Social Divisions and Coercive Control in Advanced Societies: Law Enforcement Strength in Eleven Nations from 1975 to 1994

Kent, Stephanie L.; Jacobs, David

doi:10.1525/sp.2004.51.3.343

Cited by 37 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Galliher et al (2002) argue that murder rates had little effect on U.S. state decisions to abolish capital punishment, although the cross-national empirical support for this claim is mixed. Both Neapolitan (2001) and Jacobs and Kleban (2002) found positive associations between crime rates and prison populations and Kent and Jacobs (2004) found that crime rates led to more police in 14 nations beginning in the mid-1980s. However, in the two studies that addressed abolition likelihoods, Ruddell and Urbina (2004) report no effect of homicide rates on death penalty abolition while Miethe et al (2006) do not test for this effect.…”

Section: Alternative Explanationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predicting Abolition: A Cross-National Survival Analysis of the Social and Political Determinants of Death Penalty Statutes

Kent

2010

International Criminal Justice Review

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Cross-national research on the determinants of criminal penalties has generally recognized that the amount of crime is an insufficient explanation for the use of punishment. Some research supports conflict explanations, reporting that economic inequality and the presence of ethnic minorities threatens elites who respond by advocating increased punishments largely aimed at minority groups. Other research reports that democratized nations in which citizens enjoy many civil liberties have lower levels of punishment. This study uses event history and logistic analyses to identify the social and political factors that shape the existence of the death penalty in 92 nations over a 23-year period. The results largely support conflict explanations for the existence of this punishment by finding that nations with high-income inequality and large ethnic minority populations have the lowest likelihood of abolition.

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Section: Alternative Explanationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predicting Abolition: A Cross-National Survival Analysis of the Social and Political Determinants of Death Penalty Statutes

Kent

2010

International Criminal Justice Review

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“…Kent and Jacobs [14] note that the US is the only nation of 11 developed nations that show a significant relationship between increased minority population and police size, but economic inequality-operationalized as the Gini index-and crime rates influence the size of the police force in all nations surveyed. This finding highlights the significance of Blalock's argument about the unique racialized history of the United States.…”

Section: Police Expendituresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Racial Threat Theory: Assessing the Evidence, Requesting Redesign

Dollar

2014

Journal of Criminology

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Racial threat theory was developed as a way to explain how population composition influences discriminatory social control practices and has become one of the most acknowledged frameworks for explaining racial disparity in criminal justice outcomes. This paper provides a thorough review of racial threat theory and empirical assessments of the theory and demonstrates that while scholars often cite inconsistent support for the theory, empirical discrepancies may be due to insufficient attention to the conceptual complexity of racial threat. I organize and present the following review around 4 forms of state-sanctioned control mechanisms: police expenditures, arrests, sentencing, and capital punishment. Arguing that the pervasiveness of racialization in state controls warrants continued inquiry, I provide suggestions for future scholarship that will help us develop enhanced understanding of how racial threat may be operating.

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“…The state's power is derived through force or violence (Kent & Jacobs, 2004). As Foucault (1975) pointed out, however, through the development of penal institutions, the state has moved away from a threat of bodily harm to a punishment of the soul through incapacitation.…”

Section: Social Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Social Control of Family Violence

Messing

2011

Affilia

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There has been a decidedly different social response to the abuse of a child and the abuse of an intimate partner, although both forms of violence occur within the family. This article explains the differential response to these forms of family violence through a historical examination of the movements to combat child abuse and intimate partner violence, including the influence of first-and second-wave feminism. The author applies theories of social control to analyze the development of the social response. She argues that an integration of the social service and criminal justice systems would best serve families who are experiencing violence.

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Social Divisions and Coercive Control in Advanced Societies: Law Enforcement Strength in Eleven Nations from 1975 to 1994

Cited by 37 publications

References 33 publications

Predicting Abolition: A Cross-National Survival Analysis of the Social and Political Determinants of Death Penalty Statutes

Predicting Abolition: A Cross-National Survival Analysis of the Social and Political Determinants of Death Penalty Statutes

Racial Threat Theory: Assessing the Evidence, Requesting Redesign

The Social Control of Family Violence

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