Getting to Death: Race and the Paths of Capital Cases after \u3cem\u3eFurman\u3c/em\u3e

Decades of research on the administration of the death penalty have recognized the persistent arbitrariness in its implementation and the racial inequality in the selection of defendants and cases for capital punishment. This Article provides new insights into the combined effects of these two constitutional challenges. We show how these features of post-Furman capital punishment operate at each stage of adjudication, from charging death-eligible cases to plea negotiations to the selection of eligible cases for execution and ultimately to the execution itself, and how their effects combine to sustain the constitutional violations first identified 50 years ago in Furman. Analyzing a dataset of 2,328 first-degree murder convictions in Georgia from 1995–2004 that produced 1,317 death eligible cases, we show that two features of these cases combine to produce a small group of persons facing execution: victim race and gender, and a set of case-specific features that are often correlated with race. We also show that these features explain which cases progress from the initial stages of charging to a death sentence, and which are removed from death eligibility at each stage through plea negotiations. Consistent with decades of death penalty research, we also show the special focus of prosecution on cases where Black defendants murder white victims. The evidence in the Georgia records suggests a regime marred less by overbreadth in its statute than capriciousness and randomness in the decision to seek death and to seek it in a racially disparate manner. These two dimensions of capital case adjudication combine to sustain the twin failures that produce the fatal lottery that is the death penalty

(Crime) School is in Session: Mapping Illegal Earnings to Institutional Placement

A growing consensus suggests that incarcerating offenders tends to have either null or criminogenic effects at both the individual and neighborhood levels. There is also further evidence that there are unintended consequences of incarcerating juvenile offenders such as delayed psychosocial development and school dropout. The current study considers a much less examined hypothesis — that correctional environments can facilitate the accumulation of “criminal capital” and might actually encourage offending by serving as a school of crime. Using unique panel data from a sample of serious juvenile offenders, we are able to identify the criminal capital effect by considering illegal earnings and information regarding institutional stays over a seven year period. We have two separate measures that tap into the different mechanisms by which offenders can acquire criminal capital within institutions: the prevalence of friends in the facility who have committed income generating crimes and the length of institutional stays as a cumulative dosage. We find that both facility measures have independent positive effects on an individual’s daily illegal wage rate, even after controlling for important time varying covariates. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed

A Good Man Always Knows His Limitations : Overconfidence in Criminal Offending

Traditional criminological research in the area of rational choice and crime decisions places a strong emphasis on offenders’ perceptions of risk associated with various crimes. Yet, this literature has thus far generally neglected the role of individual overconfidence in both the formation of subjective risk perceptions and the association between risk and crime. In other types of high risk behaviors which serve as analogs to crime, including stock trading and uncertain business and investment decisions, overconfidence is shown to have a stimulating effect on an individuals’ willingness to engage in these behaviors. Using data from two separate samples, this paper explores the prevalence of overconfidence in offending risk perceptions for a variety of crime types, and, in one sample serious offending juveniles, attempts to link overconfidence to a higher likelihood of offending. Our results show that overconfidence is both highly prevalent in risk perceptions across samples, and it is highly associated with higher rates of offending, even when controlling for risk. We also outline several theoretical issues for future research on this topic, including its relationship to self-serving bias and Bayesian updating

Admixture in Latin America: Geographic Structure, Phenotypic Diversity and Self-Perception of Ancestry Based on 7,342 Individuals

The current genetic makeup of Latin America has been shaped by a history of extensive admixture between Africans, Europeans and Native Americans, a process taking place within the context of extensive geographic and social stratification. We estimated individual ancestry proportions in a sample of 7,342 subjects ascertained in five countries (Brazil, Chile, Colombia, México and Perú). These individuals were also characterized for a range of physical appearance traits and for self-perception of ancestry. The geographic distribution of admixture proportions in this sample reveals extensive population structure, illustrating the continuing impact of demographic history on the genetic diversity of Latin America. Significant ancestry effects were detected for most phenotypes studied. However, ancestry generally explains only a modest proportion of total phenotypic variation. Genetically estimated and self-perceived ancestry correlate significantly, but certain physical attributes have a strong impact on self-perception and bias self-perception of ancestry relative to genetically estimated ancestry

WHY EMPLOYEES DO BAD THINGS: MORAL DISENGAGEMENT AND UNETHICAL ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/90243/1/j.1744-6570.2011.01237.x.pd

Prosocial Identities and Youth Violence

Objective: Despite a recent surge of interest in the important role that identity change plays in the desistance process, much of the empirical work has been qualitative and conducted with small samples, usually of serious adult offenders. Drawing on a nationally representative sample of adolescents in South Korea, this study explores how the development of their prosocial identity is related to their own social bond and network and collectively how this process relates to a downward trend in violent behavior. Method: Negative binomial random effects models were estimated to assess the within-individual effects of the proposed predictor and mediators on the outcome variable. Then, longitudinal path analyses were conducted to explore the overall and specific mediation processes. Conclusion: First, there is an inverse relationship between prosocial identity and violent behavior across time. Second, our own identity of self might not be entirely a social construction based on others appraisals but is intimately connected to the actions that we intentionally take. Third, positive effects of a prosocial identity on subsequent violence are mediated primarily by the avoidance of association with delinquent peers. Theoretical implications and limitations are discussed.Y