Showing papers by "Francis T. Cullen published in 2001"

Parental efficacy and delinquent behavior: do control and support matter?

Abstract: Recently, the concept of “collective efficacy” has been advanced to understand how communities exert control and provide support to reduce crime. In a similar way, we use the concept of “parental efficacy” to highlight the crime reducing effects associated with parents who support and control their youth. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), we examine the inter-relationship between parental controls and supports and their joint influence on youthful misbehavior. The results show that (1) support and control are intertwined, and (2) that parental efficacy exerts substantive effects on adolescent delinquency for the sample as a whole and across varying age groups.

From Nothing Works to What Works: Changing Professional Ideology in the 21st Century:

Abstract: The authors explore changes over time in criminologists' “professional ideology”—a core set of underlying beliefs that focuses academic thinking along certain lines but not others. Until the late 1960s, criminologists believed that the scientific study of the causes of crime would form the basis of individualized treatments that would reduce offender recidivism. By the mid-1970s, this view had collapsed and had been replaced by a professional ideology emphasizing that “nothing works” in corrections, that the causes of criminality are structural, and that crime can only be reduced through social justice. Although not without its merits, the authors suggest that this professional ideology has had the unfortunate consequence of legitimating “knowledge destruction” (showing what does not work) as the core intellectual project of criminology and thus of undermining efforts at “knowledge construction” (showing what does work). A “what works” movement within corrections, however, is advancing an alternative prof...

Thinking about Crime and Control: A Comparative Study of Chinese and American Ideology

Abstract: Although criminological interest in the People's Republic of China(PRC) has grown considerably, depictions of Chinese crime-related ideology are based largely on interviews with PRC officials, personal observations, and secondary source material. Using samples from the PRC and the United States, we explore cross-cultural differences and similarities in crime ideology. Three conclusions are suggested. First, in contrast with "official" crime ideology, PRC citizens are more likely to attribute criminal behavior to structural defects in the social order. Second, Chinese and American ideology overlaps to a considerable degree, with respondents in both nations manifesting multidimensional views on crime causation and social control. Third, despite similarities, cultural differences are also found, especially with regard to the exercise of state power within the criminal justice system.

Home Alone: The Impact of Maternal Employment on Delinquency

Abstract: Recently, conservative commentators and parenting experts have been outspoken about the potential negative effects of maternal employment. Specifically, there appears to be a pervasive belief that delinquency is one unfortunate consequence of maternal work. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), we examine whether the occupational status of mothers has criminogenic effects on their children. After tracing the effects of work hours and occupational conditions through risk factors to delinquency, we find that the characteristics of maternal work have relatively little or no influence on delinquency, but do have a slight (and complex) indirect effect through the delinquency pathway “supervision.” This general pattern holds regardless of whether early maternal employment (i.e., work occurring when children were in the pre-school years) or current maternal employment is considered. Our findings contradict the view that maternal employment causes child behavioral problems.

“The root of all evil”? An exploratory study of money and delinquent involvement

Abstract: Modern criminological theory makes contradictory predictions about the possible effects of money on misbehavior. Strain theory suggests that the possession of monetary resources facilitates goal achievement and therefore reduces the likelihood of offending. In contrast, an anomie perspective would view possession of money as a prelude to greater drug use and delinquency. In this study we examine the effect of adolescents' resources—namely, money earned from work and received from parental allowance—on delinquent involvement and drug use. The results tend to be consistent with anomie theory, showing that money and its pursuit are associated positively with misbehavior. The implications for criminological theory are discussed.

The criminalization of physician violence: Social control in transformation?

Abstract: The violent victimization of medical patients resulting from reckless or negligent physician care has traditionally remained beyond the reach of the criminal law. The professional nature of the doctor-patient relationship, as well as the existence of civil and peer-initiated sanctions, has insulated doctors from criminal prosecution. The purpose of our research is to examine whether this traditional immunity remains intact or has been breached. As a prelude to this analysis, we identify several factors which, when considered together, indicate physicians' increasing vulnerability to criminal prosecution. We present the results of a search conducted to identify cases involving the criminal prosecution of physician violence, and we examine the cases in terms of several characteristics that marked the prosecutions. Our results suggest that we may be witnessing the beginning of the use of the criminal sanction against physician violence.