A conceptual framework for studying emerging neighborhood effects on individual development is presented, identifying specific mechanisms and processes by which neighborhood disadvantage influences adolescent developmental outcomes. Using path analyses, the authors test the hypothesis that these organizational and cultural features of neighborhoods mediate the effects of ecological disadvantage on adolescent development and behavior; they then estimate the unique contribution of neighborhood effects on development using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM). The study involves samples of neighborhoods from two sites, Chicago and Denver. The analyses support the hypothesis that the effects of ecological disadvantage are mediated by specific organizational and cultural features of the neighborhood. The unique influence of neighborhood effects is relatively small, but in most cases these effects account for a substantial part of the variance explained by the HLM model.
Youth delinquent gangs have been given considerable academic and media attention during the past decade. Much of the attention has focused on the violence and drug dealing in which gang members are assumed to be involved. Recent knowledge about gangs has relied primarily on data obtained from police gang units and from observational or case studies. Very little information has been derived from surveys or interviews with a more general sample of youths. In this paper, data from the Denver Youth Survey, a longitudinal study of families, are used to examine: (1) the prevalence and demographic composition of gangs: (2) the degree to which gang members are involved in illegal activities: and (3) the temporal relationship between criminal offending and gang membership.
R ational choice theories have advanced considerably in the social sciences, particularly in economics, political science, and law (e.g., Morrow 1994;Posner 1998;Sunstein 1999). In sociology, especially with the popularity of social capital theory, rational choice has gained traction as an individual-level theory of motivation compatible with macro-level theories of social structure (Coleman 1990). Nevertheless, skepticism in sociology persists, in part due to misconceptions, but more importantly due to questions about the explanatory power of rational choice theories. Proponents and skeptics alike agree that a fair assessment of the theory asks whether it has paid off empirically. Hechter and Kanazawa (1997) conclude that some empirical studies support rational explanations (sometimes unwittingly) in areas beyond market behavior, but that additional research is needed to examine rational choice theory in a variety of areas of social life and forms of social action.A challenging and important empirical puzzle for rational choice theory concerns the social control of criminal behavior. Crime is a difficult case for rational choice theory. In the case of street crime, behavior is typically characterized as irrational and suboptimal. This is in contrast to market behavior, financial decisions, and corporate crime, where institutionalized norms frame decision making in the terms of rationality or optimality. Indeed, the media-and some academics-commonly portray street criminals as impulsive, unthinking, and Hirschi 1990). Thus, a finding that street crimes follow rational choice principles would provide strong evidence for rational choice perspectives.and uneducated, and their behaviors as beyond the reach of formal sanctions (e.g., GottfredsonCrime is an important arena for investigating rational choice for another reason: Utilitarian principles, and their accompanying psychological assumptions, undergird our legal institution (e.g., Maestro 1973). This connection is rooted in writings of the classical school. Long ago, Bentham ([1789] 1948) argued that happiness is a composite of maximum pleasure and minimum pain, and that the utilitarian principlethe greatest happiness for the greatest number-underlies morals and legislation. For Bentham, punishment by the state constitutes one of four sanctions-political, moral, physical, and religious-that shape pleasures and pains. Beccaria ([1764] 1963), influenced by the moral philosophers of the Enlightenment, assumed that criminal laws reflect the terms of a social contract, in which members of society receive protection of their rights to personal welfare and private property in exchange for relinquishing the freedom to violate the rights of others. Those rights are protected by the state through deterrence, threatening potential transgressors with just enough punishment to outweigh the pleasures of crime. 1 Beccaria attempted to reform the unjust and brutal legal system of eighteenth-century Europe by developing a rational system that specified laws clearly and a prior...
This article addresses the question of whether or not a more adequate measure of self-reported delinquency applied to a representative national sample would reveal class differences in r l e l i m that have not been found in earlier self-report studies. The methodolopacal criticisms of earlier self-report m asures are reviewed, a new self-report measure is described, annual sex-by-class-spei$fic prevalence and incidence rates based on this neu, memre are presented for a national youth panel for the years 1976 through 1980, and the implications of the class findings are discussed. Class differences in both prevalence and incidence are found for serious offenses. For males, class differences are also found in the incidence of nonseriolGs offeyes and global deli-.Class differences are w e pervmve and stronger when using an incidence as opposed to a prevalence measure. Criticisms of earlier selfreport measures appear+tified, calling into Question conclusions about the distribution of delinquency in the adolescent population which are based on prim self-report data. Boulder, Colorado At the heart of the current controversy over the relationship between delinquency and social class are some fundamental questions about the conceptualization and measurement of delinquency. Conceptually, most researchers acknowledge that self-reported measures are more direct measures of delinquent behavior than arrest records. However, studies AUTHORS'NOTE: Thisstudywassupporkd bg GrantMH27552frmthe Center for Studies of Crime and Deli-,
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