Testing the Economic Production and Conflict Models of Crime Control

Liska, Allen E.; Chamlin, Mitchell B.; Reed, Mark D.

doi:10.2307/2578975

Cited by 92 publications

(55 citation statements)

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“…Police officers would be expected to respond more vigorously and formally, even to minor incidents, in order to gain control over the area and its residents. The threat hypothesis has been supported in some studies (Jackson, 1989;Liska & Chamlin, 1984;Liska, Chamlin, & Reed, 1985;Smith, 1986;Sung, 2002;Warner, 1997), and if it holds in the present analysis, more recording is expected in poor and minority neighborhoods.…”

Section: Neighborhoods and Police Resource Mobilization -Prior Researchsupporting

confidence: 79%

Constructing crime: Neighborhood characteristics and police recording behavior

Varano

Schafer

Cancino

et al. 2009

Journal of Criminal Justice

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a b s t r a c tIt has long been acknowledged that police officers have substantial levels of discretion in their day-to-day activities. There is a well developed body of literature that considers how this discretion is exercised across a broad array of situations including the decision to arrest, use force, and grant citizen requests for official action. Using both social disorganization and conflict theories as conceptual models, the purpose of this study was to determine if neighborhood characteristics affect police reporting behavior across a wide cross-section of reported call types. The findings indicated that reporting behavior widely varies across crime types with a greater percentage of more serious crimes translated into official crime. Neighborhood characteristics did affect reporting practices, but surprisingly only for more serious forms of disorder where discretion was perceived to be less. The findings lent support for both social disorganization and conflict theories. Theoretical implications are discussed.© 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. IntroductionQuestions about when and how police use discretion have been a pressing concern among scholars for decades. A large body of literature seeks to explain discretionary decision-making by police, particularly regarding the use of force and decision to arrest. Less empirical consideration has focused on how police use discretion when recording citizen reported calls for service into official crime, despite the broad effect this decision has on victims and communities.

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Section: Neighborhoods and Police Resource Mobilization -Prior Researchsupporting

confidence: 79%

Constructing crime: Neighborhood characteristics and police recording behavior

Varano

Schafer

Cancino

et al. 2009

Journal of Criminal Justice

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“…Orlando Patterson (1997:15) emphasizes that a long history of public dishonor and ritualized humiliation of African Americans by EuroAmericans has generated deep distrust, but as we discuss later in greater detail, Patterson also argues that the American racial divide is more complicated than this. There is compelling evidence that race is considerably more important than social class for explaining variation in urban American arrest rates (Liska et al 1985), and this supports the importance recently attached to race in a conflict theory of crime. Still there are suggestions that micro-and macro-level economic disadvantages can be further root causes of perceived criminal injustice.…”

Section: R Ra Ac Ce E D Di Is Sa Ad Dv Va An Nt Ta Ag Ge E a Ansupporting

confidence: 56%

Race, Ethnicity, and Youth Perceptions of Criminal Injustice

2005

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This paper advances a comparative conflict theory of racial and ethnic similarities and differences in youth perceptions of criminal injustice. We use HLM models to test six conflict hypotheses with data from more than 18,000 Chicago public school students. At the micro-level African American youth are more vulnerable to police contacts than are Latinos, who are more at risk than whites, and there is a corresponding gradient in minority group perceptions of injustice. When structural sources of variation in adolescents' experiences are taken into account, however, minority youth perceptions of criminal injustice appear more similar to one another, while remaining distinct from those of white youth. At the micro-level, Latino youth respond more strongly and negatively to police contacts, even though they experience fewer of them. At the macrolevel, as white students in schools increase cross-sectionally, perceptions of injustice among both African American and Latino youth at first intensify and then ultimately abate. Although there are again signs of a gradient, African American and Latino responses to school integration also are as notable in their similarities as in their differences. Reduced police contacts and meaningful school integration are promising mechanisms for diminishing both adolescent African American and Latino perceptions of criminal injustice.

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“…Arrest rates are higher in U.S. cities with higher percentages of black residents (Liska, Chamlin, and Reed 1984). U.S. states with larger minority populations have higher imprisonment rates (Jacobs and Carmichael 2001).…”

Section: Minority Threatmentioning

confidence: 96%