Trends and year‐to‐year deviations in UCR and NCS data on burglary and robbery are examined for the period 1973 to 1985. We find strong correspondence between year‐to‐year deviations in UCR crime rates and NCS victimization rates for both crime types. The difference between the two data series lies primarily in their contrasting trends, although there is some evidence that trends in UCR and NCS crime rates have been converging in recent years. Ex post forecasts reveal that the UCR/NCS relationships estimated from the 1973–1985 data continued through 1986 and 1987. Although the UCR rates in 1986 were somewhat influenced by unusual increases in the proportion of crimes reported to the police that year, changes in crime reporting for the period as a whole have had little effect on UCR burglary and robbery rates. We conclude that, within the two serious crime types examined in this study, there is strong consistency between the alternative data sources on variations in crime rates over time.
Abstract From the vantage point of criminology, one of sociology's main export subject areas, the present and future of sociology appear a good deal more promising than John Holmwood's essay on the discipline's misfortune would suggest. Sociology remains in high demand by students and faculty hiring remains strong, even in its more critical sub‐fields, such as race and ethnicity, sex and gender, and social inequality. Holmwood is correct that sociology is vulnerable to external pressures to demonstrate its relevance to social practice, but those pressures come from left‐wing social movements as well as from centres of power. He is also correct that external pressures contribute to internal disagreement, but sociology has been at war with itself since the 1960s, with little evident decline in its academic standing or intellectual vitality. Those of us on the discipline's diaspora, who depend on sociology for both support and light, must remain hopeful about sociology's continued good fortune.
Abstract This article considers cultural meanings, empirical patterns, theoretical explanations, and social responses connected with homicide and aggravated assault. It addresses homicide and aggravated assault trends in the United States over the past few decades and cross-national comparisons of homicide and assault. It assesses that rate of aggravated assault and homicide is higher among males and the young than among females and older persons. It discusses characteristics of victims, perpetrators, and incidents; relationships between victims and perpetrators; theories of violence; and policies to reduce violent crime. The main empirical patterns in homicide and serious assault are summarized. The causal factors emphasized in explanations of the violent behavior of morally suspect persons (e.g., criminals) generally involve individual or social defects, whereas those of violence carried out by morally upright persons (e.g., soldiers, physicians) involve considerations of legal or moral obligation.
Abstract Over the past several years, criminological theorists have shown renewed interest in the role of social institutions in the onset of crime. This development has been aptly labeled the “new institutionalism” by Susanne Karstedt in 2010 and has been manifested most prominently in recent studies on criminal punishment. Recognition of the central role of institutions in trying to understand the societal response to crime is not new or surprising, given that the criminal justice system is itself an institution (or an institutional subsystem). Social institutions influence how social life is regulated and facilitate the functioning of social systems. There are three interrelated dimensions of social institutions that are particularly relevant to the study of crime: institutional structure, institutional regulation or legitimacy, and institutional performance.
Research Summary To reduce individual and social harms, most nations prohibit certain psychoactive drugs. Yet, prior scholarship has suggested that prohibition reduces illicit drug sellers’ access to law and thereby increases predation against and retaliation by them. No prior study, however, has directly tested that theory by comparing drug sellers of different legal statuses operating in a single place and time. This study analyzes rates of victimization, legal mobilization, and violent retaliation in three retail drug markets in Amsterdam, the Netherlands: the legally regulated alcohol trade of cafés, the decriminalized cannabis market of “coffeeshops,” and the illegal street drug market. Results from interviews conducted with 50 sellers in each market indicate, as expected, that illicit drug dealers have the highest rates of victimization and violent retaliation and the lowest rates of legal mobilization. Contrary to expectations, we find coffeeshops experience less victimization than cafés and have similar rates of violent retaliation and legal mobilization. Policy Implications Our findings suggest that state regulation of drug markets affects victimization and conflict management of sellers, but the relationship does not seem to be linear. Prohibition undercuts the state's regulatory capacity by producing zones of virtual statelessness in which formal means of dispute resolution are unavailable, and thus, victimization and retaliation are more common. At the other extreme is laissez faire regulation, which may make sellers more likely to address problems only after they occur (instead of preventing their occurrence). The Dutch government originally instituted coffeeshops as a harm‐reduction method meant to separate the market for cannabis from that of hard drugs. The policy also seems to work well when it comes to reducing victimization, perhaps by encouraging the use of preventive measures by coffeeshop owners and employees. The Dutch experience offers lessons for drug policy reforms elsewhere.
After declining for over two decades, homicides in the United States rose sharply in 2015 and 2016. We dissect the homicide rise by characteristics of the victims, offenders, and incidents and devote special attention to the similarities and differences in homicide growth by race. The results indicate that the upturn was demographically and geographically pervasive and encompassed multiple event circumstances. Regardless of whether the 2014 to 2016 homicide spike was a short-run aberration in the long-term crime drop or augurs an extended increase in lethal violence, it should be explained. We offer some general directions for explanatory research on the homicide rise.
