Viviana Andreescu

Perceptions of Neighborhood Safety and Support for the Reintroduction of Capital Punishment in Romania: Results from a Bucuresti Survey

Data from a probability sample of 400 households in Bucuresti are used to examine the nature of support for the reintroduction of the death penalty, abolished in 1989, in Romania. Results show that workers are more likely to support the reintroduction of the death penalty. Persons who see crime as increasing wish to reinstate the death penalty. Also, persons who perceive their neighborhoods as unsafe are more likely to support the return of executions. Two significant interaction effects were found. One was between worker status and perceptions of neighborhood safety. Neighborhood safety has the strongest negative effect on support for the reintroduction of capital punishment among workers. The second interaction effect was between perceptions that crime is increasing and perceptions of neighborhood safety. Among respondents who see crime as increasing, the variable of neighborhood safety has a positive effect on support for the reintroduction of capital punishment in Romania.

Decomposition of Racial Differences in Sentencing: Application of an Econometric Technique to Cocaine Possession Cases

This article applies an econometric decomposition technique to analysis of racial group differences in incarceration and sentencing of cocaine possession offenders. The standard 2-stage modeling approach is used to analyze the incarceration decision first and then, for offenders who are incarcerated, the length of the sentence. About a third of the difference in incarceration rates between Blacks and others can be attributed to the endowments, or characteristics, of the offenders’ cases. This means that it is not possible to reject the hypothesis that there is racial bias in incarceration decisions. In contrast, for those who are incarcerated, the differences in sentence length across racial groups are attributed entirely to endowments.

Explaining the Public Distrust of Police in the Newest European Union Countries

Based on recent cross-sectional data from the European Social Surveys Round 4 (ESS4), in Romania and Bulgaria, the average levels of confidence in the countrys police appear to be much lower than in most European Union states. However, Romanians and Bulgarians tend to trust the local police more than they trust their countrys legal system, the main political parties, the countrys parliament and the national government. Using ESS4 data collected from national representative samples of Romanians and Bulgarians, the present quantitative analysis attempts to assess the relative influence on attitudes toward the police of subjective (eg, perceptions of important legal and political institutions; interpersonal trust; perceived sense of safety; perceived social and economic exclusion) and objective individual-level factors, such as sociodemographic characteristics, residency in capital cities (Bucharest and Sofia) and experiences with victimisation. Results show that, in both countries, institutional trust is the most important predictor of public attitudes toward the police. The potential impact of real and perceived recent crime trends and the latent effects of economic, political, legal and historical conditions on public discontent with the police in developing democracies is also discussed.

The Violent South: Culture of Honor, Social Disorganization, and Murder in Appalachia:

Nisbett and Cohen contended that consistently higher argument-related homicide rates in the South are a result of early historical and economic circumstances of the frontier that contributed to the development of a persistent ‘‘culture of honor,’’ which legitimized violence in response to provocations. Using 1990—1992 argument-related homicide data for Appalachian counties and considering the effect of the religious culture, this study attempts to reexamine Cohen’s finding that social stability increased honor/argument-related homicide rates in the American South but had the opposite effect in the North. Although results show that interregional differences in homicide rate exist in Appalachia and could be explained by an existing ‘‘culture of honor’’ reinforced by certain religious beliefs, this analysis did not find support for Cohen’s hypotheses. Family stability appears to be a crime deterrent in both subregions, though the relationship is not significant. Community stability is positively related to homicide rates in both subregions, but the effect is significant in the North and not in the South, as Cohen predicted. In addition, when controlling for relevant structural covariates, the authors found that counties where most adherents belonged to a conservative Protestant denomination had on average significantly higher argument-related homicide rates, whereas counties with most Roman Catholic adherents had significantly lower murder rates.

Kentuckians’ changes in attitudes toward death penalty∗

Using data collected in June, 1997 from a probability sample (N=709) of Kentuckys residents, the present paper examines the factors influencing attitudes toward death penalty and factors associated with changes in support for death penalty when alternative punitive measures for the offenders are presented. Confirming the conclusion drawn from several previous studies, our findings indicate that attitudes toward capital punishment are complex and multidimensional. While the majority of the population investigated (69.4%) tend to favor the death penalty, only 52.3% (i.e., 38.2% of the whole sample) of those who initially indicated support for capital punishment manifested stability of their opinions when “life in prison without parole and restitution made to the victims family” is suggested as a possible alternative sentence. Results indicate that the attitudinal change is primarily a function of demographic factors such as age, gender, and race.

Bullying and fear of victimization: Do supportive adults in school make a difference in adolescents’ perceptions of safety?

ABSTRACT This study examines the role played by a limited number of fear-of-crime correlates in structuring variations in fear of violent victimization expressed by a nationally representative sample of U.S. adolescents who participated in the 2013 National Crime Victimization Survey School Crime Supplement. Results show that both male and female adolescents who experienced bullying victimization also felt a higher level of fear of victimization at school and elsewhere. Conversely, adolescents who received emotional support at school from teachers and other adults were significantly less likely to be fearful. When controlling for the selected predictors, female adolescents were not more fearful than their male counterparts. Additionally, findings indicate that, especially for male adolescents, a positive school climate has the capacity to moderate the effect of bullying victimization on one’s fear of crime.

Family, School, and Peer Influences on Alcohol Abstinence and Use among American Indian and White Female Adolescents

ABSTRACT This analysis is informed by social bonding, social learning, and self-control theories and is based on data collected between 2009 and 2013 in 27 school districts located in five U. S. regions. The sample (N = 2,140) includes female adolescents (7th–12th graders) who identified themselves as white or American Indian. In support of the social learning theory, pro-alcohol use definitions, association with peers who drink excessively, and the peers’ differential reinforcement of alcohol abuse are significant predictors of alcohol use in the racially integrated model. Conversely, when controlling for a selected group of predictors, one’s level of self-control and measures of social bond are no longer differentiating alcohol users from abstainers. Yet, additional mediation analyses show that the lack of family attachment, parental monitoring, and school attachment have significant indirect effects on alcohol use.

Book Review: The securitization and policing of art theft: The case of LondonKerrJ.. (2015). The securitization and policing of art theft: The case of London. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. 204 pp.

1990s and before treatises by academics such as Volkov, Galeotti, Rawlinson, and Varese among others. However, what are still in an embryonic form are studies (written in English incorporating Russian criminological accounts) about local crime manifestations. In fact, the book under review inadvertently demonstrates that the locality is the theater of globalization that is often accused of many crime problems. Stephenson’s work is engagingly written, spiced with fascinating historical and contemporary evidence, and is a highly readable book that pins the reader down. In its densely researched pages, this book is full of nuggets of interesting and unexpected information and riveting details about the ways gang member try to achieve their ‘‘Russian dream.’’ See, for example, the information about a very useful document that one of the leaders of the 29th Kompleks gang possessed. Parts of the text become alive through the author giving a voice to ‘‘Nafik,’’ ‘‘Farit,’’ ‘‘Tsigan’’ (a law school graduate, by the way), and other protagonists of gang life. These parts are bleakly illuminating and particularly effective in making clear to the reader what the realities, diverse motivations, and complexities and frustrations of gang life are and virtually act as the academic metaphor of Brigada, a remarkable Russian crime miniseries form 2000s following the lives of a group of friends discovering criminal entrepreneurship in post-1989 Russia. The author is not only faithful to the participants’ accounts and other facts but she also beautifully and in fact seamlessly connects and fuses literature on gangs and organized crime, sets of literature that are often seen as distinct. What the author describes and analyzes in the work is skillfully and firmly placed in the social and historical contexts of crime in Russia and their catalytic power. It is obvious that Stephenson has bags of insider, in-depth, and detailed knowledge of the context she researches to write such a book which blends the micro and the macro. The author’s confidence and distinctive critical voice are reflected in the vast part of the text. What I consider an important asset of the book is that it highlights the very embeddedness of the collectivities that are at the core of the work to the mainstream society and economy and Stephenson’s constant ‘‘reluctance’’ to present the phenomenon of gangs in Russia through the prism of the relatively popular and oversimplistic ‘‘underworld’’/‘‘upperworld’’ binary that has dogged criminological debates: Although orthodox representations of ‘‘criminal bosses’’ such as Don Corleone in The Godfather were studied by gang leaders toward modeling themselves (see Chapter 4), ‘‘the ‘shadow’ and the ‘mainstream,’’’ the author asserts early in the work, ‘‘exist together, penetrating each other’’ (p. 2). This sober and compelling account is certainly going to be a core reading for anyone interested in crime collectivities in Russia and beyond.