Copyright (c) 2009 All rights reserved. http://works.bepress.com/gang_lee Recent documents in Gang Lee en-us Sun, 31 May 2009 06:05:31 PDT 3600 http://works.bepress.com/gang_lee/14 http://works.bepress.com/gang_lee/14 Wed, 10 Oct 2007 15:24:27 PDT We propose that social learning and social bonding theories are capable of account ing for the well-known relationship of crime and delinquency to age. Models incorporat ing age and variables derived from these two theories are tested with data on adolescent substance use among a large sample of Midwest adolescent s in Grades 7 through 12. Older adolescent s consume more marijuana than younger adolescent s, and the age-use curve is matched by the relationship between age and social learning variables. Di erences in use by age are also correlat ed with di erences in strength of social bonds by age, but to a lesser extent. The ndings support the hypothesis that age variat ions in marijuana use are mediated by age-relat ed variat ions in social learning ; there is also support, although somewhat weaker, for the similar hypothesis that social bonding variables mediate the age-marijuana use relationship during adolescence. Ronald L. Akers http://works.bepress.com/gang_lee/12 http://works.bepress.com/gang_lee/12 Wed, 10 Oct 2007 15:24:27 PDT Joseph Hraba http://works.bepress.com/gang_lee/13 http://works.bepress.com/gang_lee/13 Wed, 10 Oct 2007 15:24:27 PDT Joseph Hraba http://works.bepress.com/gang_lee/11 http://works.bepress.com/gang_lee/11 Wed, 10 Oct 2007 15:24:26 PDT Akers' (1998) Social Structure and Social Learning (SSSL) model of crime and deviance posits that social learning is the principal social psychological process by which the social structural causes of crime and deviance have an impact on individual behavior. The central hypothesis of this model is that the effects of social structural factors on deviant behavior are substantially mediated by the variables specified in social learning theory. The SSSL model is tested here with data from the Boys Town study of adolescent substance use utilizing the LISREL program. The structural variables are gender, class, and age as indicators of differential location in the social structure; family structure, as a measure of differential social location; and community size, as an indicator of differential social organization. The social learning variables are differential peer association, differential reinforcement, definitions favorable and unfavorable to substance use, and imitation. The dependent variables are adolescent alcohol and marijuana behavior. The imitation variable does not fit into stable measurement models of the latent social learning construct and has weaker mediating effects. The other social learning variables do fit in stable models as indicators of the social learning construct in Structural Equation Models (SEM) and have substantial mediating effects on the relationships between the structural variables and substance use. The findings tend to support the theoretical expectations, but caveats and limitations of the study are outlined that have implications for future research to test the theory more fully. Gang Lee http://works.bepress.com/gang_lee/10 http://works.bepress.com/gang_lee/10 Wed, 10 Oct 2007 15:24:26 PDT Joseph Hraba http://works.bepress.com/gang_lee/9 http://works.bepress.com/gang_lee/9 Wed, 10 Oct 2007 15:24:25 PDT Theoretical and empirical research pertaining to the influence of gender on sentencing outcomes has focused almost exclusively on the gender of offenders. What this literature has not fully considered is how the gender of crime victims might affect sentencing outcomes. Using data for offenders convicted of three violent crimes in the seven largest metro counties in Texas in 1991, the authors find evidence that offenders who victimized females received substantially longer sentences than offenders who victimized males. Results also show that victim gender effects on sentence length are conditioned by offender gender, such that male offenders who victimize females received the longest sentence of any other victim gender/offender gender combination. However, whereas these effects are observed for sentence length, no victim gender effects are observed on whether offenders received an incarcerative or nonincarcerative sentence. The authors address the implications of their findings for theory and subsequent research. Theodore R. Curry http://works.bepress.com/gang_lee/8 http://works.bepress.com/gang_lee/8 Wed, 10 Oct 2007 15:24:25 PDT Gender differences in health have been linked to gender stratification in the United States. Women's relation to production, paid and unpaid work, and their experience of this gender inequality disadvantage their self-rated health compared to men. Men's consumption or health lifestyles disfavors their comparative health. This formulation is tested in the Czech Republic with a sample of matched wives and husbands (N = 577 households). This extends previous research in the United States on gender differences in health in two ways: into post-communist Europe and by comparing paired wives and husbands. Respondents completed questionnaires in 1994 on their health and well-being, jobs and finances, non-economic life events, marriage, psychological states, opinions about the changes in the Czech Republic, and socioeconomic background. Wives and husbands filled out separate questionnaires. The relation to production (both the objective relation and its subjective experience) did not impair wives' self-reported health any more than that of their husbands, and husbands' consumption or health lifestyles did not put them at a health disadvantage. Interpretations of these findings rest on both the extension of the study into post-communist Europe and by comparing matched wives and husbands. Joseph Hraba http://works.bepress.com/gang_lee/6 http://works.bepress.com/gang_lee/6 Wed, 10 Oct 2007 15:24:24 PDT Gang Lee http://works.bepress.com/gang_lee/7 http://works.bepress.com/gang_lee/7 Wed, 10 Oct 2007 15:24:24 PDT A general social learning theory of deviance is applied to adolescent smoking as a form of sustance use and tested with data from a 5-year longitudinal study of a panel (N=454) of respondents in grades 7 through 12 in an Iowa community. The major components of the process specified in the theory are differential association, differential reinforcement, definitions (attitudes), and modeling. The process is one in which the operation of these variables produces abstinence or smoking, but with some reciprocal effects of smoking behavior on the social learning variables. Previous research on various kinds of deviance and substance use has been supportive of the theory. The findings in this study from LISREL models of the overall social learning process and each of the component of association, reinforcement, and definitions are also supportive. Ronald L. Akers http://works.bepress.com/gang_lee/5 http://works.bepress.com/gang_lee/5 Wed, 10 Oct 2007 15:24:23 PDT Objective. Many studies find that females benefit from their gender in sentencing decisions. Few researchers, however, address whether the gender-sentencing association might be stronger for some crimes, such as minor nonviolent offending, and weaker for other offenses, such as serious violent crime. Method. Using a large random sample of convicted offenders in Texas drawn from a statewide project on sentencing practices mandated by the 73rd Texas Legislature, logistic regression and OLS regression analyses of likelihood of imprisonment and prison length illustrate the importance of looking at sentencing outcomes not only in terms of gender but also in terms of crime type. Results. Specifically, we find that the effect of gender on sentencing does vary by crime type, but not in a consistent or predicted fashion. For both property and drug offending, females are less likely to be sentenced to prison and also receive shorter sentences if they are sentenced to prison. For violent offending, however, females are no less likely than males to receive prison time, but for those who do, females receive substantially shorter sentences than males. Conclusions. We conclude that such variation in the gender-sentencing association across crime type is largely due to features of Texas' legal code that channel the level of discretion available to judges depending on crime type and whether incarceration likelihood or sentence length is examined. S. Fernando Rodriguez