January 2020
Volume 62, No. 1 | Go to abstracts
Articles
Page 1
Police Contact, Procedural Injustice, and Drug Use
Stephen W. Baron, Scott Macdonald
Page 26
Understanding Public Attitudes towards the Police: Co-variates of Satisfaction, Trust, and Confidence
Xiaochen Hu, Mengyan Dai, Michael J. DeValve, Andrew Lejeune
Page 50
Réussir dans le crime et réussir à s’en sortir : l’influence de la carrière criminelle sur le processus de désistement
Frédéric Ouellet, Stéphanie Chouinard, Marie-Ève Dubois
Page 71
Immigration and Crime in Canadian Cities: A 35-Year Study
Maria Jung
Abstracts
Police Contact, Procedural Injustice, and Drug Use
Stephen W. Baron, Scott Macdonald
Drawing on general strain theory, this article explores whether young people’s perceptions of procedural injustice in their interactions with police, as well as their economic dissatisfaction, are associated with drug use. We examine whether levels of police contact increase the likelihood of perceptions of procedural injustice, and if the relationships between procedural injustice and drug use as well as economic dissatisfaction and drug use are influenced by associations with drug-using peers, legal cynicism, and levels of social support. Using a sample of 449 individuals aged 16–30 years in three Canadian cities, the findings suggest that police contact has a direct relationship with drug use, but it also has an indirect relationship mediated by procedural injustice. Further, economic dissatisfaction, homelessness, legal cynicism, and drug-using peers are also associated with greater drug use. The relationships between procedural injustice and drug use and economic dissatisfaction and drug use are stronger at lower levels of social support. Findings are discussed and suggestions for future research are offered.
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Understanding Public Attitudes towards the Police: Co-variates of Satisfaction, Trust, and Confidence
Xiaochen Hu, Mengyan Dai, Michael J. DeValve, Andrew Lejeune
Prior research on public attitudes towards the police has tended to refer to three concepts—satisfaction with the police, confidence in the police, and trust in the police—entirely interchangeably. Recently, there has been a call to differentiate these three concepts. The current study seeks to address this research gap by analysing a unique Canadian dataset that includes all three concepts. The main research question that the study tries to answer is whether significant co-variates will differ in predicting the three concepts. The findings indicate that different models have slightly different demographic co-variates, but they share three of the same co-variates: dissatisfaction with prior citizen–police contacts, victimization, and neighbourhood conditions. The study suggests that while differentiating these three concepts may be promising, it is important, efficient, and practical to handle the three shared co-variates to improve overall public attitudes towards the police.
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Réussir dans le crime et réussir à s’en sortir : l’influence de la carrière criminelle sur le processus de désistement
Frédéric Ouellet, Stéphanie Chouinard, Marie-Ève Dubois
Many roads lead to criminal desistance and the path taken depends on past experiences. Few studies have examined the link between criminal career and its aftermath, how the events that characterized the criminal lifestyle influence the decision to desist and to maintain this abstinence from crime. Based on the life narratives of individuals involved mainly in lucrative crimes (N = 15), this study aims to reconstruct their life trajectory to study the meaning and dynamics behind the process of stopping and maintaining abstinence from crime. The results identified two distinct paths. They also suggest that subjective experiences and past events affecting the criminal career provides access to a deeper understanding of desistance and challenges of reentry. Findings also highlight the relevance of criminal achievement in the study of the desistance process. It is hoped that the project will foster a better understanding of turning points in criminal careers and the processes that affect continuity and desistance.
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Immigration and Crime in Canadian Cities: A 35-Year Study
Maria Jung
This study examines whether changes in immigration are associated with changes in crime rates in Canadian census metropolitan areas for the period 1976–2011. Using data from the Uniform Crime Reports and the Canadian census, this study employs fixed effects regression models to analyse the changes in immigration and crime rates during this 35-year period. Controlling for changes in demographic and socio-economic co-variates, overall changes in the proportion of the population that is foreign-born are either not significantly associated or negatively associated with changes in crime rates within Canadian cities. Overall, this article adds to the literature by using a longitudinal design within a Canadian urban context, employing multiple measures of immigration, and extending the analysis beyond one type of crime.