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FALL 20002 Crime, Law, and Deviance

use the newsletter in part as a forumfor intellectual exchange on thefuture of sociological criminology .

There is much other good news.At the Washington meeting the CLDCouncil debated and thenestablished a new distinguishedarticle award to be given every otheryear, starting in 2002. It will be

II named after our esteemed colleagueII and loyal member, James F., Short

Jr. Thanks go to George Bridges forthe original proposal.

Rob Sampson, Chair 2000-0 1

I recently presented a paper

reporting preliminary findingsfrom this dissertation at theAmerican SociologicalAssociation meetings inWashington, D.C. I reported thata criminal justice professional'sperception of bereaved people isstructured by the professional'sorganization in the criminal justice

system (e,g., police department,prosecutor's office) and theprofessional's role within thatorganization ( e,g., detective,counselor, prosecutor). In futureanalyses, I will examine bereavedpeople's perceptions of thecriminal justice system.

Sarah Goodrum, University ofTexas, appointed Student Editorof the Crime, Law and DevianceNewsletter .

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Plans are also afoot for anIIexciting sl~te ofsessio~ for next

year's meeting. The tOplCS andsession organizers for next year arelisted in this newsletter. Please start

!1thinking about papers you mightsubmit or recommend that otherssubmit (whether members ofCLDor not). In other research, I have used a

symbolic interactionist frameworkto examine the male batterer'sview of himself and others indomestic violence. This article isforthcoming in SociologicalInquiry in Spring 2001. In thiswork, I find that male batterers use

Hello I am the new assistant strategies of denial and blame toeditor oithe Crime Law and dissociate (or separate) theirDeviance Newsl~, and I have violent self from their true self.been asked to introduce myself. They also demonstrate a range of

role-taking abilities. Some of themost violent men in the studyexpressed a surprising degree of

-~ understanding for a partner'semotional and physical painfollowing violence. I argue thattwo possible explanations for thisapparent contradiction involve thetype of batterer who expresses

empathy (i.e.,dysphoric/borderlinebatterer) and the possibly selfishmotivations for expressing suchempathy (ice., dissociation of theviolent self from the true selt).

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I'll be honest and admit thatAnaheim is a dreadful place for aconference, but we can make up for

.f that with stimulating panel sessionsand a livelyCLD reception. We arelooking into ways to make thereception a little different, Californiastyle. I should mention as well thatour future is in superb leadershiphands. Steve Messner, Chair ofSociology at SUNY -Albany, iswaiting in the wings to take overafter the 200 1 meeting.

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Finally, be thinking aboutnominating the best recent books incriminology for the 200 1 Albert J .Reiss award for distinguishedscholarly publication. The Reissaward is given every other year, andis supported by an endowment withassets over $10,000. The 1999winner of the book award, SimonSinger, will be chairing thecommittee and taking nominations.

As assistant editor, my majortask this year is to design andmaintain a website for the Crime,Law, and Deviance Section ofASA. Gary Jensen and I are just

IILook for an announcement in the

next newsletter, along with more onthe Short award. In the meantime,send in your comments, as we will

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I am a doctoral candidate in theDepartment of Sociology at theUniversity of Texas at Austin, and Iplan to complete my degree inSpring 200 I. My research focuseson the criminal justice system andvictims of crime. In my dissertation.I look at people who have lost a

loved one to murder. I usequantitative and qualitative data toassess the effects of

sociodemographic characteristics,social relationships, and the criminaljustice system on this type ofbereavement. I received a NationalInstitute of Justice GraduateResearch Fellowship to help fund

this research.

FALL 20003 Crime, Law, and Deviance

decision-makingprocesses incriminal justice institutions, andquantitative methods. She expectsto receive her Ph.D. in 2002.

( cewbond@u.washington.edu)

beginning to construct this site, sowe welcome your ideas about its

.,organization and content. Pleasesend me your suggestions via e-mailat sdg@mail.la.utexas.edu.

Christine's summary of thearticle follows:

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adjusting for detailed offenseelements, there remained asignificant gender effect across allpre-trial decision contexts. Maledefendants were more likely tohave bail imposed than females,while female defendants are morelikely to receive unconditionalpre-trial release. Although thedefendant's criminal behavior wasimportant, the more subtledifferences surrounding thebehavior did not fully mediate therelationship between gender andpre-trial outcomes-at least forpre-trial release decisions infelony cases.

This study was motivated byquestions about the ways in whichgender inequalities are manifested inthe administration of justice.Despite an explosion of research inthe last two decades, we have alimited understanding of how genderworks as a mechanism ofstratification, producing differentialcourt outcomes. An enduringargument in the theoretical debateabout the relationship betweengender and punishment is the role ofdifferential criminal involvement bymen and women. Recent researchhas provided persuasive evidencethat the traditional measures ofcriminal involvement of male andfemale defendants are flawed. Theessential theme of these criticisms isthat we have ignored differences inthe meaning and variability ofmen'sand women's offending, differencesthat may account for differences inpunishment outcomes.

Although a gender effectremained after introducingdetailed offense elements into themodel, these measures may nothave captured the mix ofcircumstances critical in assessingthe social seriousness of theoffense. To address this concern,I selected a small matched sampleof male/female pairs with differentoutcomes. The conclusion of thislimited narrative analysis was thatthere was evidence of unexplaineddifferences in pre-trial outcomesbetween matched male and femaledefendants, supporting thefindings of the statistical analysis.Given the small size of thissample, the precise extent of this"gender effect" could not bedetermined. While disentanglinggender from offense elements andsocial histories is difficult,differences in assessments ofoffense seriousness were notalways sufficient in explainingdisparate bail outcomes for maleand female defendants.

Using pre-trial and bail decisionsof the King County Superior Court(WA) from 1994 to 1996, Iexamined the relationship betweengender, the context of offending andcriminal case outcomes. For asample of 705 adult felonydefendants, details about thecircumstances surrounding theoffending behavior were coded fromtheir probable cause statements. Ithen estimated a multinomiallogitmodel, comparing unconditional andconditional pre-trial releaseoutcomes to bail. The key findingof this analysis was that, after

Christine received her B.A., in.1 sociology and English, and a lawII degree with honors from the

University ofQueensland inAustralia. Before entering graduateschool, she worked for theQueensland Criminal JusticeCommission where her dutiesincluded evaluating policingprograms. Her research interestsinclude formal social control issues,the sociology of law, particularly

These findings have threekey theoretical implications forour understanding of gender andpunishment. E.i!§!, our theories of

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IIgender and punishment need to George Holden (Psychology).account for the context or stage of Susan Klein (Law ), Jonathanthe decision itself. Current and past Koehler (Business), Micl1aelIi research implies that different Lauderdale (Social Work),

I characteristics may be important at William &pelman (LBJ), Daviddifferent decision stages in Springer (Social Work), and Markexplaining the relationship between Stafford (Sociology). Danielgender and ptmishment. Second. Mears, a recent Ph. D. recipient inand perhaps most importantly, our Sociology frotn the University ofresearch must give priority to Texas at Austin, is a Postdoctoralincorpomting measures of court Fellow in the Center.

II officials' perceptions. How do court A recent addition in theofficials construct configurations of Department of Sociology at the Recent futlded research

..seriousness and evaluate University of Texas at Austin is The projects in the Center are: ablameworthiness and culpability? Center for Criminology and process and outcome evaluation ofFinaJl~. a clear impJjcation ofthjs Criminal Justice Research. This is a the Texas youth Commission'sanalysis and past research is that multi-disciplinary center for Chemical Dependency Treatmentboth gender and criminal conducting basic research on the Program; a collaborativeinvolvement matter. A defendant's causes and consequences of crime, evaluation with the Texas Juvenilecriminal behavior has "meaning"-a as well as policy and program Probation Commission of themeaning dependent on other social evaluation research in criminal assessment and referral process forcharacteristics-for judges, court justice. .juvenile offenders~ an impactofficials, and other defendants. Our analysis of pubic order offendingessential task is the identification of The primary objectives of in Austin; a GIS analysis of thethe mechanisms thrOUgll which the Center include providitlg a relationship between public ordergender and criminal behavior fonun for the exchange of crime and more serious crime; anproduce criminal case outcomes. infonnation and expertise about assessment of the impact of

crime and criminal justice, incarcerating juvenile offenders atThis research, based on m.y facilitating collaborative research the Texas Department of Crimitlal

Master '.v the.vi.y, wa.Y condl,cted under witlllocal and state criminal justice Justice; and all assessment of thethe guidance of Profes.\'ors George agencies, and enhancing graduate feasibility of developing aBridges and Daphne Kuo al Ihe research and training opportunities community court in Austin.[fniver.\'ity ofWa.\.hington, in criminology and criminal justice. Moreover, the Center has

constructed and maintains aThe Center combines the web site tor the Bureau ot~ Justice

Spotlight on talents and expertise of Faculty Statistics to provideinfonnationC ' La Research Associates and about use ofBJS data sets.

nme, w, ' undergraduate and graduate studentsand Deviance from the College of Liberal Arts, The Center does not offer

Programs including Sociology, the Lyndon B. a degree in criminology orJohnson School for Public Affairs, criminal jl1Stice. Stlldentsthe School of Law, the College of affiliated with the Center seek a

CRIMFJLA WIDEVIANCE A T Business Administration, and the degt'ee in an academic depaI1mentTHE UNIVERSITY OF TEXA<) School of Social Work. Faculty or college, such as sociology,AT AUSTIN Researc~ Associates.are: William psychology, social work, or law,

Kelly, Director (Sociology) Ronald where they take such courses asAngel (Sociology), William Black juvenile delinquency, criminology,(LBJ), Micllael Churgin (Law}, criminal justice, theories of crimeRobert Dawson (Law) J ack Gibbs causation, social control, deviance,(Sociology , Centennial Professor .juvenile justice, sociology of law,Emeritus at Vanderbilt University), social work in criminal justice,

crimellaw!deviance: SheldonEkland-Olson (also Executive VicePresident and Provost). WilliamKelly. Mark Stafford, TeresaSullivan (also Vice Presidetlt alldDean of Graduate Studies). andMark W arr .Their research interestsinclude: recidivism among parolees.death penalty. causes of homicide,bankIUptcy. and delinquent peers.

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There are five facultymembers in tlle Department ofSociology at the University of Texasat Austin who teach courses andcooduct research in

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