Race: Crime: March 2017

Saturday, March 25, 2017

Codie McKeighen

Codie McKeighen 600 Words

In an article titled "Who Lives and Died on Death Row? Race, Ethnicity, and Post-Sentence Outcomes in Texas", Michelle A. Petrie and James E. Coverdill review a set of data centering on the racial differences in death penalty sentencing and relief. The evidence used in this article is drawn from male offenders living (or lived) on death row in Texas between 1974 and 2009. The ultimate question was whether and how race, ethnicity, and number of crime attributes affect an offender's likelihood of execution and the probability of sentence relief. Petrie and Coverdill used the Cox regression analyses and multiple-imputation method in order to find the pieces of missing data. The data that was used was pulled from public records of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The timeframe was set two years after the U.S. Supreme Court's 1972 ruling of Furman v. Georgia. Furman v. Georgia was a case that reinstated the death penalty and forced states to remove arbitrary and discriminatory effects. Another set of data that was used was the "Capital Punishment in the United States, 1973-2005".Other data sets that were used were the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Death Row U.S.A, newspaper accounts, along with three websites. Some of the variables include event timing and type, offender attributes, victim attributes, and crime attributes. Within these variables are multiple subtopics such as sentence year, whether the person was executed or still on row, sentence relief, previous time in prison, age at sentencing, what type of relationship that victim and offender had, and type of crime. Overall, three patterns stood out: cases with blacks and Hispanics have vague results, there's a lack of evidence in relation to execution and sentence relief, and because of the multitude of variables previously unavailable there was a strong outcome. This piece does not take into consideration women on death row, used websites making the credibility questionable, and was based in a state known for their generosity in applying the death sentence. Overall it seems to be a strong research piece with a lot of data included.

In the article titled "Ethnicity, Information Sources, and Fear of Crime" written by Jodi Lane and James W. Meeker examine the how media effects risk and fear of crime. The data collected was taken through a program like iCati and based in Orange County, California. The dialing only lasted from September 3 through 28 of 1997 and was at complete random, with an equal participation of men and women. They also took into consideration Latinos specifically and randomly tested 100 last names that were considered Hispanic. There were a total of 779 people interviewed: 555 white and 224 Latino. The dependent variable in this piece is narrowed to a basic question of how a afraid of person was of 8 specific crimes. The independent variables include demographic, source of information regarding crime, and the risk they felt they were in relation to the dependent variable. These independent variables are also broken down further into specific groups. This survey did not come from a specific set of questions rather open-ended in way because there were not preset answers to choose from, therefore it left the interviewer to translate. Overall, the results were as follows: in relation to Latinos, television plays the biggest role in fear of crime while newspapers did not. In comparison, white were completely opposite – relying mainly on newspaper and the television having little to no effect on their opinion of crime. This piece fails to include all race groups and also seems to be questionable on the basis of the survey not being standardized.

Petrie, Michelle, and James Coverdill. "Who Lives and Dies on Death Row? Race, Ethnicity, and Post-Sentence Outcomes in Texas." Social Problems, 57.4 (2010): 630-652.

Lane, Jodi, and James W Meeker. "Ethnicity, Information Sources, and Fear of Crime." Deviant Behavior, 24.1 (2003): 1-26.

Re: Tou Xiong

Please use this one! I wasn't sure if I should provide a reference page because I used statistics from the second article, so just to be safe I provide a reference page. Thank you

Tou Xiong, 461words

Soc 111 M-W 3:30pm

03/19/2017

Crime quiz

In the article "Perceived Racial and Ethnic Composition of Neighborhood and Perceived Risk of Crime" by Ted Chirico, Ranee McEntire, and Marc Gertz. Johnson studied the relationship of perceived racial and ethnic components within a neighborhood and residents perceived the risk of crime. The information obtained from the study was by a statewide telephone random sample of 3, 000 Florida residents in the fall of 1996. The independent variables used in the study to examine the perceived risk of crime were basic demographic of respondent, perceived percentage of Blacks in neighborhood, perceived percentage of Hispanics in neighborhood, perceived idea of crime in the U.S has increased, index crime rate by city, member of respondent's household been a victim of crime in the past year, marital status, and is respondent currently employed. One finding from the study was that Latinos have more fear of crime due to the influence of news and other media sources on the television. Next, Whites have a lower fear of crime due to more time investing in reading about the news in physical paper form. Another finding is the perceived proximity of Hispanics living nearby is more significant the than the perceived proximity of Blacks for respondents. South Florida Hispanics respondents felt threaten by other Hispanics and Blacks by where they lived. Thus, the perceptions of the racial composition of neighborhood proved to be the main factor in which respondents have the most fear of crime in their neighborhood.

Next article is called "A Punishing Look: Skin Tone and Afrocentric Features in the Halls of Justice" by Ryan D. King and Brian D. Johnson. In this study, they conducted a research on the association of offender's Afrocentric facial features, offender's skin tone, and criminal punishment. Basically, the study tested if one's offender with Afrocentric facial features and their skin tone affected their criminal sentencing. The sampling frame of 850 cases of booking photographs linked to the offender's criminal sentencing was conducted in Minneapolis and St. Paul specifically in Ramsey and Hennepin Counties. Independent variables used to control for the dependent variable were criminal history, crime type, court trial, demographics, Afrocentric features, private attorney, and the presumption of the offender. One main finding is that offenders, which also included Whites and Hispanics, with Afrocentric facial features and darker skin tone, were given harsher criminal sentencing in comparison to their cohorts. Another finding is that the probability of a dark-skinned Black offender is about 2 times more like to expect probation and 3.5 times more likely to receive a prison sentence increase (King and Johnson, 2016). Another finding is that the more Afrocentric features offenders possessed the odds of staying in prison raises by 30 percent and stay in execution increased by 13 percent (King and Johnson, 2016).

References

Chircios, Ted, Ranee McEntire, and Marc Gertz. 2001. "Perceived Racial and Ethnic Composition of Neighborhood and Perceived Risk of Crime." Social Problems 48 ( 3): 322-340.

King, Ryan, Brian D. Johnson. 2016. "A Punishing Look: Skin Tone and Afrocentric Features in the Halls of Justice." The University of Chicago 122 (1): 90-124.

On Sun, Mar 19, 2017 at 9:17 PM, Tou Xiong <txiong88@mail.fresnostate.edu> wrote:

Tou Xiong, 461words

Soc 111 M-W 3:30pm

03/19/2017

Crime quiz

In the article "Perceived Racial and Ethnic Composition of Neighborhood and Perceived Risk of Crime" by Ted Chirico, Ranee McEntire, and Marc Gertz. Johnson studied the relationship of perceived racial and ethnic components within a neighborhood and residents perceived the risk of crime. The information obtained from the study was by a statewide telephone random sample of 3, 000 Florida residents in the fall of 1996. The independent variables used in the study to examine the perceived risk of crime were basic demographic of respondent, perceived percentage of Blacks in neighborhood, perceived percentage of Hispanics in neighborhood, perceived idea of crime in the U.S has increased, index crime rate by city, member of respondent's household been a victim of crime in the past year, marital status, and is respondent currently employed. One finding from the study was that Latinos have more fear of crime due to the influence of news and other media sources on the television. Next, Whites have a lower fear of crime due to more time investing in reading about the news in physical paper form. Another finding is the perceived proximity of Hispanics living nearby is more significant the than the perceived proximity of Blacks for respondents. South Florida Hispanics respondents felt threaten by other Hispanics and Blacks by where they lived. Thus, the perceptions of the racial composition of neighborhood proved to be the main factor in which respondents have the most fear of crime in their neighborhood.

Next article is called "A Punishing Look: Skin Tone and Afrocentric Features in the Halls of Justice" by Ryan D. King and Brian D. Johnson. In this study, they conducted a research on the association of offender's Afrocentric facial features, offender's skin tone, and criminal punishment. Basically, the study tested if one's offender with Afrocentric facial features and their skin tone affected their criminal sentencing. The sampling frame of 850 cases of booking photographs linked to the offender's criminal sentencing was conducted in Minneapolis and St. Paul specifically in Ramsey and Hennepin Counties. Independent variables used to control for the dependent variable were criminal history, crime type, court trial, demographics, Afrocentric features, private attorney, and the presumption of the offender. One main finding is that offenders, which also included Whites and Hispanics, with Afrocentric facial features and darker skin tone, were given harsher criminal sentencing in comparison to their cohorts. Another finding is that the probability of a dark-skinned Black offender is about 2 times more like to expect probation and 3.5 times more likely to receive a prison sentence increase (King and Johnson, 2016). Another finding is that the more Afrocentric features offenders possessed the odds of staying in prison raises by 30 percent and stay in execution increased by 13 percent (King and Johnson, 2016).

Codie McKeighen Soc 111

Codie McKeighen 600 Words

Petrie, Michelle, and James Coverdill. "Who Lives and Dies on Death Row? Race, Ethnicity, and Post-Sentence Outcomes in Texas." Social Problems, 57.4 (2010): 630-652.

Lane, Jodi, and James W Meeker. "Ethnicity, Information Sources, and Fear of Crime." Deviant Behavior, 24.1 (2003): 1-26.

Avelina Charles

The first article The Enduring Racial Divide in Death Penalty Support discuss the racial division very clear and consistent overtime between African Americans and White's. What the article tried to investigate was the basis for division. During the study two surveys that had been administered and compared with the General Social Surveys. The independent variables examined racial differences in socioeconomic status, religion, political ideology, social issues, fear of crime, victimization experience, experience with the criminal justice system, and philosophies of punishment. The dependent variable was race, and it still is a factor in today's society. Race was the number one factor explanation for support of the death penalty.

The findings revealed that there is a consistency being measured as far back as the 1970's that shows very clearly that African Americans and Whites have been divided on the death penalty. The methods that were used to justify the findings were the consistent numbers shown on the GSS. When looking at who opposes the death penalty and who favors it, always the results show Whites favor the use of the death penalty and African Americans are not in favor of the practice. The article did mention some flaws in the study. For example, the sample size was not as random because it was taken from a similar location. Second, the past experiences of the individuals were not taken into consideration. These factors could in fact affect their views on the death penalty. The bottom line was, has been, and continues to be race.

The second article was titled A Punishing Look: Skin Tone and Afrocentric Features in the Halls of Justice. This article looks at the concept of Afrocentric features effects on sentencing within the criminal justice system. The study that was used consisted of new data collection to see if there was an association between the type of sentence being received based on the offender's skin tone. More so if they carried any Afrocentric facial features or not, and punishment. The method of researched used was looking at over 850 booking photos of black and white male offenders. The area of study was in Minnesota, and performed in two counties. The specific counties were chosen because they carried the highest concentration of African American population. Also, the two counties hold more than over a third of felony convictions for the whole state. To be able to compare the findings with previous studies those two factors were important.

The dependent variables were broken up into two categories. The first one being sentence type, and the second being sentence length. The results showed that the sentence length given was not affected by Afrocentric features as much as sentence type was. As a matter of fact, when it came to sentence type it made a very big difference. The independent variables were severity of crime, crime history, if they were given trial, and if they had a private attorney. The demographic variables had been broken down by county, age, skin tone, and features. The best explanation for reason for sentence showed to be features. Having darker skin tone and Afrocentric facial features are associated with harsher a sentence type. In fact, even Whites and Hispanics with Afrocentric features will receive higher sentences.

Monday, March 20, 2017

Sukhdaved Sandhu

Words:529

The Enduring Racial Divide in Death Penalty Support.

Whites are known to be more supportive of the death penalty than blacks. Data from three studies were collected to understand why each race feels this way. The studies examined divides in socioeconomic status. There was a positive correlation between wealth/education and support for capital punishment. It also examined sub cultural differences, political ideology, racial differences, right to life position, and discrimination. The NORC-GSS took surveys asking whether they favor or oppose the death penalty for those convicted of murder. They were also asked which political party they would favor. This survey was supplemented by another survey given to a jury pool. Each of this jury pool was randomized. The first study had 697 subjects and the second 872 subjects. Questions were different for each of the two study groups. Study 1 found that 69.7 percent of whites were supportive of capital punishment while only 51 percent of blacks and 53 percent of Hispanics supported capital punishment. The finding from the NORC-GSS data showed that the forces for white and black support for the death penalty was unknown. The divide wasn't because of economic status, sub cultural orientations, political persuasion, religions, right to life, or perceptions about criminal justice. There was a consistent failure to account for the racial and ethnic divide so there must be more testing done to figure out what has caused the divide in the support of capital punishment. The study was very limited and tentative in nature so there is a need to repeat this research.

Historical Events and Spaces of Hate: Hate Crimes against Arabs and Muslims in Post-9/11 America

Hate crime over the last three decades has been a social problem of national concern. The United States has adopted legislation against hate crimes. These hate crimes are best described as offenses against a person or property motivated by bias toward race, religion, ethnicity, disability, or sexual orientation. The collected data shows that hate crimes have decrease over the last 20 years, but hate crime against Arabs and Muslims have increased after September 11, 2001. In their research methods they found that over the period of 2001 to 2002 46.6 percent were motivated by racial bias, 18.9 percent by religious bias, 18.6 percent by ethnic bias, 15.4 percent by sexual orientation bias, and .5 percent by bias against the disabled. By this count all hate crimes except crime motivated by racial bias increased. The dependent variable was the anti-Arab and anti- Muslim hate crimes. Hate crimes were the highest against Muslims in 2001 with a total of 481 reported incidents, as well as crimes against other ethnicity with 1502 reports. There was a dramatic increase in religious bias against Muslims. First hate crime data against Arabs and Muslims before September 11, 2001 was collected. Then negative binomial regression to assess whether county-level characteristics that were related with anti-Arab/Muslim hate crimes before and after 9/11. The objective of this research was to find the correlation between 9/11 and hate crimes against Arabs and Muslims. 8 and ½ months before 9/11 hate crimes against Arabs/Muslims increased from 26 and 260 and 8 and ½ months after 9/11 hate crimes increased 517 and 1502. So there was a positive correlation between 9/11 and hate crimes against Arabs and Muslims post 9/11.

Sunday, March 19, 2017

crime quiz 2

Miguel Penate (565 words)

Crime quiz

Sociology 111

Professor Kubal

For my crime quiz I chose two articles describing crime and race. The first article was Perceived Racial and Ethnic Composition of Neighborhood and Perceived Risk of Crime. This article is based off the concept that if there is a majority of an ethnic group their fear of crime will be enforced by others meaning, the presence of another ethnic group causes discomfort for the main ethnic group in that vicinity. The data was collected using random-sample surveys. Often using questions like if the subjects felt safe in their neighborhoods. Another similar question stated was if the subject's thoughts on a community or neighborhood where they felt was not safe to be at night. The independent variables used were using statistics comparing demographics of neighborhoods of the subjects. For example what percent of each ethnic group lived in their neighborhood and what was the majority. This research would show if race had to do with security of one's home and if it was favored or opposed due to racial segregation. Another independent variable used was the subject's age, income, ethnicity, gender, and education. The research findings were that most blacks had a higher fear rate of crime in their neighborhood than whites. Often more black people lived in poorer neighborhoods than Hispanics and whites. Even with this being true Hispanics that had lived by other ethnic groups apparently are considered more threatening in terms of crime victim risk than the perceptions concerning black Americans in neighborhoods. Another finding is that in all three groups' female subjects with little education were more likely to perceive a risk of victimization. The overall find was that most if not all the variables were ruled out when it came to risk of crime and race seem to be the most effective variable too deciding whether the subjects felt a high risk of crime in their neighborhood.

The second article was Black Neighbors, Higher Crime? The Role of Racial Stereotypes in Evaluations of Neighborhood Crime Author(s): Lincoln Quillian and Devah Pager Source: American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 107, No. 3 (November 2001), pp. 717-767 Published by: The University of Chicago Press. This article discussed African American and white segregation. The article also discusses how they feel about each other's neighborhoods and levels of crime due to stereotypes attached to African Americans in neighborhoods. Like that of the first article the study used random sampling surveys over the telephone comparing individuals and neighborhood characteristics. For the rest of the studies data they compared other studies such as crime factors and neighborhood decline in Chicago, criminality and victimization in Seattle, and crime changes in Baltimore. These studies helped in understanding if race and stereotype of blacks being the cause for high crime rates in neighborhoods was true or just a stereotype. This study unlike the first article did not use Hispanics for the research. For the individual studies they discovered that most females tend to be more fearful of crime then men and that the elderly also are more fearful than the youth. The results were despite all the studies and variables the highest crime rates and most inspired fear was due to young black in neighborhood even when controlling for actual measures of crime rates. For both articles the conclusion was always based around race and how despite every other variable it was always the main factor for segregation and crime.

Sergio Cortez

Sergio Cortez, 491 words
1st Article: "Perceived Racial and Ethnic Composition of Neighborhood and Perceived Risk of Crime" & 2nd Article: "Black Neighbors, Higher Crime? The Role of Racial Stereotypes in Evaluations of Neighborhood Crime"

What we're able to see while reading the text in the first article is that the fear of crime due to blacks being around has always been around, in recent times things have begun to escalate. What the whole issue seems to be and the reason that white individuals fear blacks is due to things such as illegal activities involving drugs as well as violent crimes occurring. Although some may argue that whites are simply just racist and hate the black community whites have a whole different story which is that they're not racist they just fear what comes with the presence of blacks. A study conducted in 1996 that involved 3000 Florida adults sought to learn if the perceived racial and ethnic composition was related to the perceived risk of crime. In this study hispanics were also included due to them being a fast growing and large group. What they found out was that factors relate at least some way with things such as the region in which they live in. Another study done which ended up using 1984 survey data showed that there was lower safety levels in neighborhoods that consisted of mostly blacks and also that neighbors who were much more different in race were also uneasy and had low safety levels. Basically the higher the black population present the less they felt at ease.
In the second article we see the reasons on why blacks are the biggest segregated race than any other one. The reason this is present very much in society is due to one main factor and that is if whites notice a very high population of blacks present in a neighborhood then they will avoid it at all costs and as a result of this there is no change seen in the neighborhood. So because of all this we don't really see that white and black interaction occurring. There is basically this big avoidance that whites are doing in order to avoid their contact with black individuals. Although findings describe this there are also findings where we see more details regarding how whites deal with the presence of blacks in neighborhoods. We notice that there actually is exceptions. A heavy concentration of blacks in a neighborhood certainly do scare away whites from presiding in it, but if there is about a third or lower presence of blacks then whites are actually more comfortable with living in areas with that amount of blacks. As the study continue we begin to see exactly why whites tend to avoid areas of higher black presence. That reason is that whites believe areas that barbour more blacks tend to have much more violence and crime. This has to be a very big factor when white families are searching for a home to settle in to raise their young so the thought of having a very low crime filled neighborhood is what keeps whites away from predominantly black neighborhoods.

Rocio Chavez

597 words

Soc. 111

19 March 2017

Crime Quiz 2

"I Would be a Bulldog": Tracing the spillover of carceral identity by Patrick Lopez-Aguado

The methods used in the article consisted of participant observation research as well as one-on-one interviews with teenagers who were part of the juvenile detention systems in Fresno, California. The author conducted this research for fifteen months tracking inmates through their time in the detention system and interviewing some once they were released and began to attend the San Joaquin Educational Academy, a continuation high school in Fresno, California as well. The author chose to base his research in Fresno because it was found that Fresno has the highest rates of juvenile incarceration in the state and is home to a majority Latino population. The author conducted interviews with twenty-four teenagers ranging from 15-18 years of age who had been sentenced to juvenile detention focusing on those who were affiliated with gangs whether it be Norteño, Sureño, or Bulldog. They were asked how their experience in the detention system affected their lives upon being released and their acquaintances. The author found that all participants were victims of larger prison sorting systems that were adopted by the juvenile centers and are used to regulate those groups that do not get along. Sorting the young men and women upon arrival based on appearance and clothing would determine where they were placed and who they could encounter to avoid problems. What was found by the research was that almost all participants held a common belief that it was only a matter of when they ended up in jail. A mentality of "it's inevitable". They held this mentality because almost everyone they knew had been in juvenile detention on in jail at some point in their lives. In addition, it was found that it was more likely for those who were not gang affiliated to end up "backing up" the bulldog gang if they had to make a choice. Another finding was that many participants didn't want to be part of a gang, it was just something that was the norm in their daily lives or neighborhoods.

Ethnicity, information sources, and fear of crime By Jodi Lane and James W. Meeker

The research conducted for this paper was mostly done by using random digital dialing with residents of Orange County. The authors were in search for Latino and White residents most important source of crime news information. Although they tried to focus on just White and Latino residents, there were a few other ethnicities that took part in the study as well but were not included. I believe the information that was found was enough to generalize because the response rate for the survey was about 69% The dependent variable that was examined was overall fear of crime of residents. During the survey, they were given a point scale from 1 to 4 on the overall fear of crime ranging from not afraid to very afraid. They were also given eight scenarios of crimes which all seemed to be able to change ones' opinion and fear of crime if a victim to any one of the eight. I believe the independent variables that were mentioned were all important factors that should have been included. These were age, sex, education, victimization experiences and judicial district. I was not able to think of any meaningful ones that might have been left out. It was found that for both Latino and White residents, the most significant source of crime information was either television or the newspaper. It was interesting that as respondent sex was female and younger in age, television made their fear of crime levels increase. As for people that were older, educated, and got their crime information through the newspaper, their fear of crime levels decreased.

Rocio Chavez

597 words

Soc. 111

19 March 2017

Crime Quiz 2

"I Would be a Bulldog": Tracing the spillover of carceral identity by Patrick Lopez-Aguado

Ethnicity, information sources, and fear of crime By Jodi Lane and James W. Meeker

Genevieve Aleman Crime Quiz

Genevieve Aleman

2nd Crime Quiz

SOC111 MW 3:30-4:45

Word Count: 523

Title: The enduring racial divide in death penalty support

By: John K. Cochran and Mitchell B. Chamlin

This article addresses the racial divide between Blacks and Whites regarding support for the death penalty in the United States. Rather than focusing solely on the disparity between blacks and whites opinions on the death penalty, many other variables are examined in order to get a deeper basis for this continuing divide of opinion. The additional variables that were examined were, socioeconomic statuses, subcultural differences, political ideologies, religious orientations, views on right-to-life, opinions of governmental responsibilities, opinions about racial inequality, personal experience with the criminal justice system, fear of crime/victimization experience, justice attitudes and attribution styles. This study was interested whith to what extent these variables/possible explanations account for the racial difference in death penalty support.

These variables were studied using three different data sources, which consisted of two local surveys of venirepersons called for jury service in Hillsborough County and a cumulative data set of the NORC General Social Surveys (GSS) from 1972-1996.The authors acknowledge that the data used is at fault of being inappropriate for the use of generalizing since they are second-hand sources, so they insist that this article is primarily exploratory and not a "final word".

In relation to the data obtained via GSS this study failed to identify a basis for the racial gap but successful in confirming the existence in an enduring divide, as well as, provide evidence that Black and White support of the death penalty is affected by the same social trends. The data from the two surveys was able to provide evidence that over time, Black and White support has been equally affected by the same social factors. The parallel trend that was identified suggests that the same social factors are shaping Black and White opinions on the death penalty. This conclusion is, as the authors say, an interesting "social fact".

Title: The impact of light skin on prison time for black female offenders

By: Jill Viglione, Lance Hannon and Robert DeFina

This article focuses on the impact skin tone has over female prison sentencing and actual time served. The data consisted of inmate records of 12,158 black women from North Carolina from the years of 1995-2009. Although the data is second hand, the large number of subjects made for a very good sample that supplied a variation of characteristics. Inmate records included a description of skin tone on a scale, which allowed researchers to easily study the variable of skin tone. Unfortunately, no photos were included so they had to rely on the description of skin tone that was made by correctional officers. This study took the effort to control seven other factors, which are perceived weight, whether they were arrested while on parole, whether they were convicted as a habitual felon and a few others.

The results of this study support that black woman who have lighter skin receive more lenient prison sentences and serve less actual time. Women with light skin receive about 12% less time behind bars. The actual time behind bars is reduced by 11%. This study also showed that being thin was negatively related to maximum prison sentences. These authors conclude that discrimination exists in the criminal justice system.

Heather Lewis

600 words

SOC-111

March 18, 2017

Quiz Crime #2

One of the studies I read called "Ethnicity, information sources, and fear of crime" by Jodi Lane and James W. Meeker used methods and findings in the reading to determine if people are more afraid of crime due to television or newspaper. These methods and findings in the reading is that the dependent variable is fear of crime. The study examines people who live in Orange County, California (where the study took place) in which the people (focused on whites and Latinos) were asked what they were each afraid of which was a total of eight questions. The independent variables were demographics and the top source of information about crime. The demographics that were used were sex, age, education, people who were victims and the places of political lines in where the person lives. The people were also asked a specific open ended question to each get a sense of their feelings. The variables concentrated on two things that were what they feared the most and the other was what they saw as an uncertainty. At the end of the research the researchers, who did the study, wanted to know if unintended victim in which happened differently depending on the audience in which they said that in some cases the effect of terror is unintended through what the person saw as an uncertainty. They also found that when people read the newspaper there was less uncertainty in which indicated that there was less terror of crime. When people would watch the news on television there was more terror of what they saw in uncertainty of crime. There was also an impact on media sources depended on the ethic group. In this regard Latinos and whites use media differently which indicates that Latinos watch television in turn makes their terror of crime higher than the whites that read the newspaper has low terror of crime.

In the study called "Historical Events and Spaces of Hate: Hate Crimes against Arabs and Muslims in Post-9/11 America" by Ilir Disha, James C. Cavendish and Ryan D. King is about how hate crimes against Muslims and Arabs went up or down with an explanation as to why. In the findings and methods the researchers used determined that there was increase in hate crimes against Muslims and Arabs after the 9/11 attack by a 1600% increase. The researchers used intergroup conflict that is being driven by three types of factors: demographics, economic conditions and distribution of political power. The researchers used indent-level hate crime data in which there are several incidents that were recorded by the FBI which has several biases that a hate crime occurred. They used county-level data in which the researchers used counties that Arab has a nonzero population and they only included counties with nonzero Muslim population based on county-level estimates. The dependent variable is the combined number of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hate crimes. They also used focus predictor variables in which they measured the percentage of population that is non-Hispanic white, the population that is Arab ancestry and income as an indicator of economic conditions. They focused mainly on the percentage of Arab ancestry in a county that is the focus independent variable and included some Muslim population. The control variables were the total population size and urban counties because they have crimes of all types. The researchers included political message measures that affect the result of reporting hate crimes. There were also some incident-level findings that other hate crimes against other ethnic groups went down such as Asians and Latinos. One of the only other hate crimes that increased was Jews. There was also county-level findings is that there was more hate crimes against Arabs and Muslims with higher white populations. There was a concluding thought that the hate crimes had little to do with prejudice and intergroup violence.

crime quiz #2

With the article, "Race, economy and punishment: inequity and racial disparity in imprisonment, 1972-2002" it looked at the Rusche and Kirchheimer thesis that argued that increases in incarceration rates are independent of crime rate and instead are due to a potential threat to social order from the unemployed masses. Going further off of that study, this study looked to explain why African Americans are so disproportionately represented in the U.S. prison population. They pulled data from 2 different sources. The first source was the National Institute of Justice's data resource program, they used this source so that they could evaluate data on a national level. The other source was used from Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research. They pulled data from this source because it included data on imprisonment from the 50 states. The dependent variable was the prisoners per 100 thousand residents. The independent variables were social threat such as violent crime rate, property crime rate, drug arrest rate, the unemployment rate, Gini income coefficient, percentage of population below poverty level, and percentage of population that's African American. They found that on average the incarceration rate was 218/100,000. The violent crime rate, on average, was 437/100,000. The property crime rate was 4,153/100,000. The drug crime rate, on average, was 367/100,000. The Gini income coefficient, on average, was .4. The unemployment rate, on average, was 6%. The African American percentage, on average, was 9%. What they also found which is most notable is that a better predictor of prison admission is income inequality.

With the article "ethnicity, information sources, and fear of crime" it used the data from a 1997 survey that was conducted about gang crime in Orange County. They used a random digit dialer that contacted residents of Orange County where 50 percent contacted were males and the other 50 were females. They then took a random sample of 100 from a list of Latino surnames to ensure that they would have a large enough subsample. The sample was offered in 3 languages: English, Spanish and Vietnamese. They had a response rate for the survey of 69% and their margin of error was +/- 3%. Their sample size was 779 for the total sample, 555 for the while sample and 224 for the Latino sample. Overall what they found was that indirect victimization does happen differently depending on the audience. For most cases the effect on fear is indirect through perceived risk. When discussing the total sample, if the newspaper was the primary source of crime information the individuals in the survey perceived less risk and therefore had less of a fear of crime. But when the primary source changes to television the individuals perceived risk increases which leads to a higher fear of crime. They also found that Latinos are more likely to use the television as their primary source and therefore have a higher perceived risk which leads to a higher fear of crime. Whites tend to use the newspaper as their primary source of crime information and therefore have a less perceived risk which leads to less of a fear of crime.

Tou Xiong

Tou Xiong, 461words

Soc 111 M-W 3:30pm

03/19/2017

Crime quiz

Laura Rodriguez

576 words

The article, "Violent Crime, Mobility Decisions, and Neighborhood Racial/Ethnic Transition," relates to the racial and ethnic transformation that occurs in household and tract areas. It states that whites are more likely to leave neighborhoods with higher rates of violent crime than African Americans. Whites are much less likely to move into a housing unit that have more violent crime, especially if it's increasing. The two minorities to perform with opposite views are African Americans and Latinos, they are more likely to move into the neighborhoods with high and violent crime rates.

The U.S. Bureau of the 1993 Census was used to gather data about the crimes that have taken place in several cities. There were thirteen cities used to gather crime data along with their related AHS waves. Different waves of information were used from the census, for example, for mobility periods it was from the middle of the decade.

The data and methods collected in this research indicated that the main effect of violent crimes increases the residential mobility of white residents. They have more accessibility and are better financially prepared to move into better neighborhoods. There was no evidence showing that African Americans would leave neighborhoods with violent crime. From a theoretical explanation, the article acknowledges as a fact, that African Americans are inherently more violent. I personally believe this might be an explanation as to why they don't fear and can put up with living in a neighborhood with a high crime rate. The article didn't give any evidence of Latinos being constrained of their ability to leave these neighborhoods.

The findings in the article indicate that the amount of racial and ethnic minority groups in a neighborhood, are the result of the higher rates of crime. It's mentioned that the level of violent crime in a neighborhood affects the residential out- and in-mobility of white residents and blacks. It's determined that white residents have more ability to leave the neighborhoods with violent crime, and are able to avoid moving into them. I believe they are knowledgeable and have more access to resources and know how to benefit from them.

In the article, "Perceived Racial and Ethnic Composition of Neighborhood and Perceived Risk of Crime," the results derive from analysis between the interpretation of racial and ethnic composition of neighborhood and criminal threats. It informs us of information indicating that the crime rate isn't about the crime risk but the perceptions of racial composition of the minorities in a neighborhood.

This article randomly interviewed 3,000 Florida residents in the means of discovering what ethnicity is interpreted as a risk of criminal victimization. The analysis shows that whites feel threatened by Hispanics and blacks in areas of South Florida where they are outnumbered in population. Hispanics feel threatened by blacks and other Hispanics outside of South Florida when outnumbered. These two results perceive the "social threat," a perspective which proves is the cause for mobilization. The research for this article looked into the relationship between racial composition of a place and the measures of social control.

The findings indicate that whites most consistently report racial compositions of places and a "fear of crime." Also, that fear of crime was related to an assumption of percentage of blacks only among white respondents. The results for black respondents, states that the perception of a highly-populated area reduces the notion of African Americans becoming victims and that Hispanics living nearby increases the risk. It's also found that in demographic groups, minority threats associated with Hispanics are more consequential than a racial threat associated with blacks.

Carmen Esqueda

The Statistics Showing Peoples Sense of Fear Due to Media and Crime

A few studies have been done to research the fear of crime people have towards ethnicities other than their own. One study conducted had only white participants and the questions asked pertained to blacks. One of the questions was about the proximity of blacks within a white neighborhood. The results proved whites to have a high fear of blacks because they related blacks to crime. Even though this study was conducted more than a decade ago, something's do not change although this time around the studies included Hispanics. The studies conducted included participants residing in south Florida and the cities surrounding south Florida. The variables consisted of age, gender, education, and income. In addition, the question about proximity of blacks living in the neighborhood was part of the study this time including Hispanics within that question. The results again proved fear exist, but this time among blacks and Hispanics. Overall, Hispanics and blacks rated high and when it came to the females SD (.50) and age placed high age SD (16.84). Considering the study was more recent than the original one the results could have changed/increased because there is more crime being committed within inner cities and through out the United States. In addition, more people have become victims to criminal acts, so that alone was the cause of having a heightened sense of fear. Respondents with high income SD (1.20) and education SD (1.16) rate low to having a sense of fear towards anyone. The studies also proved that when a race is low in numbers within their community they have a sense of fear towards other ethnicities living close by are in their neighborhood.

The media plays a big role when it comes to influencing peoples' perception of other ethnicities and crime. Media stigmatizes ethnicities to be of a certain nature and never in a positive light. Therefore, some studies have been conducted to prove media from either television or that a simple newspaper can influence the sense of fear people have due to crime being reported. This study only used participants at random that are white N= (555) and Latino N=(224) all representing the Orange County, California population. The dependent variable is the question to be answered by the respondents and that is to rate their level of fear and how much they fear certain acts of crime, so that makes the variables to be the source of news, once again gender, age and education. Results had shown that people reading the newspaper have a higher sense of fear when crimes are reported in their neighborhood versus if the crime happened elsewhere the level of fear is low. Now television compared to newspaper differs because the results shown prove that race did not matter overall, the two races feared crime just the same. It all depended if people were watching high crime shows, or if television was their only source of news, also if crime was reported about a different city then the people feared that specific area instead of their own. The findings in this study are similar to the other article because women (white women) 52.3% have high levels of fear and those who have been a victim to a crime 21.6%. Young people ranging in ages 25 to 34 among latinos is 36.6% and whites rated high between the ages of 35 to 44 27.9%. When it came to education Latinos with little education rated high at 27.7% and whites with some education rated at 27.9%. Overall, I believe fear is present all over the country due to media.

Articles:

Perceived Racial and Ethnic Composition of Neighborhood and Perceived Risk of Crime

Ethnicity, Information Sources, and Fear of Crime

Monday, March 13, 2017

Marlene Alcantar

From the article, "Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Structural Disadvantage and Crime: White, Black, and Hispanic comparisons" by Jeffery T. Ulmer, Casey T. Harris, and Darrell Steffensmeier, the method that they used to get the data is from using census place-level data from California and New York. The goal of this study is to find out what is going on with racial/ethnic disparities in violence. They do so by focusing on the relationship between race/ethnic gaps in the differences in violent crime amongst those groups. The dependent variables were black-white, Hispanic-white, and black-Hispanic gaps in homicide and violent index. Violent index is the sum of arrests for homicide, aggravated assault, forcible rap, and robbery. The way that they calculated the gaps were by subtracting the race/ethnic disaggregated arrests from one another. The independent variables were three indicators of disadvantages from the gaps. Those three indicators were poverty, unemployment, and female headship. Each of these indicators were measured differently. Poverty is measured as the percentage of residents below the poverty line. Unemployment is measured as the percentage of labor between the ages of 16 and 59 that is unemployed. Female headship is measured as the percentage of families who have children under the age of 18 that are taken care of by a female lead. Some independent variables that they did not mention was age, crime record, demographics, and location-rural, suburban, or urban. There was also some control variables in this study, and these were young male population, population density, and police per capita. The findings from this article was that blacks have the highest homicide and violent index crime rates, followed by Hispanics and then whites. Another finding was that blacks and Hispanic poverty levels are greater than twice of whites. Also, Black female headship is three-times greater than white female headship. The most important finding that I thought was no surprise to me, was that the mean black-white gaps were significantly larger than the Hispanic-white and black-Hispanic gaps.

From the article, "The Enduring Racial Divide in Death Penalty support" by John K. Cochran, and Mitchell B. Chamlin, it talks about the divide between whites and blacks in the United States with the death penalty issue. The method that they used to retrieve this data was from three separate studies, two local surveys of venirepersons and the General Social Surveys. This study tried to examine and understand the reason for such a big divide between blacks and whites with capital punishment. The independent variables for this study were racial differences in socioeconomic status, religion/religiosity, political ideology, positions on right-to-life and other social issues, fear of crime and victimization experience, experience with the criminal justice system, philosophies of punishment, and attribution styles. While the dependent variables were the race/ethnicity of black, white, and differences of how they are effected by the capital punishment support. The most important finding from this was that Whites show significantly higher levels of support for capital punishment than Blacks. Another important finding was that the cumulative data file of the GSS revealed that 72.4 percent of the White respondents supported capital punishment, while only 43.9 percent of the Black respondents supported it. The difference in that is a 28. 5 percent difference that divides the blacks and whites on capital punishment. They also found from the data that Black-White and Hispanic-White differences in death penalty support was not due to differences in economic status, subcultural orientations, political persuasion, religion, right-to-life views, support for welfare, distributive justice, perceptions about criminal justice, fear of crime, victimization experience, media exposure, nor attribution styles. Lastly, they found race to be one of the strongest correlations of death penalty support in the United States because it has an average gap of twenty percent between White and Black levels.

Sergio Cortez

Sergio Cortez, 583 words
1st Article "Ethnicity, information sources, and fear of crime" & 2nd Article "Preferences for Juries Over Judges Across Racial and Ethnic Groups"

In the first article titled we are quickly confronted by information telling us that most of the crimes that are actually broadcasted on news networks, or even shown in news articles are often told a far different way from how they really did occur. So as a result of this people who watch the news, and get informed from what is going on in their community or even in their country by using these types of sources are actually causing them to become even more frightened of everything that they see is going on without actually being able to hear what truly went down. With all this being placed in motion more, and more people automatically place a bad judgement upon either gangs or certain racial groups due to media lies. We're also exposed of the idea of how minority groups don't really make that much money which causes theses groups to live in poor areas rather than the nicer areas of the city. As a result of this they can actually end up being victimized from simply living in a certain area where a bigger concentration of violent crimes, or even drug activities are more likely to occur. We can see studies that focus on certain races, and others that focus on only one race, and the impact that they leave on the people around them that makes them be seen the way that they are. Other studies having to do with the effects that newspaper articles, and news networks have also focus on why they place the fear and we are able to note that the location in which they're in, and different racial groups actually appearing to be dangerous are only some of the things that are responsible for the spark that is being made causing the people to be worried about gangs, or minority groups.
As we move along with the article second article we witness how many different thoughts, and views are actually placed upon both the decision of having a jury, or judge present at a criminal court case for minority groups and whites. Studies help show why certain groups would be willing to go with the jury rather than with the judge and it may seem that the reason for the jury being selected far more rather than the judge is because the fate of your case can be discussed, and looked over within the individuals who carry different morals, views and beliefs, and who may possibly vary in race which can ultimately be more beneficial than having only one single person decide the outcome of the situation. It also feels more appealing to the person having their criminal case looked over to have normal citizens present at the spot due to them feeling less pressure because of the fact that theses people are just like them. A judge alone could also be bias towards a certain race, and we see things like these present in our modern world where it is most talked about how a white judge would not hesitate placing a hispanic or black or any other minority group individual behind bars with very limited evidence. When things like these happen these judges are often given a bad reputation by the people for being racists as some may call it. So with this being said a judge just may appear to those individuals as being more stricter on laws, and regulations and also on making a persons day go from bad to worse.

Marco Gomez

Marco Gomez

Word Count 600

Black Neighbors, Higher Crime? The Role of Racial Stereotypes in Evaluations of Neighborhood Crime

This article is looking at the relation between the neighborhoods racial composition and what people think of the neighborhoods crime problem. This study is conducted by surveying people in 3 cities, Chicago, Baltimore and Seattle and original crime stats gathered from census their police departments. This study states that perceptions of African Americans in neighborhoods affect perceptions of crime level in a positive way. The data found supports that stereotypes influence perceptions of level of crimes in neighborhoods.

Data and Methods

The data the researchers used in this article were gathered from 3 studies. The studies that were used are as followed: The Crime Factors and Neighborhood Decline in Chicago, the Testing Theories of Criminality and Victimization in Seattle, and Crime Changes in Baltimore. The Chicago data came from phone surveys conducted with about 3,300 of people of households in eight Chicago communities. The interviewees were asked questions about their neighborhoods and their perception of crime in them. The Seattle study came from interviews of 5,302 people in 100 Seattle neighborhoods. The survey focused on individual attitudes and experiences. The Baltimore study came from interviewing 704 people in 30 Baltimore neighborhoods. For the Chicago and Seattle studies more info was gathered from census and stats of crime from their police departments, this was not available for the Baltimore study.

Findings

In Chicago study it showed that there was a strong relation between young black men between 12 and 29 years and perceptions of a neighborhood's crime problem. As suspected here neighborhoods with a higher percent of young black men have higher perceived rates of crime, even when using variables. Seattle and Baltimore found to each have less measures of perceived crime than Chicago. The findings found here still showed that as the black population increased, so did the perception of crime in the neighborhoods.