Robert F. Meier

Understanding Theories of Criminal Victimization

Current theories of victimization have generated a sizable body of empirical research, mostly within the last two decades. The two most widely known perspectives, lifestyle-exposure and routine activities theories, have been the object of much current thinking and empirical testing, but their maturation has been hampered by many of the same problems impeding theories of criminality. These include inadequate attention to variation by type of crime, compartmentalized thinking, poor links between theory and data, inadequate measures of key concepts, and failure to specify clearly functional relationships between sets of variables. Many of these problems can be addressed by closer examination of the interrelationships among victims, offenders, and criminal situations. Victimization theories should be incorporated into comprehensive integrated theories of crime.

CONSTRUCTING A SOCIAL PROBLEM: THE PRESS AND THE ENVIRONMENT*

The U.S. daily press might seem to be in a strategic position to function as a claims-maker in the early construction of a social problem. But in the case of the manufacture of environmentalism as a social reality in the 1960s and 70s, the press was fairly slow to adopt a holistic environmental lexicon. Its reporting of environmental news even now only partially reflects concepts promoted by positive environmental claims-makers, such as planet-wide interdependence, and the threats to it by destructive technologies. The movement of environmental claims seems to have started with interest-group entrepreneurship using interpersonal communication and independent publication, gone on to attention in government, then finally—and incompletely—been put on the agenda of the daily press. Once on the press agenda, coverage of environmental issues may have improved. But there are some constraints, possibly inherent in the press as an institution, that limit its role in the incipient construction of some social problems.

Theoretical methods in criminology

Introduction and Preliminaries Estimation and Prediction Some Tests of Hypotheses Testing for Efficient Capital Markets

Specifying the Ses/Delinquency Relationship by Social Characteristics of Contexts

This study attempted to identify the social context conditions under which individual SES consistently predicts delinquency. The magnitude of the SES/delinquency relationship was examined within six levels of each of six aggregated characteristics — overall SES, heterogeneity, urbanness, population stability, overall delinquency, and racial composition—of 87 schools sampled in the Youth in Transition survey. While some scattered results invite attention, mainly because they are contrary to general expectations about SES and delinquency, the analysis failed to identify any condition under which SES consistently predicts delinquency.

Norms and the study of deviance: A proposed research strategy

The study of deviance seems to have low prestige within sociology and does so at least in part because students of deviance have not shown how the study of deviance bears on wider social processes and conditions. Much of this might possibly be avoided by concentrating on the concepts that are of central concern to the study of deviance, for example, norm. Although norms constitute the central boundary separating normativist and reactivist conceptions of deviance, little conceptual and empirical attention has been devoted to them. The main problem is that norms have not been measured directly (and hence themselves not studied empirically) but have been inferred from social situations in a post hoc fashion. If norms are conceived properly, however, there exists the possibility for direct measurement. Procedures are proposed to accomplish this task.

The insoluble problems of crime

Preface. Preface to the First Edition. Preface to the Second Edition. PART A. FUNDAMENTALS OF MICROBIOLOGY. 1. The Microbial World. 2. Microbial Metabolism and Growth. 3. Role of Microorganisms in Biogeochemical Cycles. PART B. PUBLIC HEALTH MICROBIOLOGY. 4. Pathogens and Parasites in Domestic Wastewater. 5. Microbial Indicators of Fecal Contamination. 6. Water and Wastewater Disinfection. PART C. MICROBIOLOGY OF WASTEWATER TREATMENT. 7. Introduction to Wastewater Treatment. 8. Activated Sludge Process. 9. Bulking and Foaming in Activated Sludge Plants. 10. Processes Based on Attached Microbial Growth. 11. Waste Stabilizations Ponds. 12. Sludge Microbiology. 13. Anaerobic Digestion of Wastewater and Biosolids. 14. Bioaerosols and Bioodors from Wastewater Treatment Plants. PART D. MICROBIOLOGY OF DRINKING WATER TREATMENT. 15. Microbiological Aspects of Drinking Water Treatment. 16. Microbiological Aspects if Drinking Water Distribution. 17. Bioterrorism and Drinking Water Safety. PART E. BIOTECHNOLOGY IN WASTEWATER TREATMENT. 18. Pollution Control Biotechnology. PART F. FATE AND TOXICITY OF CHEMICALS IN WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANTS. 19. Fate of Xenobiotics and Toxic Metals in Wastewater Treatment Plants. 20. Toxicity Testing in Wastewater Treatment Plants Using Microorganisms. PART G. MICROBIOLOGY AND PUBLIC HEALTH ASPECTS OF WASTEWATER EFFLUENTS AND BIOSOLIDS DISPOSAL AND REUSE. 21. Public Health Aspects of Wastewater and Biosolids Disposal on Land. 22. Public Health Aspects of Wastewater and Biosolids Disposal in the Marine Environment. 23. Wastewater Reuse. References. Index.

Jurisdictional Differences in Deterring Marijuana Use

There are two common contingencies that affect the extent to which the law coerces conduct: the jurisdiction and the offense. The jurisdiction in which crime is committed or contemplated reflects the nature of the legal threat (e.g., its certainty and severity), while the offense reflects behavior-specific barriers to effective legal threats. This paper reports a comparison of deterrent effects in two jurisdictions with widely differing penalties for marijuana use. The results indicate that both jurisdictional and offense characteristics are important, and that legal mechanisms were more important in that jurisdiction that had the least severe penalty for marijuana use, thereby suggesting that enforcement patterns were more important than the severity of the penalty. Moreover, extralegal controls were important mechanisms of social control in each jurisdiction.

Correlates of deterrence: Problems of theory and method

A central methodological problem in ascertaining the correlates of deterrence is that there is no unambiguous method by which deterred persons can be identified. Assuming that the identification of a legal threat by persons who indicated that they have not committed a crime (the use of marijuana) is evidence of deterrence, this study differentiates deterred from undeterred persons based on a number of demographic variables. The results show that persons who were deterred from marijuana use by legal threats were indistinguishable on the basis of age, sex, race, marital status, and occupation from those who refrained from using marijuana for other reasons.

Abolition of the Insanity Plea in Idaho: A Case Study

The abolition of the insanity defense in Idaho in 1982 was the first time in recent years that an American jurisdiction had eliminated that traditional, common-law defense. Drawing upon questionnaire responses from legislators, prosecuting attorneys, and psychiatrists, we examine the circumstances surrounding this precedent-setting legislation. We conclude that the conservative ethic stressing personal responsibility for conduct, legal and illegal, seems to have been influential in bringing about the new law, although future constitutional challenges may raise issues about extension of the doctrine of strict liability in criminal cases.

Criminology and the Study of Deviance

Developments in the fields of criminology and deviance can be said to parallel the answers to two questions: one, a traditional query that organized the work of many scholars to about 1950, the other, a more contemporary concern. Traditional scholars asked: Why do criminals and deviants act the way they do. Sociologists since 1950 have more frequently asked: What is the social meaning of criminal and / or deviant acts, and why do these particular persons evoke negative sanctions? Answers to these, and derivative, questions represent a major shift in studies of crime and deviance over the past 30 years.