Suchergebnisse

Using event history analysis, we examine the recidivism patterns of a sample of 38 corporations charged with one or more serious antitrust violations between 1928 and 1981 to see whether sanction experience decreases the likelihood of a firm's reoffending. Specifically, we analyze the effects of procedure type (e.g., civil, criminal, and administrative redress) and proxy measures of corporate deterrence while controlling for changes in antitrust law and the economic conditions of the firm, industry, and general economy. Though not robust, there is some evidence that past guilty verdicts and changes in penalties for lawbreaking from misdemeanors to felonies inhibit recidivism. We note, however, that industry characteristics are stronger by far in their effects on future illegality than formal sanction risk or consequence. The implications of these findings for organizational deterrence and corporate crime control are discussed.

When applied to the study of changes in an individual's offending, general strain theory posits that individuals will be more likely to offend during periods of high strain. Using 36 months of retrospective data collected from female inmates, we explore the relationship between intra‐individual changes in strain and changes in offending and drug use. We also examine how different dimensions of strain‐recent composite strain, duration, clustering and accumulation, contribute to the explanation of offending. We find that changes in strain are associated with changes in violence, drug use, and property crime and that these relationships remain after the addition of control variables. Moreover, the strain‐crime relationship holds when the correct causal order is specified. When modeling offending, taking various dimensions of strain into account does increase the amount of variation explained for some outcomes, but other dimensions are highly correlated. We conclude that conceptualizing the interaction between strain and crime as a dynamic process is constructive and that general strain theory will be improved if criminologists move beyond static conceptions of strain.

Tom Tyler's Procedural Justice Theory has received support in a variety of studies using criminal justice authorities as the research focus. To date, the theory has not been empirically tested using corporate malfeasance as an outcome, despite evidence that procedural justice is important in achieving regulatory compliance. This study uses factorial survey methods to examine whether corporate behavior is predicted by professionals' perceptions of procedural justice and legal legitimacy. We find that procedural justice and legitimacy considerations are salient only when managers have direct contact with regulatory authorities. This supports John Braithwaite's argument that effective regulation is enhanced by microlevel interactions in which procedural justice can be effectively leveraged to promote compliance.

The article discusses a research instrument developed and utilized by the Pittsburgh Girls Study that asked young girls (ages 7 and 8) and their caretakers to report on the girls' involvement in a variety of problem behaviors. In this article, the authors evaluate whether comprehension, prevalence, and caretaker–child concordance of problem behaviors varied by child age and race. Results indicate that the girls understood most questions (except for some related to drug use) and that comprehension and reported involvement increased with age. Findings show that nonwhites showed greater comprehension and reported more involvement in problem behavior than Whites. Overall, the authors find modest concordance between reports from the girls and their caretakers, with greater agreement for nonwhites and older children. The authors conclude that a more comprehensive understanding of youth problem behavior is gained when both caretakers and children provide reports.