A B S T R A C TThe German statistics of police-recorded crime show a decline in total offences over the 10 years up to 2003. In contrast to that trend, survey-based evidence shows that the German public believes or assumes, on balance, that crime has increased. Moreover, the proportion of people who are in favour of tougher sentencing has increased, and multivariate analyses show that the belief that crime is rising is the factor most strongly associated with a preference for stiffer penalties. Further analysis of survey data shows that the pattern of television viewing is associated with the belief that crime is rising. This pattern of results suggests that television broadcasts that include fictional or factual treatment of crime stimulate this biased perception of reality.

The study investigates the cumulative impact of child maltreatment and victimization in adolescence on violent behavior in young adulthood in a nonclinical high-risk sample. The sample consists of 1,526 incarcerated young men (14 to 24 years) who were interviewed with standardized instruments during their prison term. Violent and nonviolent offenders with and without repeated victimization experiences throughout the life cycle were compared. Results show that child maltreatment doubles the risk for violent victimization in adolescence. Repeated victimization experiences in adolescence heighten the risk for later violent offending. This is the case for officially registered violence and self-reported violent behavior. In addition, child maltreatment increased the probability of self-reported violence as well. However, the interaction effect of victimization in childhood and victimization in early adolescence counteracted the main effects. Being repeatedly victimized throughout the early life cycle slightly reduced the probability of being a frequent offender.

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We argue that the degree of ethnic segregation in multiplex social networks depends on the cost of ties in different network dimensions, which is motivated by the distinction between low-and high-cost situations in rational choice theory. We assume that ethnic boundaries become more important, the closer a relationship is and the higher the costs of a social tie are. By estimating Exponential Random Graph (p*) models for complete social networks in school classes of 1228 students and 19,764 dyads, we test this assumption. We analyse the degree of ethnic segregation not only in friendship networks, but also in 'more costly' networks such as leisure time spent together, visits to one another's home and contact between children's parents. In line with our expectation it will be shown that the degree of segregation increases the higher the costs of ties in social networks are.

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In this paper, we investigate the impact of membership in the Bologna Process on patterns and driving forces of cross-national student mobility. Student exchange flows are analyzed for almost all Bologna Process member states and non-Bologna OECD members over a ten-year period (from 2000 to 2010). We apply a social network approach focusing on outbound diploma mobility. Based on social network analyses, we first visualize the exchange patterns between sampled countries. In doing so, we analyze the student exchange linkages to gain descriptive insights into the development of the network. Second, we use exponential random graph models (ERGM) to test which factors determine transnational student mobility. The results of our network analyses reveal that crossnational student exchange networks are stable over time. At the core of these networks are the USA, Great Britain, France, and Germany; they attract highest shares of students from most remaining countries in our sample. Moreover, the results of the ERGM demonstrate that homophily between countries determines student exchange patterns. The most relevant ties exist between bordering countries. Moreover, membership in the Bologna Process impacts on mobility patterns, and the effect size increases over the periods investigated.