Crime & Delinquency

California's voter-initiated Proposition 36 (Prop 36) program is often unfavorably compared to drug courts, but little is empirically known about the comparative effectiveness of the two approaches. Using statewide administrative data, analyses were conducted on all Prop 36 and drug court offenders with official records of arrest and drug treatment. Propensity score matching was used to create equivalent groups, enabling comparisons of success at treatment discharge, recidivism over 12 months post-treatment entry, and magnitude of behavioral changes. Significant behavioral improvements occurred for both Prop 36 and drug court offenders, but while more Prop 36 offenders were successful at discharge, more recidivated over 12 months. Core programmatic differences likely contributed to differences in outcomes. Policy implications are discussed.

During the 1980s, concern about fetal harm resulting from a pregnant woman's use of illegal drugs escalated, and prosecutions of pregnant drug users for harm against the fetus, or fetal abuse, were undertaken in several states. Due to constitutional and statutory problems, as well as concerns about fairness and effectiveness, efforts to criminalize fetal abuse have typically failed to withstand judicial scrutiny. Evidence suggests that criminal prosecution for fetal abuse relies on questionable procedures, is unevenly applied, and may keep women from seeking drug treatment or prenatal care.

Official record studies consistently show that Blacks exhibit higher levels of involvement in criminal offending than Whites do. Although self-report studies suggest somewhat lower levels of Black overrepresentation in criminal offending activity (especially with less serious forms of crime), there appears to be considerable evidence that Blacks are disproportionately involved in serious crime. Yet most of this evidence is based on data from broad cross-sections of the general population. To date, there is little evidence on which to base inferences about the relationship between race and criminal involvement within serious offender populations. In this article, the authors use both official record and self-report data on samples of serious adolescent offenders in Philadelphia and Phoenix to reach a better understanding of the relationship between race and criminal activity. The analysis suggests that consistent race differences of the kind normally seen in the criminological literature are not evident in our sample of serious offenders.

Little is known about the prevalence of violent behaviors among homeless and runaway adolescents or the specific behavioral factors that influence violent behaviors across time. In this longitudinal study of 300 homeless and runaway adolescents aged 16-19 years at baseline, we use event history analysis to assess the factors associated with acts of violence over three years, controlling for individual propensities and time-varying behaviors. The results indicate that females, non-minorities, and non-heterosexuals were less likely to engage in violence across time. Those who met criteria for substance abuse disorders (i.e. alcohol abuse, alcohol dependence, drug abuse) were more likely to engage in violence. A history of caretaker abuse was associated with violent behaviors, as were street survival strategies such as selling drugs, participating in gang activity, and associating with deviant peers. Simply having spent time directly on the streets at any specific time point also increased the likelihood for violence.

This article examines relationships between local drug policy (as represented by prosecutor-reported case outcomes for first-offender juvenile marijuana possession cases) and youth self-reported marijuana use, perceived risk, and disapproval. Interviews with prosecutors and surveys of 8th-, 10th-, and 12th-grade students in the United States were conducted in 2000. Analyses include data from 97 prosecutors and students from 127 schools in 40 states. Results indicate significant relationships between local drug policy and youth marijuana use and attitudes. In general, more-severe dispositions are associated with less marijuana use, higher disapproval rates, and increased perceptions of great risk. Associations primarily appear to be specific to marijuana-related outcomes. Results are discussed within the framework of both deterrence and broader social norms regarding substance use.

This article reports outcomes from a program of experimental research evaluating the risk principle in drug courts. Prior studies revealed that participants who were high risk and had (a) antisocial personality disorder or (b) a prior history of drug abuse treatment performed better in drug court when scheduled to attend biweekly judicial status hearings in court. In contrast, participants who were low risk performed equivalently regardless of the court hearings schedule. This study prospectively matches drug court clients to the optimal schedule of court hearings based on an assessment of their risk status and compares outcomes to clients randomly assigned to the standard hearings schedule. Results confirmed that participants who were high risk and matched to biweekly hearings had better during-treatment outcomes than participants assigned to status hearings as usual. These findings provide confirmation of the risk principle in drug courts and yield practical information for enhancing the efficacy and cost-efficiency of drug courts.

Research in criminal justice involving human subjects has increased greatly in the past decade, yet we have no code of ethics to guide such research. This paper argues that the primary purpose of a code should be protection of these research subjects, who are especially susceptible to mistreatment because of their prisoner status.

Despite the increase in media attention on "meth cooking" in rural areas of the United States, little is known about rural stimulant use, particularly the criminality associated with stimulant use. Data were collected from community stimulant users in rural Ohio, Arkansas, and Kentucky (N=709). Findings from three logistic regression models indicate that younger stimulant users (x =32.55, SD = 10.35), those with more convictions, and those who used crack frequently were significantly more likely to have been arrested for committing a substance-related crime, a property crime, or another crime in the 6-months before entering the study. Implications include the need for longitudinal studies to further understand rural stimulant use as well as increasing community and corrections-based drug abuse prevention and treatment interventions for stimulant users who live in rural areas.

Target populations have always been a thorny issue for correctional programs, primarily in response to the question "what works for whom?" In this experiment of seamless treatment for probationers in two sites, offenders were randomly assigned to the seamless model (drug treatment incorporated into probation supervision) or traditional referral model to services in the community. The experiment blocked on risk level, using a version of the Wisconsin Risk Tool, to measure the differential effects on rearrest and substance abuse. The seamless system model improved treatment participation with greater gains for the high-risk offenders in both sites. Yet, no main effects were observed on drug use or rearrest, although effect sizes illustrate that small effects can be observed for the high-risk offenders and the direction of the effect size demonstrates negative effects for moderate-risk offenders in one of the sites. Part of the failure to observe main effects may be due to instrumentation and measurement problems, namely that many of the substance abusers in the experiment had low severity substance abuse problems and the majority of the offenders were marijuana users which has a weaker crime-drug linkage. Study findings illustrate the importance of theoretically driven and dynamic risk and need measures. The focus on sound dynamic factors may assist with identifying the appropriate target populations for correctional interventions.

Based on availability of case management services, drug-involved women offenders entered either a probation case management (PCM) intervention (n = 65) or standard probation (n = 44). Participants were placed in the case management condition until all slots were filled, then placed in standard probation until case management slots opened. Participants were interviewed at program entry and at 6 and 12 month follow-up using measures of substance abuse, psychiatric symptoms, and social support. Results showed modest change over time in both conditions, but PCM did not result in more services or treatment, or in better outcomes, than standard probation. These findings are discussed in the context of study limitations, and in the context of state initiatives like those in Arizona and California designed to apply treatment as an alternative to incarceration.

This paper reports findings from a clinical trial of a probation case management (PCM) intervention for drug-involved women offenders. Participants were randomly assigned to either PCM (n=92) or standard probation (n=91), and followed for 12 months using measures of substance abuse, psychiatric symptoms, social support and service utilization. Arrest data were collected from administrative datasets. The sample (N=183) included mostly African American (57%) and White (20%) women, with a mean age of 34.7 (SD = 9.2) and mean education of 11.6 years (SD = 2.1). Cocaine and heroin were the most frequently reported drugs of abuse, 86% reported prior history of incarceration, and 74% had children. Women assigned to both PCM and standard probation showed change over time in the direction of clinical improvement on 7 of 10 outcomes measured. However, changes observed for the PCM group were no different than those observed for the standard probation group. Higher levels of case management, drug abuse treatment, and probationary supervision may be required to achieve improved outcomes in this population.

Increasing numbers of female youth involved in the juvenile justice system highlight the need to examine this population. This study enumerates distinct profiles of risk and protection among juvenile court-involved females, examining young adult outcomes associated with these profiles. Administrative data on 700 participants were drawn from multiple service sectors in a Midwest metropolitan region. Latent class and Pearson chi-square analyses were used. Five unique classes were identified; these classes were associated with young adult outcomes. One class of impoverished African American females was most likely to experience problematic young adult outcomes but least likely to have received juvenile justice services. Findings highlight the heterogeneity in the female juvenile court population and discrepancies between service needs and service receipt.

Although sex is one of the strongest correlates of crime, contentions remain regarding the necessity of sex-specific theories of crime. The current study examines delinquent trajectories across sex among Puerto Rican youth socialized in two different cultural contexts (Bronx, United States and San Juan, Puerto Rico). Results indicate: similar substantive offending trajectories across males and females within each cultural context; that males exhibit a higher frequency of offending and higher levels of risk factors for delinquency; and there more similarities than differences in how risk/protective factors relate to patterns of offending across male versus female youth. Study limitations and implications for sex-specific criminological theories are also discussed.

Rapid growth in the incarceration rate over the past two decades has made prison time a routine event in the life course of young, economically disadvantaged Black and Hispanic men. Although incarceration may now have large effects on economic inequality, only a few studies systematically examine the labor market experiences of ex-offenders. We review the mechanisms that plausibly link incarceration to employment and earnings and discuss the challenges of causal inference for a highly self-selected sample of criminal offenders. There is little consensus about the labor market effects of a variety of justice system sanctions, but there is consistent evidence for the negative effects of prison time on earnings, particularly among older or white-collar offenders. The labor market effects of incarceration are not yet well understood, but prior research suggests several promising avenues for future work.

Under the rubric of what Don Andrews, James Bonta, and their colleagues (Andrews, Bonta, & Hoge, 1990; Andrews, Zinger, et al., 1990) termed risk-needs-responsivity (RNR) theory, they specified how an offender's criminogenic characteristics should drive the selection and implementation of correctional services. These criminogenic characteristics relate both to risk (i.e., to those factors that predispose an individual to commit criminal conduct) and to need (i.e., to those disturbances in biopsychosocial functioning that impinge on an individual's ability to function stably in society). Needless to say, effective implementation of the RNR model requires, at a minimum, the development and use of valid risk and needs assessment tools as well as the creation of an array of treatment programs that are capable of addressing the mix of risk and need characteristics commonly presented by offenders. A cadre of investigators in the research community is now focused on RNR issues. Some of these researchers are engaged in the process of developing and validating a wider array of risk and needs assessment instruments. Others, including ourselves, are tailoring specific clinical interventions to the needs of high-risk or low-risk offenders and then evaluating the effects of these matching strategies in prospective, experimental studies. This collection of articles presents a current snapshot of RNR theory in action. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Examines the health and mental health problems and needs of incarcerated women (i.e., substance abuse, HIV infection, violent victimization), identifies some of the barriers to meeting these needs (i.e., legislation, lack of resources), and articulates an initial strategy for effectively overcoming these barriers (i.e., women-specific research, program development). In addition, the author discusses the National Council on Crime and Delinquency's growing involvement in the area of correctional health care for women in particular. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

SS WERE 102 6-16 YR. OLD BOYS WHO HAD COMMITTED 276 OFFENSES. 2-WAY CLASSIFICATIONS BASED UPON TYPE AND SERIOUSNESS OF CRIME, WHETHER OFFENSE WAS COMMITTED WITH COMPANIONS, AGE, AND RECIDIVISM WERE MADE. A NUMBER OF RELATIONSHIPS WERE APPARENT INCLUDING STRONG RELATIONS WITH THE COMPANIONS VARIABLE. BASED UPON THESE, DELINQUENTS ARE CLASSIFIED AS THE YOUNGER BOY WHO COMMITS 1 LESS SERIOUS CRIME BY HIMSELF AND THE OLDER BOY WHO REPEATEDLY GETS INTO SERIOUS TROUBLE WITH COMPANIONS. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

How soon our nation's prisons will explode no one knows, but they can not be expected to absorb many more inmates than are now jammed inside the prison walls. Alternatives to incarceration, which sprang up in a wave of enthusiasm a decade ago, will succeed in reducing the prison popu lation only if they are fully institutionalized. Our belief in alternatives must be revived, and that belief made solid and effective by careful plan ning. The goals of correction need not be uncertain, the services provided in community alternatives need not be nominal, the standards for correc tional field workers can be defined, and the adequate funding of com munity facilities can be ensured—if we mobilize to prevent the desperate situation in our prisons from becoming more desperate. We badly need the confidence to use and develop further our community resources for persons who have demonstrated that they need help.

Different elements of local police agencies’ terrorism preparedness may be associated with different organizational/environmental variables. We use 2003-2007 data (showing considerable adoption and desistance of practices) on medium-to-large-sized local agencies to examine relationships between contingency (vulnerability, organizational characteristics) and contagion (network/isomorphic influence) measures and preparedness elements, including terrorism special units, dedicated assignment of personnel, terrorism-related community outreach, computerized intelligence files, and interagency-shared radio frequencies. Modeling 2007 preparedness revealed consistencies and some differences in the associations between these measures and the different preparedness elements. The finding of no association between objective vulnerability score and any terrorism preparedness action particularly warrants further research attention. It will also be important to extend preparedness research into the recent period of economic recession.

Peer Reviewed http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68174/2/10.1177_001112877201800412.pdf

Peer Reviewed http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/67779/2/10.1177_001112877802400415.pdf

Peer Reviewed http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68293/2/10.1177_001112875500100113.pdf

This article examines whether a terrorist group’s ideology has a meaningful impact on its involvement in kidnapping. On a global level, incident data (1970-2010) indicate that in the past decade the number of kidnappings by terrorist groups has increased, while Muslim extremists have replaced left-wing/Marxist revolutionaries as the world’s leading kidnappers. However, when we incorporate data about the attributes of terrorist organizations and their operating environments, this analysis indicates that ideology does not play an important role in determining the likelihood of a group’s involvement in kidnapping. The article concludes with implications and suggested topics for further study.

Incarceration, crime, and unemployment rates from Texas, California, and the United States during the 1970s and 1980s are examined to explore the link between incarceration policies and crime rates. Comparing Texas and California, despite different incarceration policies in the 1980s, there are few differences in violent crime rate trends. By contrast, in the late 1980s, property crimes increased in Texas and decreased in California. These state-rate differences across types of crime parallel findings across four successive parolee cohorts in Texas, where increases in repetitious property offending patterns were noted, and repetitious violent offending remained stable. Variations in incarceration rates and economic conditions are noted as explanatory factors.

Three Massachusetts district courts, the states's lowest courts with criminal jurisdiction, are examined as to their processing of drug offenses and the use of treatment resources available to their probation officers. In one court, the East Boston District Court, drug probationers were generally supervised by one probation officer who saw them regularly, knew their problems, and had special experience in the drug field and familiarity with available treatment resources. Twelve of the eighty-four drug probationers attended a nearby independent city clinic which provided methadone detoxification, methadone maintenance, and counseling. The East Boston drug probationer most fre quently was not more than twenty-five years old, a high school graduate, no stranger to the correctional system, and acquainted with heroin, barbiturates, and, to a lesser extent, marijuana. In the second court surveyed there were twice as many drug offenses as in East Boston but fewer heroin violations. None of its probation officers was particularly knowledgeable about drugs or drug rehabilitation efforts, and no drug offender had been referred for treatment. The third district court had a full-time psychiatrist to whom its probation officers referred some drug probationers. Of the three courts, it had the smallest number of recorded drug offens es, possibly because of protective families and schools in that community. Probationers were younger and violations generally involved marijuana. As courts and their probation staffs begin to work more closely with the multiple community-based treatment programs that are now emerging, probation officers should receive special training in the supervision of drug offenders.

Using hierarchical logistic regression with a nationally representative sample of state prisoners (n = 12,504), we found inmates with dual severe psychiatric and substance abuse disorders to be at higher risk of being assaulted and to assault others in prison than nonmentally ill inmates. Dually disordered inmates may be “importing” characteristics that put them at more risk of involvement in assaults. Next, more than 50% of assault victims were themselves the perpetrators of assault, and significant percentages of inmates reported posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) diagnoses and physical and sexual victimizations. With other studies linking PTSD and being assaulted with revictimization and violence toward others, substance abuse, and poorer psychiatric outcomes, a study implication is providing inmates with effective trauma-relevant treatments.

Corroborating evidence has been associated with a decrease in children's distress during the court process, yet few studies have empirically examined the impact of evidence type on prosecution rates. This study examined the types of evidence and whether charges were filed in a sample of child sexual abuse cases (n = 329). Cases with a child disclosure, a corroborating witness, an offender confession, or an additional report against the offender were more likely to have charges filed, controlling for case characteristics. When cases were lacking strong evidence (confession, physical evidence, eyewitness), cases with a corroborating witness were nearly twice as likely to be charged. Charged cases tended to have at least two types of evidence, regardless of whether there was a child disclosure or not. (Contains 3 tables.)

In 1989, Wisconsin funded Treatment Alternative Programs (TAP), based on the Treatment Alternatives to Street Crime (TASC) model, to provide treatment alternatives in lieu of imprisonment for substance-abusing offenders. TAP's goal is to break the offender's drug/crime cycle, using a case management model. Follow-up studies assessed TAP participant recidivism over an 18-month period. Client recidivism information since admission to TAP was obtained from numerous public sources, including probation/parole and court records. Results strongly suggest that offenders completing TAP are significantly less likely to recidivate than offenders not completing the program. Cost analyses suggest TAP can be more cost-effective than incarceration.

Drawing on a random sample of 340 adults, this study examines the relationships between strain, negative emotions, and criminal coping in the context of Russia. Extending the argument of general strain theory (GST), it also assesses the criminogenic potency of strain accumulation and raises the possibility that negative affect, accumulating from stressors closely grouped in time, heightens individual’s sensitivity to concurrent or subsequent strains. Although the data suggest that the core variables of GST are operant in Russia, support for the theory is mixed. Strain appears to be generally associated with negative emotions, but negative emotions are not uniformly criminogenic. Negative emotions do not appear to mediate the association between strain and crime but moderate the strain–crime link and, in some cases, increase the enabling effects of strains on illegal coping. Overall, the findings suggest that negative affect likely produced by accumulation or clustering of negative events and conditions may heighten the crime-generating potency of other, less criminogenic strains.

The current trend of academic analysis of the juvenile court as a treatment organization and the emphasis on treatment aspects of juvenile court activities have led to a popular assump tion that the court applies a criterion of need in dispensing its services. A traditional legal analysis would suggest the applica tion of a criterion of overt act. Even if we assume that the intention of juvenile court legislation is to apply some criterion of need, the question then becomes one of how needs are demonstrated or measured. A criterion of demonstrated need brings one full circle to a requirement of overt act. Peer Reviewed http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66900/2/10.1177_001112876300900201.pdf

This article describes Delaware's development from an anti quated penal system. At first, the state assumed responsibility for its county institutions; then, the public's massive and dramatic efforts to reorganize the adult correctional and probation and parole services and the services for youth culminated in the creation of a department of correction. The organizational struc ture of the first board is compared with that of the new Depart ment, and the part played by the Standard Act during the drafting of the new legislation is discussed and analyzed. Finally, the problem of budgets is considered.

The escalation of antagonisms between police and citizens in certain sectors of society has tended to induce the formation of two distinct groups who communicate with and understand each other minimally, if at all.

Everyone has the same basic need to feel someone cares about him. Everyone is addicted to something. Once this fact is clari fied, the narcotic addict ceases to be such a mysterious entity. Treating addicts as a special breed only helps perpetuate the fallacy that they are different. The "straight" person is frequently accused of never having had the drug experience and, therefore, of being unable to help the addict. If he accepts this conclusion, he verifies the charge. But the probation officer can be an effective resource in helping the addict handle his problems.

Early in this century the Narcotics Division of the U.S. Treasury Department obtained the official seal of approval for a "criminal approach" to the drug problem. This definition of addicts as crim inals was strengthened under the vigorous leadership of Harry J. Anslinger, director of the separate Bureau of Narcotics established in 1930, and became further entrenched with the passage of the Marihuana Tax Act and subsequent "get tough" legislation in the 1950's.

Focused deterrence initiatives, including the most famous, Boston’s Operation Ceasefire, have been associated with significant reductions in violence in several U.S. cities. Despite early successes, some cities have experienced long-term sustainability issues. Recent work in Cincinnati, Ohio, has focused on institutionalizing focused deterrence in an attempt to achieve sustainability. Despite these efforts, it became apparent that institutionalization was necessary, but insufficient, to achieve long-term success. This study turns to criminological theory to understand why focused deterrence works and how the model can be improved to maximize crime prevention potential. In doing so, the authors draw from the principles of effective intervention from correctional rehabilitation research and describe how these elements have been integrated into the Cincinnati Initiative to Reduce Violence.

"It may seem stupid, but this is the only time someone ever listened to us." That blunt confession of a rioting prisoner states eloquently the need for a grievance mechanism in the correc tional context. The cost of violence as a means of obtaining redress of grievances is recognized unanimously as prohibitive.

This article develops a multilevel model that integrates individual difference and sociological explanations of the Black–White difference in adolescent violence. Our basic premise is that low verbal ability is a criminogenic risk factor that is in part an outcome of exposure to neighborhood and family disadvantages. Analysis of the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth reveals that verbal ability has direct and indirect effects (through school achievement) on violence, provides a partial explanation for the racial disparity, and mediates the effect of socioeconomic disadvantage at the neighborhood level. Results support the view that neighborhood and family disadvantages have repercussions for the acquisition of verbal ability, which, in turn, serves as a protective factor against violence. We conclude that explanation of the race difference is best conceived as originating from the segregation of Blacks in disadvantaged contexts.

This study uses a developmental perspective and focuses on examining whether the impact of adolescent dating is age-sensitive. Dating at earlier ages is hypothesized to have a stronger effect on adolescent criminal behavior or substance use, but the effect would be weaker as one ages. The data obtained from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 are used to investigate this research question. The age-sensitive effect is measured by the interaction term between dating and age in the fixed effects modeling. The results show that when an adolescent changes from nondating to dating, the probability of committing criminal activities or using substances increases, but the influence of adolescent dating decreases as one ages. In addition, the dating effect decreases more rapidly among female adolescents than male adolescents.

Historically, many have suggested that women’s participation in the labor force has contributed to higher juvenile delinquency rates due to the extensive amount of time and attention that working mothers must spend outside the home and away from their children. Although some researchers have examined this hypothesis, findings are mixed and inconclusive. Using longitudinal data provided by the Korean Youth Panel Survey project, the effects of maternal employment on a child’s propensity to commit general delinquency are examined. Results from hierarchical linear modeling analysis indicated that children of working mothers display a higher likelihood of becoming involved in delinquency. In addition, working mothers with higher educational backgrounds were more apt to have a child who commits delinquency.

One of the lingering controversies surrounding the juvenile justice system in the United States is the transfer of juvenile offenders to adult criminal courts, ostensibly for more severe dispositions. This issue especially has been of concern as the “get-tough” movement seemingly has gained momentum over the past two decades. This article examines the waiver process in New Mexico to establish the characteristics of the juveniles subject to the process and to determine the actual, instead of symbolic, criminal court dispositions of juveniles tried as adults.

The authors use administrative data from Florida to determine the extent to which prison-based adult basic education (ABE) improves inmate’s postrelease labor market outcomes, such as earnings and employment. Using two nonexperimental comparison groups, the authors find evidence that ABE participation is associated with higher postrelease earnings and employment rates, especially for minorities. The authors find that the relationship is the largest for ABE participants who had uninterrupted ABE instruction and for those who received other education services. However, the results do not find any positive effects of ABE participation on reducing recidivism.

Public attitudes about juvenile crime play a significant role in fashioning juvenile justice policy; variations in the wording of public opinion surveys can produce very different responses and can result in inaccurate and unreliable assessments of public sentiment. Surveys that ask about policy alternatives in vague terms are especially problematic. The authors conducted an experiment in which a large sample of respondents were presented with a crime scenario in which the offender's age and prior record, the type of crime, and the inclusiveness of the policy in question were varied. Respondents were asked about the extent to which they support trying juveniles in adult court. Responses varied significantly as a function of the offender's age, criminal record, and offense but not as a function of inclusiveness. For legislators using public opinion polls to guide their decisions, blanket statements describing the results of vaguely worded surveys items can be misleading and can lead to poorly informed policy making. Yes Yes

Several authors have proposed that media hype elevates perceptions of risk and fear of crime. Research suggests that fear of crime is related to the overall amount of media consumption, resonance of news reports, how much attention the individual pays to the news, and how credible he or she believes it to be. The present study examines whether the same applies for terrorism. We use telephone survey data (N = 532) of New Yorkers and Washingtonians to test whether perceived risk and fear of terrorism are associated with several media-related variables. We find that exposure to terrorism-related news is positively associated with perceived risk of terrorism to self and others and with fear for others, but not for self.

This article reports the findings from a study that investigates predictors of police willingness to blow the whistle and police frequency of blowing the whistle on seven forms of misconduct. It specifically investigates the capacity of nine policy and structural variables to predict whistle-blowing. The results indicate that two variables, a policy mandating the reporting of misconduct and supervisory status, surface as the most consistent predictors of whistle-blowing. Contrary to popular belief, the results also show that police are slightly less inclined than civilian public employees to subscribe to a code of silence.

Correctional systems are in great need of cooperation from other health and welfare agencies in order to achieve their goals of rehabilitation and reduction of recidivism. Such cooperation has not been forthcoming because of the stigma attached to correc tional work; the low success rate in dealing with criminals; the lack of funds and other resources; the self-sufficient orientation of correctional systems; the poor quality of correctional staff; the difficulties of communicating with, and resentment against, other agencies; and the defensiveness about criticism prevalent in cor rectional circles.

Not all alcohol-related offenses committed by youth are equally serious. Liquor law violations are largely an artifact of state laws prohibiting the sale of intoxicating beverages to persons under twenty-one. Studies of teen-age drinking behavior indicate that these laws fail to deter early experimentation with alcohol and often lack either parental or peer-group support. Lowering the age for legal purchase and consumption to eighteen would simplify liquor law enforcement, thereby releasing scarce police resources for the detection of serious crime. Juvenile arrests for other alcohol-related offenses rose 28 per cent in St. Louis in 1950-60, the 'increase suggesting the need for effective and intensive alcohol education in the secondary schools and coop eration between police and social work authorities for selective referral for treatment and re-education of those whose offenses warn of later serious behavior disorders and criminality.

This study examined the relationship between offense, prior drug taking, and HIV/AIDS-related risk behavior among women prisoners. Women drug offenders in this study engaged in numerous high-risk drug and sexual behaviors. Many had engaged in injection drug use and prostitution. Recent drug control policies, grounded in deterrence and based on harsh legal penalties, have led to the incarceration of numerous offenders who are low criminal risks but represent major public health risks on release. Criminal justice policies penalizing drug users may be contributing factors to the spread of HIV infection in the wider society.

A normative policy-impact model that provides criteria for evaluating specific programs as well as for determining which goals should be given priority in criminal justice is presented. With "decision structure," "self-interest goals," and "public-interest goals" the main elements of the model, the article stresses the impact of criminal justice on various groups related to this policy area. Although a policy may be aimed primarily at groups out side government (e.g., criminals), it also will have an impact on those asked to carry it out (e.g., police). When the effects benefit the nongovernment groups (sometimes called the clientele), the policy achieves "public-interest goals. " When the beneficiaries are government officials, "self-interest goals" are being attained. One of the main themes of this paper is that the extent to which public-interest goals can be reached depends entirely on how well they serve the self-interests of those who are responsible for executing the policies in question. Thus, while the article proposes that the ultimate goal of the criminal justice system should be the "equalization of the burden of crime," it emphasizes that the means of accomplishing this goal are uncertain because traditional crime-control strategies (e.g., deterrence) have major fallacies. Moreover, even if promising strategies are discovered, the self- interests of personnel in the criminal justice system motivate them to subvert such policies. Only through conscious mani pulation of work incentives can the vested interests of many criminal justice personnel in the status quo be altered and the equalization of the costs of crime be obtained.

During the 1990s, politicians and others successfully campaigned against prison amenities, arguing that prisons resemble country clubs and as such do not deter crime. They further contended that citizens did not want tax dollars used to finance inmate privileges. Despite this political claim, virtually no empirical research has been conducted to establish its validity. This research project compares the degree of citizen opposition to prison amenities as a function of perceptions regarding who pays for such amenities. Three different survey versions were mailed to the general public. The first informed citizens that inmates pay for their privileges, the second informed respondents that tax dollars are used to finance inmate privileges, and the third provided no information regarding funding. The findings suggest that who pays for prison amenities influences citizen willingness to support inmate access to prison amenities.

An American exchange officer with the British Probation Serv ice in Margate, Kent, notes her impressions of the area in which she worked, the British probation officer's responsibilities in and out of court, and some characteristics of the British juvenile delinquent. She discusses hardships arising from the cold, damp winter weather; the omnipresent case record inspections; and her British colleagues' lack of enthusiasm for the exchange program. Several suggestions are offered for changing the program into one that can be more beneficial to the probation officer serving in a foreign country.