhood disadvantage strengthens that relationship. We address these issues by testing hypotheses regarding the confluence of neighborhood disadvantage, gang membership, drug selling, and violent behavior. A three‐level hierarchical model is estimated from the first five waves of the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, matched with block‐group characteristics from the 2000 U.S. Census. Results indicate that (1) gang members who sell drugs are significantly more violent than gang members that don’t sell drugs and drug sellers that don’t belong to gangs; (2) drug sellers that don’t belong to gangs and gang members who don’t sell drugs engage in comparable levels of violence; and (3) an increase in neighborhood disadvantaged intensifies the effect of gang membership on violence, especially among gang members that sell drugs.

Modeling the Relationship Between the Criminal Justice and Mental Health Systems

The last decade has witnessed a plethora of social control studies, ranging from imprisonment to psychiatric hospitalization. Unfortunately, research on each of these two forms tends to be isolated from the other, and research on the relationships between them is limited. In this article, the relationship between the mental health and criminal justice systems is examined. The relationship is modeled in terms of the casual processes that underlie it: processes that are common to both systems, and processes that underlie the effect of one system on another. Using a panel of cities, the article reveals strong cross‐system effects and that racial composition strongly influences jail capacity. Through this effect, both jail and hospital admissions are influenced.

Cognitive Skills, Adolescent Violence, and the Moderating Role of Neighborhood Disadvantage

Numerous studies uncover a link between cognitive skills and adolescent violence. Overlooked is whether the relationship changes at varying levels of neighborhood disadvantage. We examine the issue by contrasting two models that place individual difference in cognitive skill within a social‐structural framework. Using five waves of the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and a three‐level hierarchical model, results indicate that cognitive skill is inversely associated with violence and that the relationship is strongest in non‐disadvantaged neighborhoods. However, the cognitive skills–violence relationship is indistinguishable from zero in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods. The findings are therefore consistent with the hypothesis that social expression of developed ability is muted in disadvantaged contexts.

Neighborhood Disadvantage and Verbal Ability as Explanations of the Black–White Difference in Adolescent Violence Toward an Integrated Model

This article develops a multilevel model that integrates individual difference and sociological explanations of the Black–White difference in adolescent violence. Our basic premise is that low verbal ability is a criminogenic risk factor that is in part an outcome of exposure to neighborhood and family disadvantages. Analysis of the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth reveals that verbal ability has direct and indirect effects (through school achievement) on violence, provides a partial explanation for the racial disparity, and mediates the effect of socioeconomic disadvantage at the neighborhood level. Results support the view that neighborhood and family disadvantages have repercussions for the acquisition of verbal ability, which, in turn, serves as a protective factor against violence. We conclude that explanation of the race difference is best conceived as originating from the segregation of Blacks in disadvantaged contexts.