Abstraction and cognitive flexibility were assessed in 197 preschool children at 2, 3, 4, and 5 years of age using the Flexible Item Selection Task, a task adapted from the Visual-Verbal Test (Feldman & Drasgow, 1951). On this new inductive task, children were shown a set of 3 cards and required to select 2 cards that matched each other on 1 dimension (Selection 1) and then to select a different pair of cards that matched each other on another dimension (Selection 2). Thus, 1 of the 3 cards always had to be selected twice according to different dimensions. Two-year-olds failed to understand basic task requirements as assessed by a criterial measure. Three-year-olds did more poorly on Selection 1 than 4- and 5-year-olds (who performed near ceiling), suggesting that 3-year-olds had difficulty with the abstraction component of the task. Four-year-olds did worse than 5-year-olds on Selection 2, suggesting that they had difficulty with the cognitive flexibility component (i.e., difficulty selecting the same card on more than 1 dimension). Results are discussed in terms of the development of executive function.

Goldstein's (1985) concept of systemic violence has contributed substantially to criminological thought and research, but its power can be enhanced by connecting it to a broader typology of social life: the resource exchange—social control typology. That typology connects systemic violence logically with two important yet neglected forms of drug market behavior: peaceful resource exchange and peaceful social control. This article, which is based on 50 in‐depth interviews with individuals involved actively or recently in drug selling, describes the various forms of violent and nonviolent resource exchange and social control in illicit drug markets, stating them in quantitative terms that are conceptually distinct and empirically observable. We conclude by discussing 1) the implications of peaceful behavior for a fuller understanding of violence and 2) the relevance of the resource exchange‐social control typology to criminological theory and research.

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Objectives: Drawing on the rational choice perspective, this study aims at explaining why some robberies take place with physical force while others occur only with threat. The focus is how expected and observed victim resistance impact physical force by robbers. Methods: We draw on quantitative and qualitative data obtained from 104 robbers who described 143 robbery events. Based on the coding of behavioral sequences between offenders and victims, we distinguish between the use of physical force at the onset from the use of physical force during the progression of the event. Results: At the onset of robberies, physical force of offenders is influenced by whether they judge the victim to be street credible. During the progression of robberies, offenders are more likely to use physical force against a resistant than against a compliant victim. Conclusions: At the onset of the robbery, offender violence is related to expected victim resistance; during the progression, it is related to observed victim resistance. Future research should focus on behavioral sequences within robbery events including the meaning of victim characteristics and victim behavior in different phases of the event.

The life histories of drug dealers suggest that victimizations sometimes mark turning points toward the end of criminal careers, which is a criminologically important but neglected empirical connection that we label the "victimization-termination link." We theorize this link thusly: When serious victimizations occur in the context of crime, a break from the customary provides an opportune situation for adaptation, and when victims have social bonds and agency, when they define the event as the result of their own criminal involvement, and when they find other adaptations unattractive, criminal-victims are likely to adapt by terminating crime. We illustrate this desistance process with qualitative data obtained through interviews with young, middle-class drug dealers. We conclude by exploring promising avenues for future work.It takes only a minute to change one's whole life course.-Stanley (Shaw, 1930: 89) To date, life-course criminology has focused primarily on the ways in which positive life events (e.g., marriage or gaining employment) can serve as positive turning points toward the termination of law-breaking and the ways in which negative life events (e.g., imprisonment, divorce, or losing employment) can serve as negative turning points that lead to or exacerbate criminal behavior (Laub and Sampson, 2003;Sampson and Laub, 1993, 1997). Less empirical or theoretical attention has been paid to the ways in which negative life events, under certain circumstances, can serve

Illicit drug traders are more likely to be victimized because they cannot report crimes committed against them to the police. Their inability to access law is seen as a major precipitating factor in retaliatory violence. But, as we demonstrate, sometimes victimized drug traders do ask for formal mediation. Based on evidence from prior research combined with experiences recounted to us in the course of interviewing twenty-five unincarcerated drug dealers, we propose a typology of how this happens. We suggest that victimized drug traders mobilize the police in four conceptually distinct ways: "BSing"; getting over; criminal concealment; and criminal disclosure. Our typology provides the empirical grounding for future work aimed at theorizing this behavior and for reducing retaliatory violence by enhancing victimized criminals' access to law. We conclude by discussing the relevance of our "inconvenient" results for the broader ethnographic audience.