Robert D. Crutchfield

Crime, Social Structure and Criminal Punishment: White and Nonwhite Rates of Imprisonment

Durkheimian, Marxist, and Weberian theories provide contrasting views of the influences of the social structure of areas and communities on law and the legal process. In light of these theories, we examine how various aspects of community social structure differentially affect criminal punishments administered to whites and nonwhites. Using county-level data from the state of Washington, we regress white and nonwhite rates of imprisonment on measures of crime and arrest rates, county social structure, and court workload. This analysis indicates that nonwhites—but not whites—are particularly likely to be sentenced to prison in urbanized counties and in counties with relatively large minority populations. We conclude by presenting material from interviews with justice officials which sheds light on the perceptual and political processes that link structural conditions to patterns of criminal punishment.

Analytical and Aggregation Biases in Analyses of Imprisonment: Reconciling Discrepancies in Studies of Racial Disparity

The literature on racial disparities in criminal justice processing is unclear about whether Black defendants are treated differently from White defendants. Although some studies find no difference in treatment, others report that Blacks are treated significantly more harshly than Whites; still other studies find that Black defendants are treated more leniently. This analysis examines three methodological procedures: (1) the selection of single or multiple points in the criminal justice system for study, (2) the number of jurisdictions included in studies, and (3) the level of aggregation of aggregation of jurisdictions used in studies of racial disparities. The authors conclude that some of the ambiguity reported in this literature can be traced to studies of single or few jurisdictions, single decision points in criminal justice processing, and to inappropriate aggregation.

A Tale of Three Cities: Labor Markets and Homicide

Abstract This paper investigates the relationship between labor stratification and crime. Using data from the census tracts of Cleveland, Washington, DC, and Seattle, the analysis compares homicide rates and labor market conditions. The analyses show that in all three cities labor market participation has significant influence on levels of homicide. However, the structure of work in each city also appears to have an important effect on the rate at which people do not finish high school. The pattern of these effects differs across cities. In Seattle, the city with what might be called “a twenty-first century industrial structure,” work operates primarily through education to affect murder rates. In Cleveland and Washington there is more of an underclass effect. Homicide rates in Cleveland reflect the presence of underclass communities and an important direct influence of education on crime. Washingtons homicide rate is driven in a more substantial way simply by a pervasive underclass.

Racial Disparity in Police Contacts.

Criminologists agree the race disparity in arrests cannot be fully explained by differences in criminal behavior. The authors examine social environment factors that may lead to racial differences in police contact in early adolescence, including family, peers, school, and community. Data are from 331 eighth-grade students. Blacks were almost twice as likely as Whites to report a police contact. Blacks reported more property crime but not more violent crime than Whites. Police contacts were increased by having a parent who had been arrested, a sibling involved in criminal activity, higher observed reward for negative behavior, having school disciplinary actions, and knowing adults who engaged in substance abuse or criminal behavior. Race differences in police contacts were partially attributable to more school discipline.

“Cultures of Inequality”: Ethnicity, Immigration, Social Welfare, and Imprisonment

The authors discuss the shift from classic culture of poverty arguments to more contemporary uses of cultural variables in explaining criminal justice practices in Western industrialized countries. The authors use “cultures of inequality” to refer to the increasing taste or tolerance for inequality in the general population across nations. They also elaborate a potential link between perceived threat of others and growing tastes for inequality, thereby extending the classic threat hypothesis. Using country-level data and data from the World Values Survey, the authors find that countries with higher than average tastes for inequality also have higher income inequality, more population heterogeneity, and higher percentages of others in prison. However, people in these countries do not necessarily have more hostile attitudes toward others . The United States shares several characteristics with other Western countries but appears to be driving the difference in the mean taste for inequality between countries with low and high imprisonment of others .

Parent and peer predictors of violent behavior of Black and White teens.

This study examines the role that parenting and deviant peers play on frequency of self-reported violent behavior in the 10th grade while testing race differences in mean levels and impact of these risk and protective factors. The level and impact of family and peer factors on violent behavior across race are modeled prospectively from 8th to 10th grade in a sample of 331 (Black [n = 163], White [n = 168]) families from Seattle, Washington, using data from self-administered computer-assisted questionnaires. Mean-level differences indicated greater levels of violent behavior and risk for Black teens in some cases and higher protection in others. Multiple-group structural equation modeling indicated no race differences in predictors of teen violence. Income was also predictive of violent behavior, but analyses including both income and race indicated their relationships to violence overlapped so neither was uniquely predictive. Subsequent logistic regressions revealed that both race and income differences in violent behavior were mediated by association with friends who get in serious trouble at school. We conclude that higher rates of self-reported violent behavior by Blacks compared to Whites are attributable to lower family income and higher rates of associating with deviant peers at school.

Poverty and Violence

Poverty is widely believed to cause violence. The general public treats this notion as a truism, and most academics also accept it as such. Debates among the latter tend to be over which social mechanisms cause poverty to affect violence. But there are other positions to be sure. Poverty has been linked to violence in a number of ways. Most scholars as well as lay persons believe that those who live in poverty more frequently engage in acts of violence as a consequence of conditions that they are subjected to. There is, however, disagreement among scholars about which conditions are important and how and why they lead to violence. These conditions may include poor housing (Stark, 1987), distressed neighborhood (Krivo & Peterson, 1996), and disrupted families (Sampson & Groves, 1989). Living conditions of this sort are ordinarily defined as social structural consequences of poverty. While this structural approach has usually viewed poverty as the independent variable and violence as the dependent, some scholars have also argued that violence can cause poverty at the aggregate level by creating an unstable or dangerous environment which is not conducive to economic development or growth (Staley, 1992). It may also be that those who are financially better off will move out of areas with high rates of violence leaving only those who are economically unable to relocate (Wilson, 1996).

Armut und Gewalt

Nach einer weit verbreiteten Auffassung lost Armut Gewalt aus. Fur das allgemeine Publikum ist diese Auffassung ein Gemeinplatz, und die meisten Akademiker sehen dies nicht anders. Die Diskussionen bei letzteren kreisen meist nur um die Frage, uber welche gesellschaftlichen Mechanismen Armut Gewalt hervorruft. Aber selbstverstandlich gibt es auch andere Auffassungen. Die Verbindungen, die zwischen Armut und Gewalt hergestellt wurden, sind vielfaltiger Art. Die meisten Fachleute wie auch Laien glauben, dass in Armut lebende Menschen aufgrund der Bedingungen, denen sie unterworfen sind, haufiger zu Gewalt greifen. Allerdings besteht unter den Fachleuten Uneinigkeit daruber, welche Bedingungen masgeblich sind und wie und warum sie zu Gewalt fuhren. Zu diesen Bedingungen konnten etwa zahlen schlechte Unterkunft (Stark 1987), belastete Gebiete (Krivo/Peterson 1996) und auseinander gerissene Familien (Sampson/Groves 1989). Lebensbedingungen dieser Art werden ublicherweise als die soziostrukturellen Konsequenzen der Armut definiert. Wahrend dieser strukturelle Ansatz Armut ublicherweise als die unabhangige und Gewalt als die abhangige Variable betrachtet, vertreten manche Wissenschaftler auch die umgekehrte Auffassung, dass Gewalt Armut hervorrufen konne, indem sie eine instabile und gefahrliche Umgebung schafft, in der keine wirtschaftliche Entwicklung moglich ist (Staley 1992). Moglicherweise ziehen auch die finanziell Bessergestellten aus Gegenden mit einer hohen Gewaltrate weg, so dass nur diejenigen zuruckbleiben, die sich einen Umzug finanziell nicht leisten konnen (Wilson 1996).

Sex Role Ideology and Delinquency

This article explores the hypothesis that the great difference between rates of delinquency and criminality of males versus females results from differences in sex roles promulgated by the culture. Here, “sex role” is conceptualized as an ideology about the behavior proper for members of a gender category, and is measured by two questionnaire scales: The Villemez-Touhey Index and a new College Sex Role Index. A survey incorporating these scales and a number of self-report delinquency questions was administered to students at the University of Washington, 498 women and 364 men. Results showed no influence of sex role ideology on deviant behavior among men, and only a very fragmentary influence among women. The Villemez-Touhey Index did correlate with use of alcohol and drugs and with sexual behavior. It is suggested that “sex role” refers to a cluster of phenomena, rather than being a unitary concept, and that the influence of social bonds or organizations is required to render any part of it salient for crime and delinquent behavior.

Long-Term Effects of Staying Connected with Your Teen® on Drug Use Frequency at Age 20

Drug prevention interventions frequently target early adolescents in order to stop or delay initiation of substance use. However, the prevalence and frequency of drug use escalate and then peak during emerging adulthood, making it important to determine whether drug use prevention efforts in adolescence have lasting effects into adulthood. Additionally, given differences in drug use frequency between ethnic groups, intervention effects by race should be examined when possible. This study evaluates the efficacy of a family-focused prevention program, Staying Connected with Your Teen®, delivered to parents and teens in the 8th grade, on family stressors during 9th and 10th grades, 10th-grade drug use (as potential mediators), and drug use frequency at age 20. Families (N = 331; Black = 163, White = 168) were randomly assigned to three conditions: parent-adolescent group-administered (PA), self-administered with telephone support (SA), and no-treatment control (Haggerty et al. Prevention Science, 8: 249–260, 2007). The impact of the intervention was assessed using latent variable structural equation models. Age 20 drug use frequency was significantly higher among Whites than Blacks as expected. The PA intervention had direct effects on reducing drug use frequency for both Blacks and Whites. The SA intervention had an impact on family stressors during adolescence for Whites, but not for Blacks. Results suggest that both formats for delivery were modestly efficacious for Whites, but only direct delivery was modestly efficacious for Blacks. Given the substantial savings in cost of the self-administered program over the group-administered format, improving the efficacy of self-administered programming for Blacks is recommended.