The oftenobserved association between the sizeof the black population and the amount ofsocial control imposedon blacks has been interpreted as consistent with one of three conceptually distinctperspectives: (1) the political threat hypothesis, (2) the economic threat hypothesis, and (3) the threat ofblackcrime hypothesis. Although these three hypotheses advance differing conceptualizations ofthreat, adjudicating between them has proven difficult. The current study uses county-level data drawn from South Carolina's National Incident-BasedReporting System (NIBRS), race-specific voting data, and demographic data to investigate the validity of each of these racial threat hypotheses. Results from a pooledcross-sectional time-series analysis show that blackon-white crime has a substantivepositive effecton blackarrestlevels. In contrast, no such effect is observed for black-on-black crime. These findings taken together furnish strongsupportfor the threat of blackcrime hypothesis. The curvilinear relationship between the ratio of black-to-whitevotes castin a general election and black arrest levels hypothesized by the political threat hypothesis does not hold for the data analyzed. Additionally, we find no empirical support for the economic threat hypothesis. The implications of these findings arediscussed.Social scientists continue to debate whether the social control of crime is influenced by extralegal factors. Much of this scholarship focuses on the importance of race and social class as determinants of treatment by various social control agents. The major theoretical impetus for these inquiries is the conflict perspective and its ,.. We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of
Prior research into factors predicting arrest in domestic violence cases is limited in three regards: (a) no examination of whether mandatory arrest policies are associated with increased risk of arrest across multiple jurisdictions; (b) little consideration of whether police organizational characteristics influence arrest in such cases; and (c) little examination of whether mandatory arrest policies moderate the influence of extralegal characteristics on arrest risks. Using year 2000 data from the National Incident-Based Reporting System and the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics, a nonlinear hierarchical modeling procedure was employed to evaluate the predictive utility of situational and organizational factors associated with arrest probability in domestic violence cases. The results suggest that, in domestic violence cases, mandatory arrest policies predict arrest and modestly reduce the significance of race as a predictor of arrest. The results are interpreted as supporting a constrained rational model of policing.
We develop a conceptual model articulating the mechanisms by which racial threat is theorized to affect social control, focusing specifically on the influence of the relative size of the black population on the likelihood that the police will arrest a black citizen suspected of a violent criminal offense. A multilevel analysis of 145, 255 violent crimes reported to police in 182 cities during 2000 shows only qualified support for racial threat theory. Controlling for the amount of race‐specific crime reported to police, our findings reveal that black citizens actually have a lower probability of arrest in cities with a relatively large black population. This finding tends to cast doubt on the validity of the racial threat hypothesis. No evidence buttresses the claim that economic competition between whites and blacks affects arrest probabilities. However, results show that in cities where racial segregation is more pronounced blacks have a reduced risk sof being arrested relative to whites. Crimes involving black offenders and white victims are also more apt to result in an arrest in cities that are racially segregated. These findings support the view that racial segregation is an informal mechanism to circumscribe the threat of potentially volatile subordinate populations.
Evidence has accumulated that young people in America are witnesses to considerable violence at home and in the community. This study is the first to examine the association between witnessing community violence and criminal behavior in a representative sample of young adults. In addition, the authors consider whether receiving traumatic news, witnessing domestic violence, experiencing accidents, and being the direct victim of domestic and community-based violence are independently associated with young adult crime. The results indicate that recent exposure to violence in the community along with a history of receiving traumatic news, direct victimizations in the community, recent life events, and associations with criminal peers increase the risk for young adult criminal offending. The implications of these results are discussed.
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