Showing papers in "Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology in 1973"

Self-Reports of Deviant Behavior: Predictive and Stable

Abstract: Ideally, what is needed is a standard questionnaire with a routine procedure for administration, objective scoring, norms for various populations, details of internal consistency, retest stability and concurrent and predictive validity. Without such a technically advanced questionnaire, it is impossible to be sure that this method of measuring deviant behavior is superior to the official records. It is illuminating to review the progress which has so far been made towards the psychometric ideal.2

Race, Socioeconomic Status and Sentencing in the Juvenile Justice System

Abstract: ministration of justice has long been of theoretical and empirical interest to criminologists. Although many theoretical works assume that such discrimination exists, Terry has pointed out that this assumption has been made ".. . even though empirical research dealing with these issues is relatively sparse and poorly conceived." 1 For example, Lemert states that "Members of minority groups, migrants, and persons with limited economic means are often the. .. scapegoats of the frustrated police in our local communities." 2 Clinard makes a similar assumption: "It is a generally established fact that the Negroes, as well as Spanish speaking peoples, on the whole, are arrested, tried, convicted, and returned to prison more often than others who commit comparable offenses." 3 Sutherland and Cressey, without data, assert:

Ideology and Criminal Justice Policy: Some Current Issues

Abstract: There is currently in the United States a widespread impression that our country is experiencing a major transitional phase-a period in which long-established social arrangements and the moral and conceptual notions that undergird them are undergoing substantial change. Optimists see this process as a transition from one relatively effective social order to another; pessimists see it as a one-way passage to catastrophe. It is hard to judge the validity of these conceptions. Few generations have been free from the conviction that the nation was in the throes of

Cultural and Sexual Differences on the Judgment of Criminal Offenses: A Replication Study of the Measurement of Delinquency

Abstract: In 1964, Sellin and Wolfgang1 proposed a new method of measuring criminality by using a differential weighting ot the seriousness of criminal offenses. They believe that there is a quantitative aspect of criminality which is measurable by ratings, and that the scores of ratings represent an underlying value judgment of a community. This rating of the seriousness of criminal offenses, they claim, makes possible meaningful quantitive comparisons of the crime rates in different times and places. By asking raters, including college students, policemen and judges in Philadelphia, to judge the seriousness of some criminal offenses, Sellin and Wolfgang were able to construct a seriousness scale which they believe reflects fairly universal attitudes toward criminal acts, especially in the Western cultures.

Seriousness of Delinquency, The Adjudicative Decision and Recidivism--A Longitudinal Configuration Analysis

Abstract: This study presents configurational analyses of successive stages in the juvenile justice system. The data represent official delinquency records provided by a county juvenile court within a large southeastern metropolitan area. At least two recent studies have employed formal delinquency data in the investigation of the relation of selected variables, or attributes, to juvenile delinquency. A study by Chilton and Markle investigated the relative effects of family disruption, race and social class upon seriousness of delinquency.' Wolfgang, Figlio and Sellin, in their impressive birth cohort analysis, also examined the influence of such background variables and characteristics as social class, school problems, race and age in distinguishing between serious and less serious offenders, as well as between recidivists and nonrecidivists.2 Those attributes included in the present analyses represent traditionally proposed independent variables which are expected to influence the seriousness of delinquency, the extent of delinquency and the behavior of court personnel within the decisionmaking process.

Inner Containment and Delinquency

Abstract: A central question confronting delinquency theory and research over the years has been the maintenance of non-delinquent behavior patterns in social environments thought to be highly conducive to delinquency. One of the most widely noted and reprinted attempts to deal with this issue has been the work of Walter Reckless and the "containment theorists," 1 who have introduced the notion of "inner containment" to explain variable responses to criminogenic situations. Inner containment is vaguely defined as referring to the "inner ability" of a person to direct himself, or to "inner strengths" which help a person resist "deflection" from conventional norms, and supposedly encompasses a variety of related psychological and social-psychological concepts such as "self-control," "good self-concept," "ego strength," "welldeveloped superego" and "high resistance to diversions." Most of the containment theorists' research related to this issue has centered around the "self-

Crime, Sanctions and Scientific Explanation

Abstract: There is no dearth of theoretical and empirical literature dealing with the relation between crime and sanctions. In the last decade, interest in the subject seems to have quickened, no doubt prompted to some extent by a well advertised and substantial rise in rates of reported crime. Recent legalistic developments,' because of their presumed influence on crime rates, have also heightened our interest in the subject. Public pressure to "do something" about crime and the political responses to that pressure have provided additional stimuli. Yet despite a good deal of scholarly attention and society's compelling need to know what relation, if any, exists between crime and sanctions, we cannot honestly say that we know much about the subject. To quantify the relation between the two variables we need data, and it is undoubtedly true that the quality of the data available for empirical investigation is unusually poor.2 Criminal statistics impose constraints on the questions that can be asked, handicap the research effort and interject an annoying degree of imprecision in the statistical results. Yet, these deficiencies are troublesome nuisances, not roadblocks, in the path of scientific inquiry. The data are not so bad that the truth cannot be wrung out of them.3 Our poor scholarly performance has another explanation. There is good reason to suspect that our problem in understanding the crime-sanctions relation lies in the nature of the relation itself. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that past empirical analysis of the Crime-Sanctions (C-S) relation has been incorrect.

Non-Coercive Interrogation and the Administration of Criminal Justice: The Impact of Miranda on Police Effectuality

Abstract: Possibly the most significant and pressing problem currently confronting constitutional government in the United States is the necessity to effect a balance between the rights of the individual and the rights of society. Nowhere is this problem more obvious than in the conflict surrounding recent applications by the courts of the self-incrimination clause of the Fifth Amendment to the criminal accused.

Criminal homicide, U.S.S.R./U.S.A.: reflections on Soviet data in a comparative framework

Abstract: The general paucity of data on Soviet social conditions (in comparison to the data available from many other developed countries, including some of those in Eastern Europe) renders the exploration of sociological issues relating to the USSR rather difficult. This problem of information is especially evident when one's attention is drawn to phenomena such as crime and delinquency. Despite the growing volume of Soviet writing on these problems, "hard" data are mainly notable for their absence, and the statistics Soviet writers publish are most frequently percentage distributions of unknown integers. While lack of such data presents a formidable obstacle to research, it has not entirely discouraged Western scholars from attempts to clarify one or another segment of the total picture of crime, alcoholism and allied forms of deviant behavior in the USSR.' The present study represents a tentative attempt at extending these inquiries in two ways: first, by focusing on criminal homicide, a particular type of deviant behavior with a defined quality that the categories "crime" and "delinquency" lack; and second, by placing the admittedly extremely sketchy Soviet data available into a loose comparative framework with parallel data from American studies of homicide. Patterns of Soviet and American homicide with respect to sex of victims and offenders, victimoffen er relationships, location of offense, weapons employed, and other aspects will be explored. Based on these and other data, some general obse vations about Soviet homicide will be made. There are many important questions about homi ide in the USSR that of necessity remain unanswered here. These include the basic questions of how many? How much year-to-year variation? How much inter-regional variation in pattern? It is hoped, however, that the data and observations herein may be of some value, both in suggesting similarities in the social contexts that provoke homicide in the USA and the USSR, and in raising questions for further thought and investigation.

Corrections and Simple Justice

Abstract: Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override The only thing that permits us to acquiesce in an erroneous theory is the lack of a better one; analogously, an injustice is tolerable only when it is necessary to avoid an even greater injustice Being first virtues of human activities, truth and justice are uncompromising' JOHN RAWLS A Theory of Justice

Delinquency in a Birth Cohort: A New Direction in Criminological Research

Abstract: The University of Chicago Press is launching a new series of monographs on crime and justice. Their inaugural book is Delinquency In A Birth Cohort* written by Marvin E. Wolfgang, Robert M. Figlio, and Thorsten Sellin. This book, writes Norval Morris, series editor, "is one of those turning points in criminological research in the United States-like the Shaw and McKay area studies in the 1930's." 1 This book may well represent a much needed model for a new thrust in empirical research on juvenile delinquency, especially in light of the present theoretical emphasis. Whether it will be a turning point is contingent on a number of important factors, not the least of which is the feasibility of doing similar studies in the future in light of the present crisis in federal funding for social sciences.

Law and Order and the Criminal Justice System

Abstract: The sharp increase in drug-related crimes on the streets of our cities in the past few years has made the phrase "law and order" a household refrain. Every candidate running for public office promises to curb "street crime" 1 by restoring "law and order" in the community. To most of these public office seekers, as well as those already in office, the key to such restoration is greatly increased prison terms, including life sentences, for those involved in the illegal sale of narcotics and for those illegal narcotics users who commit violent crimes. And the crux of these harsh new proposals is that such prison terms should be mandatory. In addition, these proposals would deny persons convicted of narcotics offenses the usual opportunity for parole.2 Some state legislative proposals have gone so far as to prohibit plea bargaining in such cases.' In short, retribution and deterrence, a theory of severe mandatory punishment for law violators, as opposed to any other theory or program for curbing the sale of drugs and decreasing drug-related crimes, has seized the day. The only certain consequence of this oversimplified approach to a multifaceted problem is that the judge alone, of all those involved in the administration of criminal justice, would be entirely stripped of his or her discretion in dealing with narcotics sellers and narcotics-related offenders.4

The Prosecutor's Role in the Urban Court System: The Case for Management Consciousness

Abstract: any other issue. In a nationwide opinion survey released in January, 1973, by the Gallup Poll, crime moved into top position as the most vexing concern of Americans residing in cities of 500,000 or more. Just twenty-five years ago, these same Americans, according to Gallup, found many other issues more distressing, including poor housing, traffic congestion, and high taxes. In the view of today's urban American, one of the prime causes of the crime problem is lenient courts. Gallup found that the number of city residents who blame the crime problem on lenient courts has increased by fifty percent in just eight years.' Today, almost three out of every four urban Americans believe that the courts are too lenient. No one involved in the administration of criminal justice can ignore such evidence of waning public confidence. It is possible, of course, to interpret the concern for lenient courts in more than one way. The most obvious conclusion is that the public believes that sentences are not severe enough. This interpretation, however, may be an oversimplification, and the widespread public disaffection uncovered in the polls and characterized as a concern for leniency may signify an even deeper and more pervasive dissatisfaction with the criminal courts. Perhaps what the public perceives but has not as yet articulated is a failure of the criminal court system to exhibit an awareness of the public's priorities. Too often, the criminal court system appears to be operated in an aimless, unfocused and arbitrary fashion, ingesting and disposing of its workload without any sense of direction. It is our contention that one of the primary remedies for the floundering urban criminal court systems is the development of management consciousness in the office of the public prosecutor.

Administrative and Professional Conflicts in Modern Corrections

Abstract: In one large state correctional system, the confined adult prison population has increased from 18,000 inmates in 1964 to over 27,000 inmates.1 The system has experienced a corresponding increase in the number of new correctional institutions. Considering the state's population increase, perhaps this enormous growth is not surprising. The growth in the number of inmates may also be attributed to greater efficiency in law enforcement, as well as to the apparent increase in lawlessness in a more technological society. There is, however, a peculiarity in the mushrooming prison population--the number of newly committed inmates entering the state's prison system has tended to be relatively constant.

Analysis of Associate Degree Programs in Law Enforcement, An

Abstract: learning. The first European university, the University of Salerno, in Italy, was devoted entirely to medicine. In England, a college was founded at Cambridge in 1316 for the express purpose of providing "clerks for the King's service." The classics comprise a major area where several law enforcement educators are confused. The classics were originated and taught centuries ago not because "they shaped the mind or developed the character more thoroughly" as traditional educators believe today. The classics were "taught because they were vocationally (author's emphasis) useful." 25 Peter F. Druker, in his book The Age of Dis-

Use of Regression Analysis in Police Patrolman Selection, The

Abstract: J. T. Flynn Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Educational Measurement and Evaluation at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, Conn. He is the author of four books in his field of specialization as well as numerous articles which have appeared in various professional journals. Mayfield Peterson Ph.D.has been Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Connecticut. Dr. Peterson has a background in clinical psychology, as well as training in the field of educational psychology and has published several articles in professional journals. In September 1972 he joined the faculty of the Herbert M. Lehman College, the City University of New York.