Journal ArticleDOI
A Study of the Behavior of Law
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In this paper, the authors used National Crime Survey data on the victim's decision to report a crime to the police to test Black's theory of the behavior of law and found that the data are inconsistent with the propositions derived from The Behavior of Law and strongly suggest that a theory attempting to explain criminal law cannot ignore the gravity of the infraction against legal norms.Abstract:
In The Behavior of Law, Black (1976) sets forth a theory of law that he argues explains variations in law across societies and among individuals within societies. Black argues that law can be conceived of as a quantitative variable, measured by the number and scope of prohibitions, obligations and other standards to which people are subject. Law varies, according to Black, with other aspects of social life, including stratification, morphology, culture, organization, and social control. Many of Black's principal propositions regarding the quantity of law are tested in this paper with National Crime Survey data on the victim's decision to report a crime to the police. An alternative model that views the quantity of law as depending largely on the gravity of the infraction against legal norms is posed and tested against Black's theory. The data are generally inconsistent with the propositions derived from The Behavior of Law and strongly suggest that a theory attempting to explain the criminal law cannot ignore the gravity of the infraction against legal norms.read more
Citations
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Incarceration, social capital, and crime: implications for social disorganization theory*
Dina R. Rose,Todd R. Clear +1 more
TL;DR: The authors argue that an overreliance on incarceration as a formal control may hinder the ability of some communities to foster other forms of control because they weaken family and community structures, and that these communities may experience more, not less, social disorganization.
Journal ArticleDOI
Are uniform crime reports a valid indicator of the index crimes? an affirmative answer with minor qualifications*
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the perceived seriousness of the crime, first and primarily as defined by the victim, second as determined by the police, apparently accounts for most of the variance in whether a crime is reported and officially recorded; personal characteristics of the offender and victim have only minor effects.
Journal ArticleDOI
Reporting Crimes to the Police: The Status of World Research
TL;DR: The use of sample surveys of the general population to study crime has been discussed in detail many times (National Research Council, 1976; Biderman, 1967) as mentioned in this paper, and crime surveys have been conducted in many nations, a practice that is continuing despite their heavy cost.
Journal ArticleDOI
Neighborhood disadvantage and police notification by victims of violence
TL;DR: In this article, the influence of neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage on the likelihood of police notification by victims of violence was examined using data from the Area-Identified National Crime Victimization Survey.
References
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Book
The behavior of law
TL;DR: The Behavior of Law as discussed by the authors is one of the most important works in the history of sociology, and a precursor to the revolutionary theoretical approach of pure sociology, this short and lucid book is as relevant today as when it was first published in 1976.
Journal ArticleDOI
Socioeconomic status and criminal sentencing: An empirical assessment of a conflict proposition.
Ted Chiricos,Gordon P. Waldo +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the relationship between a defendant's SES and the sentence received by a prisoner and found that there is no support for the conflict proposition, and this conclusion was further strengthened when controls were introduced for "prior record" and demographic characteristics of the defendant.