Type:	Journal Article
Title:	Reconsidering domestic violence recidivism: conditioned effects of legal controls by individual and aggregate levels of stake in conformity
Other Titles:	Journal of Quantitative Criminology
Authors:	Thistlethwaite, Amy Wooldredge, John
Keywords:	Informal responses;Perpetrators;Criminal justice responses
Year:	2002
Publisher:	Plenum Pub. Corp
Citation:	18 (1), March 2002
Notes:	This article presents US research on the possible relationship between court dispositions and an offender’s stake in conformity. Social scientists have applied criminological approaches to examine whether stake in conformity conditions the deterrent effect of arrest for domestic violence recidivism. A literature review on legal interventions beyond arrest and on contextual effects of social structure on recidivism is provided. The prevalence of re-arrest for domestic violence is studied for 3,110 suspects. The results show a significant effect involving higher re-arrest likelihoods for arrested suspects with no formal charges. Findings for the conditioned effects of court dispositions show significantly lower re-arrest likelihoods for higher stake offenders undergoing a counselling programme (a predicted relationship), and significantly lower re-arrest likelihoods for lower stake offenders serving probation and or jail (not a predicted relationship). At the neighbourhood level, sentences of probation and/or jail show significantly lower re-arrest likelihoods for offenders living in neighbourhoods with more residentially stable populations (predicted). Probation or jail sentences coincide with lower re-arrest likelihoods for offenders with lower economic status but higher re-arrest likelihoods for offenders in less residentially stable neighbourhoods could reflect different social processes. It concludes that relationships between legal controls and domestic violence recidivism may be conditioned by informal social controls operating at both the micro and macro levels. Relationships for some of the court dispositions seem to be conditioned by all aspects of offender stake (residential stability, highest education and economic status) yet at the neighbourhood level, these relationships are conditioned only by residential stability. The role of collectivism in more residentially stable neighbourhoods, possible labelling effects of legal controls for higher stake offenders and perceptions of justice are suggested as areas for future studies.
URI:	https://anrows.intersearch.com.au/anrowsjspui/handle/1/16535
ISSN:	7484518
Appears in Collections:	Journal Articles

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