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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Boys Will Be Boys: A Social Control Approach To Assessment Of Gender-Based Sentencing Disparity In Norfolk Circuit Court Cases, Fay F. Spence Oct 2005

Boys Will Be Boys: A Social Control Approach To Assessment Of Gender-Based Sentencing Disparity In Norfolk Circuit Court Cases, Fay F. Spence

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

This study evaluated the relationship between gender and sentencing severity for defendants convicted of violent crimes, victimless crimes, and theft crimes in Norfolk Circuit Court during 2001 and 2002. Based upon social control theories, the author hypothesized that women receive harsher penalties than men for violent crimes and victimless crimes, but that men receive harsher penalties for theft crimes. To test these hypotheses, the author relied, in part, upon data collected by the Norfolk Commonwealth Attorney's office on 3368 criminal cases filed in 2001 and concluded by May 22, 2002. After eliminating cases not pertinent to the study, the data …


Social Disorganization And The Ability And Willingness To Enact Control: A Preliminary Test, Ruth A. Triplett, Ivan Y. Sun, Randy R. Gainey Jan 2005

Social Disorganization And The Ability And Willingness To Enact Control: A Preliminary Test, Ruth A. Triplett, Ivan Y. Sun, Randy R. Gainey

Sociology & Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Dominant models in the social disorganization literature differentially focus on the ability of neighborhoods to enact social control and the willingness to do so. Despite the interest in both concepts, often no clear definition of either is provided, and there is little discussion of their relationship or how they interact to affect neighborhood crime rates. This paper begins to explore the relationship between ability and willingness to enact social control. The findings suggest that, for formal control, ability and willingness are closely related. Furthermore, at the aggregate level, concentrated disadvantage combined with perceived inability has a strong impact on neighborhood …