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Abstract In an effort to evaluate the situational determinants of crime, principal components analysis was used to reduce 59 demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of 840 American cities to six independent factors: affluence, stage in life cycle, economic specialization, expenditures policy, poverty, and urbanization. When regressed upon crime rates two of these six factors, urbanization and poverty, were found to be the more important criminogenic forces. The exception to this generalization was the South, where stage in life cycle was more important than poverty in explaining crime. One reason for this exception may be that the South, though having a lower standard of living than other regions of the country, does not have the "culture of poverty" usually associated with lower income. Contrary to the assumption upon which most ecology of crime studies are based, larger cities (over 100,000 in population) are not representative of all cities. Greater association between socioeconomic variables and crime was found in larger than in smaller cities.

Previous studies of the concept of judicial role have suggested varying numbers of dimensions underlying this concept. On the basis of questionnaires sent to the 238 German-speaking, middle-level appellate court judges in Austria & Switzerland in fall 1972, obtaining a 40% response rate for Switzerland & 34% for Austria, two Guttman scales are derived. These measure, respectively, attitudes toward precedent & the public. These two dimensions yield four ideal role types, which can be used to facilitate comparison with previous studies. There are indications that there are other important dimensions to judicial role, & that additional effort is needed to clarify the concept further. 4 Tables. Modified HA.