Suchergebnisse

This book fills a void in the literature by examining from a scientific perspective the official police response to drugs, drug use, abuse, and dealing and how the different levels of police agencies process drug cases. Current drug texts simply do not address the drug problem from a criminal justice or criminological perspective in a clear, consistent fashion. At the beginning of each chapter, a series of critical thinking questions is provided. Throughout each chapter, a series of tables, figures, and charts are used to illustrate themes considered. With these items, critical thinking questi

Politicians and researchers have begun to pay more attention to elder abuse in recent times. Most of the research on elder abuse has focused on cases of abuse perpetrated by family members, treating the phenomenon as a social problem, but it is increasingly being conceptualized as a crime problem. The current study examines elder abuse in nursing homes from a criminological perspective. Using routine activities theory as a guide, particular attention is given to the criminal justice system's response to abusive activities committed by nursing home employees. In all, 801 cases of abuse investigated by Medicaid Fraud Control Units are examined. Results suggest that past research has mischaracterized "the motivated offender" and that legislative policies fall short of providing capable guardianship. In addition, increases in vulnerability are related to abuse type. Implications are provided.

A number of concerns have surfaced about the use of electronic monitoring as a sanction since its inception in 1984. Research into these concerns has examined the sanction's breadth, pitfalls, and successes. This research focuses on the way electronically monitored offenders define various issues about the sanction. Results suggest that offenders do not necessarily see the sanction in ways that are consistent with the portrayal of the sanction in the literature and the media. Implications are provided.

Studies of sentencing in jurisdictions with sentencing guidelines have generally failed to specify adequately the effects of offense seriousness and criminal history—the principal factors that, by law, should determine sentencing decisions. As a result, the explanatory power of those models is seriously limited, and regression coefficients representing both legal and extralegal factors may be biased. We present an alternative approach to specify more precisely the effects of legally relevant factors on sentencing outcomes and test the approach using felony sentencing data from Washington State. We find that controlling for the presumptive sentence substantially improves the fit and explanatory power of models predicting sentencing decisions, and that the estimated effects of extralegal factors, specifically sex and race, reduce considerably. The findings have both substantive and methodological implications.

"Deviance and Social Control: A Sociological Perspective, Third Edition provides a sociological examination of deviance and social control in society. Authors Michelle Inderbitzin, Kristin A. Bates, and Randy Gainey use sociological theories to illuminate a variety of issues related to deviant behavior and societal reactions to deviance, including introductions to classic and current sociological theories as well as research on definitions and causes of deviance and reactions to deviant behavior. The unique text/reader format provides the best of both worlds, offering both substantial original chapters that clearly explain and outline the sociological perspectives on deviance, paired with carefully selected articles on deviance and social control taken directly from leading academic journals and books"--

[From the Executive Summary] The Social Science Research Center (SSRC) at Old Dominion University recently completed data collection for the ninth annual Life in Hampton Roads telephone survey. The purpose of the survey was to gain insight into residents' perceptions of the quality of life in Hampton Roads. The project also investigated attitudes and perceptions of citizens regarding topics of local interest such as transportation and traffic, local and state government, perceptions of police, health, community, education, and other issues. This year, the SSRC also partnered with the Virginia Beach Department of Public Health and they provided additional health-related questions for the survey. The SSRC completed interviews with 687 Hampton Roads residents via landline and cell phones.

This article examines the use of alternative sentencing provisions as mechanisms for departing from sentencing guidelines in Washington State and as structural sources of unwarranted sentencing disparity. The authors argue that these structural features of guidelines not only serve as "windows of discretion" through which disparities arise, but they also may encourage disparities by requiring consideration of substantive criteria that disadvantage certain offender groups. The analyses find that males and minority offenders are less likely to receive alternative sentences below the standard range, but that race‐ethnicity and gender have inconsistent effects on departures above the standard range. Theoretical implications of the study are discussed.