Bad hombres
Severe mental illness and firearm access: Is violence really the danger?
Miranda Lynne Baumann & Brent Teasdale
International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, January–February 2018, Pages 44-49
Abstract:
In response to a spate of mass shootings, national debate over the root of America's gun violence epidemic has centered on mental illness. Consequently, calls have been made to legislatively restrict firearm access among individuals with mental illness to reduce gun violence. While there is a link between mental illness and suicide, a dearth of empirical evidence exists to inform public policy on the link between firearm access and mental illness. The current study addresses this gap by exploring the nature of firearm-related risk among disordered individuals as compared to others from the same communities. We examined a subsample of the MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment Study, including 255 recently discharged psychiatric patients and 490 census-matched community residents. We conducted binomial logistic regressions to explore the impact of firearm access and patient status on violence and suicidality. In total, 15.3% reported firearm access, 23.5% violence, and 21.5% suicidality. Multivariate analyses revealed that, in the context of firearm access, patients were no more likely to perpetrate violence (OR = 0.588; 95% CI = 0.196–1.764) but were significantly more likely to report suicidality (OR = 4.690; 95% CI = 1.147–19.172). These results indicate that firearms constitute a serious risk factor for suicide, not violence, for disordered individuals. Thus, legislative efforts to reduce firearm-related risk among disordered individuals should focus on self-harm, not violence. Moreover, claims that mental illness is a principal cause of gun violence may reduce help-seeking among individuals at high risk for suicide. Researchers should devote further attention to addressing these claims empirically.
Visually Reporting Mass Shootings: U.S. Newspaper Photographic Coverage of Three Mass School Shootings
Nicole Smith Dahmen
American Behavioral Scientist, forthcoming
Abstract:
Given the intense news coverage that mass shootings receive and recent findings on contagion effects, it is important to examine how news media organizations cover these crimes. While reporting the “who” of news is a standard journalistic practice, there is growing debate regarding the extent to which the perpetrators of mass shootings should be named, pictured, and discussed in news media coverage. Within the theoretical framework of agenda-setting, this study examined U.S. newspaper photographic coverage following three major school shootings. Through content analysis of 4,934 photographs from 9 days of newspaper coverage, this study made several key findings about the overall prominence of photo use, changes in photo use during the 3 days following mass shootings, and comparisons between photos of perpetrators and victims. In particular, the study found empirical evidence that on a photos-per-individual basis, the coverage gave more attention to perpetrators than to individual deceased victims by a ratio of 16 to 1. Given contagion effects, this study finding raises serious concerns about current practices in news media publication of perpetrator photos. Although the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics encourages news media members to seek truth and report it, the code also emphasizes moral imperatives to “balance the public’s need for information against potential harms” and “avoid pandering to lurid curiosity.”
The Effect of Collective Bargaining Rights on Law Enforcement: Evidence from Florida
Dhammika Dharmapala, Richard McAdams & John Rappaport
University of Chicago Working Paper, December 2017
Abstract:
Growing controversy surrounds the impact of labor unions on law enforcement behavior. Critics allege that unions impede organizational reform and insulate officers from discipline for misconduct. The only evidence of these effects, however, is anecdotal. We exploit a quasi-experiment in Florida to estimate the effects of collective bargaining rights on law enforcement misconduct and other outcomes of public concern. In 2003, the Florida Supreme Court’s Williams decision extended to county deputy sheriffs collective bargaining rights that municipal police officers had possessed for decades. We construct a comprehensive panel dataset of Florida law enforcement agencies starting in 1997, and employ a difference-in-difference approach that compares sheriffs’ offices and police departments before and after Williams. Our primary result is that collective bargaining rights lead to about a 27% increase in complaints of officer misconduct for the typical sheriff’s office. This result is robust to the inclusion of a variety of controls. The time pattern of the estimated effect, along with an analysis using agency-specific trends, suggests that it is not attributable to preexisting trends. The estimated effect of Williams is not robustly significant for other potential outcomes of interest, however, including the racial and gender composition of agencies and training and educational requirements.
The Introduction of Tasers and Police Use of Force: Evidence from the Chicago Police Department
Bocar Ba & Jeffrey Grogger
NBER Working Paper, January 2018
Abstract:
In March 2010, the Chicago Police Department changed its Taser policy, issuing the weapons to patrol officers instead of largely restricting their use to sergeants. We used that policy change to obtain difference-in-difference estimates of how the availability of Tasers affected the types of force employed by police, the total number of use-of-force incidents, injury rates per incident, the total number of injuries, and the race distribution of civilians involved in use-of-force incidents. The policy change initially led to a large increase in the use of Tasers, with limited substitution from other types of force. After a period of re-training, substitution between Tasers and other types of force, both greater and lesser, increased. Police injuries fell, but neither injury rates nor the number of injuries to civilians were affected. There is no evidence that Tasers led to a reduction in police use of firearms.
The CSI-education effect: Do potential criminals benefit from forensic TV series?
Andreas Baranowski et al.
International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice, March 2018, Pages 86-97
Abstract:
Forensic series have become popular over the last two decades. They have raised the importance of forensic evidence in the eyes of the public (CSI effect). However, it has not been investigated to what extent criminals may learn about forensic evidence through these shows. We used multiple approaches to tackle this potential CSI-education effect. First, we analyzed crime statistics for crime and detection rate. Second, we asked convicted criminals about their impressions about the usefulness of crime shows for covering up a crime. Third, we asked fans of crime series and a control group of non-watchers to slip into the role of a criminal by enacting the cleaning up a murder crime scene. Finally, a sample of 120 subjects had to clean up the scene of a would-be murder using a model. In none of these experiments did we find supportive evidence for the CSI-education effect.
The Short-Term Deterrent Effect of Executions: An Analysis of Daily Homicide Counts
Moonki Hong & Gary Kleck
Crime & Delinquency, forthcoming
Abstract:
Does capital punishment exert any deterrent effect on homicide, above and beyond the effects of noncapital punishment? We hypothesized that potential deterrent effects should be strongest within a few days of executions because that was when news coverage peaked. We examined data on newspaper and national television news coverage, and found that it was largely confined to the period within a few days of executions. We analyzed state homicide counts for individual days from 1979 through 1998 (n = 372,555 state-days), following the methods of Grogger and controlling for size of the prison population. We found no significant homicide drops corresponding to temporal patterns of news coverage, with one exception: a small but significant drop on the days executions occurred.
Why Police “Couldn't or Wouldn't” Submit Sexual Assault Kits for Forensic DNA Testing: A Focal Concerns Theory Analysis of Untested Rape Kits
Rebecca Campbell & Giannina Fehler-Cabral
Law & Society Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
In jurisdictions throughout United States, thousands of sexual assault kits (SAKs) (also termed “rape kits”) have not been submitted by the police for forensic DNA testing. DNA evidence may be helpful to sexual assault investigations and prosecutions by identifying offenders, revealing serial offenders through DNA matches across cases, and exonerating those who have been wrongly accused, so it is important to understand why police are not utilizing this evidence. In this study, we applied focal concerns theory to understand discretionary practices in rape kit testing. We conducted a three-year ethnography in one city that had large numbers of untested SAKs — Detroit, Michigan — to understand why thousands of SAKs collected between 1980 and 2009 were never submitted by the police for forensic DNA testing. Drawing upon observational, interview, and archival data, we found that while practical concerns regarding resources available for forensic analysis were clearly a factor, as Detroit did not have the funding or staffing to test all SAKs and investigate all reported rapes, focal concerns regarding victim credibility and victim cooperation were more influential in explaining why rape kits were not tested. Implications for the criminal justice system response to sexual assault and rape kit testing legislation are examined.
Ride-Sharing, Fatal Crashes, and Crime
Angela Dills & Sean Mulholland
Southern Economic Journal, forthcoming
Abstract:
The advent of smart-phone based, ride-sharing applications has revolutionized the vehicle for hire market. Advocates point to the ease of use, lower prices, and shorter wait times compared to hailing a taxi or prearranging limousine service. Others argue that proper government oversight is necessary to protect ride-share passengers from driver error or vehicle parts failures and violence from unlicensed strangers. Using U.S. county-level data from 2007 through 2015, we investigate whether the introduction of the ride-sharing service Uber is associated with changes in fatal vehicle crashes and crime. We find that Uber's entry lowers the rate of DUIs and fatal accidents. For some specifications, we also find declines in arrests for assault and disorderly conduct. Conversely, we observe an increase in vehicle thefts.
Covering Mass Murder: An Experimental Examination of the Effect of News Focus — Killer, Victim, or Hero — on Reader Interest
Jack Levin & Julie Wiest
American Behavioral Scientist, forthcoming
Abstract:
Journalists often assume that consumers are drawn to stories of mass murder because of their morbid curiosity. As a result, cable television reports and news stories tend to focus on details of the killer’s biography and modus operandi, possibly neglecting aspects of an incident that could provide consumers with practical knowledge for preventing a massacre and, at the same time, would not inspire future killers looking for fame and celebrity. For this study, we manipulated the news focus of a story about a high school rampage — putting it on the killer, the first victim, or a heroic figure who ended the violence — in an experiment conducted via Qualtrics survey software with a sample of 212 U.S. adults. Additional independent variables in the analysis included respondents’ gender, age, and degree of fear. The dependent variable consisted of a measure of respondents’ interest in reading a news story about the school shooting. Results from a four-way analysis of variance indicated that subjects were significantly more interested in the school shooting when the focus of attention was on a courageous bystander who stopped the onslaught than when the focus was on either a victim or the killer. Moreover, fearful subjects were significantly more likely than their fearless counterparts to express interest in a news story about mass murder. Age also made a significant difference, with respondents in their early 40s (who may be particularly likely to have children in school) indicating more interest in mass murder news stories than those in their mid-30s. No significant interactions were obtained.
Cashlessness and Street Crime: A Cross-national Study of Direct Deposit Payment and Robbery Rates
William Alex Pridemore, Sean Patrick Roche & Meghan Rogers
Justice Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Substantial variation in national crime rates suggests social structure and cultural context influence offending and victimization. Several prominent criminological theories anticipate a positive association between the prevalence of cash in a society and its rates of pecuniary crime. We examined the association between one form of “cashlessness” and national robbery rates across nations (n = 67), controlling for several structural covariates of national crime rates. We obtained data on robbery from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and data on government-based cashlessness from the Global Financial Inclusion Database. We found nations with higher levels of government-based cashlessness had lower robbery rates (β = −.41, p = .02). We also undertook several sensitivity analyses, including tests for a relationship with commercial cashlessness and for crimes like homicide and burglary. Our results suggest technological advancements that reduce cash in a society may have implications for a nation’s robbery rates.
Testing the Impact of Road Network Connectivity on Criminal Lethality
Aaron Poole et al.
Homicide Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
Increased road network connectivity has been linked to more positive outcomes among all health outcomes. Road network connectivity has yet to be tested in association with specifically criminal lethality. The current study looks to incorporate road network connectivity as an explanatory variable for criminal lethality. Data on Road Network Connectivity and Criminal Lethality are gathered for 190 cities. Data sources include the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), 2010 Census, 2010 American Community Survey, Google Earth, and Census Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (TIGER) files. The data demonstrate that a city’s road network connectivity is related to decreases in the rates of lethality among assaults. Implications of this finding are discussed.
Juvenile Crime and Anticipated Punishment
Ashna Arora
Columbia University Working Paper, January 2018
Abstract:
Recent research suggests that the threat of harsh sanctions does not deter juvenile crime. This conclusion is based on the finding that criminal behavior decreases only marginally as individuals cross the age of criminal majority, the age at which they are transferred from the juvenile to the more punitive adult criminal justice system. Using a model of criminal capital accumulation, I show theoretically that these small reactions close to the age threshold mask larger responses away from, or in anticipation of, the age threshold. I exploit recent policy variation in the United States to show evidence consistent with this prediction - arrests of 13-16 year olds rise significantly for offenses associated with street gangs, including drug, homicide, robbery, theft, burglary and vandalism offenses, when the age of criminal majority is raised from seventeen to eighteen. In contrast, and consistent with previous work, I find that arrests of 17 year olds do not increase systematically in response. I provide suggestive evidence that this null effect is likely due to a simultaneous increase in under-reporting of crime by 17 year olds when the age of criminal majority is raised to eighteen. Last, I use a back-of-the-envelope calculation to show that for every 17 year old diverted from adult punishment, jurisdictions bore social costs on the order of $65,000 due to the corresponding increase in juvenile offending. In sum, this paper demonstrates that when criminal capital accumulates, juveniles may respond in anticipation of increases in criminal sanctions, and accounting for these anticipatory responses can overturn the conclusion that harsh sanctions do not deter juvenile crime.
The moderating effects of intelligence: An examination of how IQ influences the association between environmental factors and antisocial behavior
Ian Silver & Joseph Nedelec
Journal of Criminal Justice, January–February 2018, Pages 62–75
Methods: Using the restricted available Add Health data (N = 1102–3556), the current study conducted 48 regression analyses (44 OLS and four binary logistic regression analyses) moderated by IQ, wherein antisocial behavior was regressed on peer drug use, maternal conflict, paternal conflict, maternal involvement, paternal involvement, parental supervision, neighborhood disadvantage, school attachment, and social support on antisocial behavior.
Results: The findings provided evidence suggesting that IQ moderated the effects of key criminological constructs on antisocial behavior such as peer drug use and neighborhood disadvantage. However, the moderating effects of IQ diminished as participants aged.
Does residency matter? Local residency as a predictor of arrest
Michael McCamman & Thomas Mowen
Criminal Justice Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
Prior studies show that a number of offender characteristics impact police officer use of discretion. Although there are exceptions, characteristics such as race and gender have been shown to influence decisions made by police officers with racial/ethnic minorities and men more likely to be arrested than their counterparts. Yet, much less is known about the impact of morphology, an important component from Black’s Behavior of Law, on enforcement decisions. Using 2014 state-wide data on Class ‘B’ arrests in Idaho, we examine the role of morphology, as operationalized by offender residency in the community in which the violation occurred, on the odds of a police officer affecting an arrest as opposed to writing a citation for the violation. Results of logistic regression models show that local residents are significantly less likely to experience an arrest than non-residents. Theoretical explanations and implications for these findings are offered.
Unemployment and crime: The role of apprehension
Kangoh Lee
European Journal of Law and Economics, February 2018, Pages 59–80
Abstract:
An increase in the unemployment rate decreases the opportunity cost of crime and increases the crime rate according to standard microeconomics models. However, a large body of empirical research has shown that an increase in unemployment may increase or decrease crime. By incorporating the return to crime into standard economic models, this paper shows that an increase in unemployment, as in recessions, decreases the opportunity cost of crime and the return to crime as well. As a result, the effect of unemployment on crime is ambiguous and depends on the apprehension rate. An increase in the unemployment rate tends to decrease the crime rate at lower apprehension rates, but to increase it at higher apprehension rates. An increase in the generosity of unemployment insurance benefits does not necessarily reduce the crime rate, and the effect of more generous unemployment insurance on crime depends again on the apprehension rate.
Blind haste: As light decreases, speeding increases
Emanuel de Bellis et al.
PLoS ONE, January 2018
Abstract:
Worldwide, more than one million people die on the roads each year. A third of these fatal accidents are attributed to speeding, with properties of the individual driver and the environment regarded as key contributing factors. We examine real-world speeding behavior and its interaction with illuminance, an environmental property defined as the luminous flux incident on a surface. Drawing on an analysis of 1.2 million vehicle movements, we show that reduced illuminance levels are associated with increased speeding. This relationship persists when we control for factors known to influence speeding (e.g., fluctuations in traffic volume) and consider proxies of illuminance (e.g., sight distance). Our findings add to a long-standing debate about how the quality of visual conditions affects drivers’ speed perception and driving speed. Policy makers can intervene by educating drivers about the inverse illuminance‒speeding relationship and by testing how improved vehicle headlights and smart road lighting can attenuate speeding.