Stephen K. Rice

“Dining While Black” Tipping as Social Artifact

Recent studies suggest that black American diners tend to tip less than white American diners. Rather than address tipping directly, this study uses in-depth interviews of white restaurant workers to frame the issue of how restaurant workers view and respond to customers of color. The present research indicates that white American restaurant workers actively participate in derogatory stereotyping of black American customers, engaging in the use of racial code words and derogatory ethnic labels, while discriminating—both overtly and covertly—in their service interactions with black customers. Among other things, servers attempt to negotiate with other white employees to avoid having black parties seated in their sections and actively try to trade off such “undesirable” parties. Servers’ logic regarding tipping is self-perpetuating in the sense that they avoid serving parties of black customers because they anticipate poor tips. These results suggest that evidence of racial tipping differences needs to be viewed cautiously in the service context in which they exist and that the industry should take special care to ensure that when servers serve black Americans, they should provide service that justifies a good tip.

Perceptions of discrimination and justice in New York City

Purpose – There has been limited analysis on the intersections of race, gender, inequality (e.g. education, income), and procedural/distributive justice and the perceived prevalence of racially biased policing. Using data from a sample of New York City residents who were asked to judge the New York City Police Department on measures related to racially biased policing and to procedural/distributive justice, this paper builds a perception of discrimination composite tied to perceived personal experience with officer bias and to beliefs regarding the perceived prevalence and justification for such behavior.Design/methodology/approach – First, the bivariate relation between race and the perception of discrimination composite is examined. Then, logistic regression is employed to explain the composite with the complement of demographic and attitudinal variables. Finally, split sample analyses are conducted to examine demographic and attitudinal variables separately for blacks and non‐blacks.Findings – Blacks w...

Of Guilt, Defiance, and Repentance: Evidence from the Texas Death Chamber

Despite the longstanding research tradition looking at administration of the death penalty jurisprudentially, scholarship has only begun to examine such punishment within the paradigm of “emotionally intelligent justice.” By mapping the intersections of sanctions and emotions, emotionally intelligent justice has been advanced as a way to reduce the cruelty of offenders and of the justice system itself. Utilizing executed inmates’ final statements for the period December, 1982 through early June, 2005 and controls for offense and offender characteristics, this study examines the manner in which starkly personal pronouncements manifest in the Texas execution chamber. Descriptive analyses illustrate a broad swath of emotions as offenders approach their deaths, while multivariate models suggest that the presence of homicide survivors (victims’ families and friends) at executions facilitates expressions of guilt and repentance, but not defiance, in offenders. Implications for future research are discussed.

On the Variability of Anger Cross-Culturally: An Assessment of General Strain Theory's Primary Mediator

This article assesses general strain theorys (GST) primary mediator, anger, as a process that exhibits important variability across cultures. It presents data from structured interviews and fieldwork in India and the United States that suggest variations in the understanding and experience of anger across three samples: Americans, lay Tibetans, and Tibetan Buddhist clergy. Findings suggest cultural differences in normative social approval of anger, perceived effects for self of becoming angry, reaction tendencies, and emotional memory. Future research should test and map variations in anger across and within populations and explore implications for macro-level GST in explaining cross-cultural differences in crime.

A Preliminary Assessment of Small World Scholarship Networks in Criminology and Criminal Justice

The present study applies small world network analysis to 727 articles from Criminology, Justice Quarterly, and the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency to assess scholarship collaboration trends within criminology and criminal justice (CCJ). Findings indicate that CCJ scholars tend to collaborate (versus sole author) on a great number of peer‐reviewed efforts, with several scholars collaborating with well over 10, and as many as 40, unique (non‐redundant) co‐authors. Consistent with the structure of scientific collaboration networks where scientists are separated by short paths of intermediates, Alex R. Piquero is found to be the most collaborative scholar in this sample and also the best center (central vertex) in the collaboration graph by linking to other scholars, on average, by only 3.6 degrees of separation. To further illustrate combinatorial patterns among CCJ scholars, this study also offers a descriptive and graphical analogue to the “Erdös number” from mathematics (here, the “Piquero number”), focusing on co‐authorship branching from first‐tier collaborators. In our view, small world analysis holds promise in better understanding far‐reaching collaboration patterns by the CCJ professoriate.

Power, profit, and pluralism: New avenues for research on restorative justice and white-collar crime

This chapter considers and highlights a different approach to dealing with the white-collar and/or corporate offender that departs from the more commonly used punitive approach utilized by the American criminal justice system. Currently, terms of incarceration for individual offenders and the use of hefty fines and strict regulations against organizational defendants are commonly used draconian punishments. Therefore, this article is designed to remind readers of another viable approach to dealing with white-collar and/or corporate crime, one which utilizes a compliance or cooperative strategy of social control; that is the use of a system of restorative justice.

The Power of Personal Narratives in Crime Prevention and Reentry: Process Evaluation of the Seattle Police Department’s IF Project

ABSTRACT With thousands of ex-offenders entering communities every week, reentry is at the forefront of agendas for legislators and correctional administrators. The IF Project, founded in 2008 in Washington State, seeks to foster crime prevention and successful reentry through the use of offender narratives. This paper reports results from an evaluation of the IF Project comprised of process and outcome elements including: 1) Development of an IF Project “tool-kit” describing program structure, components and content; and 2) Pilot of a pre/post survey instrument to understand how the program is perceived by participants. Results from analyses of surveys and observation of the IF Project workshops including 68 adult participants is presented. Future steps in evaluating the IF Project are discussed.