Wayne J. Villemez

THE MYTH OF SOCIAL CLASS AND CRIMINALITY: AN EMPIRICAL ASSESSMENT OF THE EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE*

Thirty-five studies examining the relationship between social class and crime/delinquency are reduced to comparable statistics using instances where the relationship was studied for specific categories of age, sex, race, place of residence, data type, or offense as units of analysis. The findings from 363 instances are summarized and patterns are identified. The overall results show only a slight negative relationship between class and criminality, with self-report studies reflecting lower associations than official statistics studies. Moreover, analysis demonstrates a clear historical decline in magnitude of association to the point where both self-report and official statistics studies done in the current decade find no class variation. This historical trend is shown to be due to changes in the findings from studies using official statistics as indicators of criminality. Alternative interpretations are discussed, but all lead to serious doubts about the adequacy of theories of deviance that contain assumptions of class differences. (abstract Adapted from Source: American Sociological Review, 1978. Copyright

Informal Hiring and Income in the Labor Market

This note explores the generalizability of the conventional belief that jobs found through weak social ties and through work-related social ties provide higher incomes than jobs found through other means. Data are analyzed from a sample which is representative of a complete cross-section of a large metropolitan labor market. The results show that zero-order relationships generalize in most instances to broadly defined populations. However, the effectiveness of weakly-tied and work-related informal contacts becomes greatly diminished when controls are added for measures of worker productivity characteristics.

When Bigger is Better: Differences in the Individual-Level Effect of Firm and Establishment Size

Building on previous demonstrations of a linkage between organizational size and individual outcomes, this paper employs a matched employer-employee data set to investigate that relationship. Some portion of the size effect on worker earnings is found to be indirect, as many have assumed, derived either through the organizational consequences of size or the industrial/market consequences of scale. However, the effect is not straightforward. It varies by group (gender, occupation, and industry), is differentially mediated by internal labor markets, literacy requirements, and unionization, differs according to whether firms are singleor multi-establishment, and for individuals as to whether firm size or establishment size is most salient to their earnings. For white-collar workers, firm size is most important, but not primarily due to organizational aspects of size. For blue-collar workers, establishment size is most important, largely due to the organizational concomitants of size. Female clerical workers are found to be a special case, and clear gender differences exist in the effect of size.

A MEASURE OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN SEX STEREOTYPING AND SEX DISCRIMINATION: THE "MACHO" SCALE

A personality measure of individual differences in sex-role stereotyping and sex discrimination was developed. The “Macho” scale fulfills satisfactory psychometric criteria of internal consistency and reliability, and the 28 items are controlled for social desirability. Personality correlates of macho include sex-role orientation among males, and authoritarianism, and the scale discriminates between criterion groups selected from different ethnic and educational subcultures. Research applications of the scale to experimental and correlational studies in personality, social psychology, and sociology are proposed.

Regional Labor Markets

It is well–known to most sociologists and economists that there are considerable regional variations in many aspects of labor markets. However, comparatively little is known about the consequences of this variation for individual actors. This is so in part because many economists and sociologists (for quite different reasons) find such variation to be theoretically unimportant, and in part because measuring the impact of such variation is methodologically complex. In the past decade, though, research on the topic has expanded and the potential importance of this variation has become recognized. The importance for individual actors was first explicitly noted by Villemez and Beggs (1994:2): Many factors bound the rationality which guides attainment-related decisions; one seriously neglected category of these factors is place—the social and geographic space in which individuals act out their lives. All persons make attainment-related choices within the confines of physical places. The attributes of these places influence and constrain those choices, thereby affecting stratification processes.

Safer Injection Sites in New York City: A Utilization Survey of Injection Drug Users:

HIV, hepatitis B & C, drug overdose, and other drug-related health problems still pose significant health risks to injection drug users (IDUs) and their sexual partners, indicating the need for further development of innovative public health interventions. A relatively new intervention implemented in many municipalities throughout the world is the “safer injection site” (SIS). An SIS is a legal facility that allows people to prepare and inject pre-obtained drugs in a hygienic, anxiety-free atmosphere under the supervision of health personnel. This paper examines the responses of a sample of IDUs in New York City to whether they would use an SIS should one be implemented in mid-town Manhattan. The SIS would be part of a comprehensive harm reduction project that already offers needle-exchange, street outreach, testing and counseling, support groups, referral services including drug treatment, and on-site primary medical and dental services. The results of our study indicate that a large majority of the IDUs sampled would utilize an SIS should one be implemented, and that those most likely to use it are IDUs at the highest risk for contracting or spreading blood-borne diseases such as HIV and hepatitis, and for experiencing a drug overdose.

Category/Continuum Thought Styles and Survey Research

Abstract Category/continuum thinking is measured and the effects of dissonance between thought styles and response formats on the ability to predict behavior from measured attitude are investigated. Dissonance is found to have a substantial effect which is attributable primarily to distortions produced when females who tend toward continuum thinking are forced to respond in categories. Contrary to usual practice, continuum formats are found to be generally more adequate than category formats. The implications of the conclusions for theory and research are discussed.