Suchergebnisse

This research combines electoral data by precinct with demographic data to demonstrate that race alone is not the determinant of at-large electoral outcomes in St. Louis. In St. Louis, a long history of machine factionalism affects the behavior of black and white politicians and influences when and under what conditions blacks vote for whites and whites vote for blacks. The black-white dichotomy that is clearly evident in St. Louis society works against election of nonwhites citywide, but the city's political culture and structure also play a role in determining who is elected.

This paper presents a model of police response to changes in crime frequencies and a criminal response model characterizing the deterrent effects of police arrest behavior. These models are estimated for data taken from police department records in the city of St. Louis. The underlying theoretical conception is that arrests constitute communication to criminals in general in addition to the specific deterrence achieved through the arrest it see Disaggregation in both space and time enables identification of the statistical models through measurement rather than through statistical manipulation. The models are estimated for burglaries under varying demographic conditions and using data organized through aggregation in time (by weeks) and space (by census tracts). Under some demographic conditions, both police response and deterrent effects on criminal behavior are enhanced. Under other demographic conditions, these effects are suppressed. Enhancements and attenuations arising from specific demographic conditions for both the police response and criminal response models have a similar pattern, consistent with the underlying communication hypothesis.

Burglary and robbery rates in St. Louis, Missouri, are investigated as functions of census unemployment levels taken in 1970 and 1980 for twelve yearly cross sections of crime rates, with all rates aggregated to the level of census tracts for analyses. The relationship of burglary and robbery rates to unemployment is found to be positive, and the interactive (logged) model is found to be the one most consistent with theory as well as the best predictive model. The magnitude of unemployment effects is large, and the policy implication is that urban areas fighting crime would benefit substantially from successfully targeted employment programs.

Measures of the certainty & severity of punishment are examined by using statistical data on crime, clearance, the criminal justice system, & governmental, demographic, & socioeconomic variables for the US, 1960-1977. Analyses of crime probability plots, based on the use of the logistic model are presented, along with models that use the probability of three specific crimes -- burglary, larceny, & robbery -- as the dependent variables. The impact of clearance (certainty) & socioeconomic variables are examined in the first model, while the second compares the relative impact of different sanctioning strategies (certainty & severity) while using theoretically & policy relevant controls. Findings provide evidence about which sanctioning strategies produce the greatest increment in effects for given resource allocation. None of the variables produce much change in the probability of burglary. However, for burglary it is more important to increase the probability of imprisonment rather than the length of prison sentences. All three sanctioning strategies -- arrest, imprisonment, & sentence length -- reduce the probability of robbery. Measures of certainty -- clearance & imprisonment -- have the greatest deterrent effect. Overall, findings indicate that social variables may have as much to do with explaining crime occurrence as do the variables of deterrence. 4 Tables, 2 Figures, 35 References. Modified AA

The relationship between crimes and arrests is one of the central issues in deterrence theory. There are several conceptual difficulties in attempting to assess whether arrests deter crimes or the number of crimes determine the number of arrests. These problems are compounded when rates are used to measure both variables. The issue is whether criminals respond to arrests or the police respond to changes in crime. The present analysis compares regression results when the variables are measured both as rates and raw numbers for three offenses: homicide, robbery, and burglary. The results indicate that arrests follow crimes. This suggests the need to reexamine some studies that argue that criminals'perceptions of arrest rates are an indication of deterrence.

The results of the 1993 mayoral Democratic primary and 1992 circuit attorney Democratic primary elections in St. Louis city provide the context in which to examine the racial composition of voters for black and white candidates. Information from the 1990 census is matched to the latest voting precinct geography, creating an aggregate data set on which regression analysis is used to compare votes for leading black candidates with votes for leading white candidates in these two elections. The authors' analysis indicates a willingness on the part of both racial subpopulations to ignore the race of the candidate. They conclude that election winners would have been different had cross-racial voting not occurred.