Aggressive Crime Research Articles

Social Area Influences on Delinquency: A Multilevel Analysis

One research tradition in criminology has focused on the distribution of crime rates among social areas, and a second tradition has examined the distribution of crime among individuals. Rarely are both traditions combined in a single study. This study explores social area influences on the delinquent behavior of 3,729 adolescents who are clustered within diverse social areas. The research examines mechanisms through which the characteristics of social areas—measured independently of the characteristics of the individuals—contribute to the explanation of individual delinquent conduct. Results imply that social areas have a small effect on individual delinquent behavior. Individuals living in areas characterized by weakened family units and social disorganization report more negative peer influence and less attachment and commitment to school than do individuals living in more organized areas. Results imply that these intermediary effects produce more male aggressive crime. Females in disorganized areas also report more aggressive crimes, but the effect is only partially mediated by the theoretical intervening variables in the model. On the other hand, males living in more affluent areas report more property crimes. This area effect is present regardless of the age, race, or socioeconomic status of the respondents and is not mediated by social bonding or delinquent associates.

Suicide and homicide in the United States: an epidemiologic study of violent death, population changes, and the potential for prediction

The authors found significant positive correlations between the suicide and homicide rates for 15-24-year-olds and the proportion of 15-24-year-olds in the U.S. population from 1933 to 1982. Significant negative correlations were found for most adult age groups (35-64 years). Since future numbers of adolescents and adults can be estimated on the basis of current population data for children and preadolescents, the epidemiologic patterns for suicide and homicide may be predictable for certain age groups. However, methodologic problems are inherent in using national mortality and population data, and many years are necessary to evaluate such epidemiologic propositions.

Evolution and the nonlegal equivalent of aggressive criminal behavior

Within the framework of modern evolutionary theory, arguments are reviewed that the nonlegal equivalent of aggressive criminal behavior may have evolved by natural selection among mammals, particularly primates, as part of their overall approach to reproduction. If so, the commission of aggressive crimes (or their nonlegal equivalent) by humans, and even efforts to prevent fellow social group members from being victimized by aggressive crimes, may also be partially explainable in natural selection terms. The plausibility of this deduction was explored, first, by specifying the three elements that a human act must have to be regarded as an aggressive crime. Summarily, these were that (1) injury to a victim must be a likely result of the act, (2) the act must be intended, and (3) the act must elicit negative responses from those witnessing it. The primate behavior literature was examined for evidence that some behavior of nonhumans met all three conditions. Affirmative results were obtained. Therefore, while further research is in order, human aggressive criminal behavior, as well as human efforts to control it, seem to have close parallels in other primates. This would be consistent with the notion that aggressive criminal behavior (along with its condemnation by fellow group members) is part of a social system produced and sustained by natural selection.

GENDER ROLES AND FEMALE CRIMINALITY Some Critical Comments

Abstract This paper investigates the recent claim that women are becoming increasingly involved in aggressive or serious criminal activities. On the basis of an a priori classification of aggressive crimes, a review of three different types of data reveals no unambiguous pattern of change in women's criminality. Several theoretical problems which hove inhibited the systematic development of the relationships between gender roles and criminality are discussed. Particular attention is paid to the lack of conceptual precision that characterizes the use of the terms gender and aggressive crime.

XYY: No Link to Aggressive Crime

XYY: No Link to Aggressive Crime

Aggressive Crimes

The lack of adequate statistical compilations in the United States makes it very difficult to assess trends in aggressive crime or other types of criminal offenses. An ex amination of the Uniform Crime Report data for the past seventeen years indicates much lower increases in aggressive crime rates than in property-crime rates. At the same time there was no increase in the murder rates. California statistical data show similar differences between the crimes of personal violence and property crimes, the former ris ing at a much slower rate than the latter. The fact that there is no breakdown of general-offense groupings which will disclose the degrees of seriousness within the offenses reported is a grave handicap toward assessing the real crime situation. It is suggested that a good part of the rise in crime rates may be the result of the increased reporting of offenses at the lower end of the serious scale in all types of criminal offenses. The fact that murder rates had not increased further supports this hypothesis. Until there is developed a complete information system of criminal justice within each state which will ac curately account for and describe offenses, offenders, each step in the process of the administration of justice, and the areas of correctional treatment, there will never be available the needed basis for determining with any degree of exactness what are the real trends in the various kinds of criminal offenses.

MARIHUANA AND AGGRESSIVE CRIME

1. There is no positive relationship between aggressive crime and marihuana usage in the Naval service (Tables I and IV). 2. Similarly, there is no significant causal relationship between aggressive crime in civilian life (of the naval offenders studied) and the use of marihuana (Tables II and V). 3. Marihuana usage is but an aspect of some type of mental disorder or personality abnormality (Table III).