This issue of Criminological Highlights addresses the following questions:

1. How can former prisoners mitigate the negative impact of imprisonment on finding employment?

2. How do “tough on crime” judges create more crime than “soft on crime” judges?

3. How can police services address the fear that Black residents have of the police?

4. How might delinquency programs be made more effective?

5. Did COVID-19 create an increase in domestic violence?

6. Are sex offenders especially likely to repeat their offences?

7. How does pretrial detention affect the outcome of criminal cases?

8. How does pretrial detention increase the punitiveness of the criminal justice system? 

Article 1

Formerly incarcerated people have difficulty getting paid employment especially when employers can ask about job applicants’ criminal histories. This leads them, especially if they are Black, into entrepreneurship. As entrepreneurs, they are likely to earn more income than they would have as employees. Employment and entrepreneurship are each associated with lower recidivism rates.

There is consistent evidence that “contact with the criminal justice system leads to a reduction in economic opportunities” (p. 92) such as regular employment (Criminological Highlights 6(3)#2), 11(4)#4, 17(2)#7, 16(4)#7, 18(3)#6, 20(5)#3).  Failure to become economically self-sufficient is a likely contributor to the link between incarceration and increased recidivism. 

This paper examines the possibility that formerly incarcerated individuals may start their own businesses because of the barriers they face in paid employment. Some US states have recently restricted the access available to potential employers to get information about criminal records on job applicants (the so-called “ban-the-box” laws). Because these ban-the-box laws have come into effect at different times in the various states, it was possible to examine the effects on a former prisoner of having a publicly accessible criminal record. The authors looked both at ordinary employment and entrepreneurship activities in periods when employers did and did not have restrictions on getting access to the criminal record of job applicants. The prisoners themselves had no control over whether they were released from prison before or after these laws came into effect. Hence, differences between those who were released during the period when criminal history was and was not accessible had little to do with the characteristics of the prisoners. The study examined paid employment and self-employment that lasted at least four weeks and entrepreneurship involving an incorporated business and/or other employees.  Various other factors were controlled statistically. The study used data from an American longitudinal study that followed individuals for 17 years starting from when they were 12-18 years old. Involvement in crime as well as incarceration history were measured regularly as was the nature of employment (and entrepreneurship) after age 18. 

People who had been incarcerated were more likely than those who had never been incarcerated to become entrepreneurs (either as self-employed individuals or as incorporated units with/without employees), even after various controls were incorporated into the estimates. However, consistent with previous studies, prior incarceration decreased paid employment, especially for Black individuals. 

Entrepreneurship is especially likely to serve as a response to discrimination that Black formerly incarcerated individuals face from employers. Not surprisingly, then, Black individuals who had been incarcerated were especially likely, compared to those who had not been incarcerated, to engage in entrepreneurial activity – especially if their criminal history was available to potential employers. The findings suggest that “Formerly incarcerated individuals are less likely to enter entrepreneurship when ban-the-box policies are implemented in their jurisdictions of residence, suggesting that a key reason that [they] pursue entrepreneurship is to overcome the lack of employment opportunities. [This finding] holds only for formerly incarcerated Black individuals, who experience the greatest labor market discrimination before the implementation of ban-the-box. [The findings thus show that] change in the severity of labor market discrimination affects entrepreneurship rates” (p. 91). Entrepreneurial activity also “helps prevent formerly incarcerated individuals from returning to prison” (p. 129) as does paid employment. In addition, entrepreneurship provides better income to formerly incarcerated individuals compared to paid employment.

Conclusion: A criminal record makes it difficult, especially for Black Americans, to get employment. The authors note that entrepreneurship becomes “an alternative labor market route that formally incarcerated individuals pursue to overcome limitations in the labor market and to achieve economic and social integration” (p. 131).  Engagement in this entrepreneurial activity, just like ordinary employment, is, in turn, associated with reduced subsequent involvement with the criminal justice system.

Reference: Hwang, Kylie Jiwon & Damon J. Phillips (2024). Entrepreneurship as a Response to Labor Market Discrimination for Formerly Incarcerated People. American Journal of Sociology, 130(1), 88-146.

Article 2

“Tough-on-crime judges” who sentence offenders to relatively short (one year or less) prison sentences, when non-prison sentences are also an option, influence crime rates. Those offenders who are sentenced by tough-on-crime judges are more likely to reoffend than are those who are given non-custodial sentences by less punitive judges.

A fair amount of research has been published demonstrating that harsh sentences do not reduce reoffending (see, for example, Criminological Highlights special issue on “Issues related to harsh sentences”). A number of these studies (nine are listed by the authors of this paper) compare the effect of random or quasi-random assignment of offenders to judges on recidivism. In general, the findings show imprisonment to have “either no effect or an enhancing effect on future criminal behaviour compared to non-custodial alternatives” (p. 321).

This paper takes advantage of the fact that in courts in the Netherlands, single judges are randomly assigned certain routine cases in which sentences of up to one year can be imposed. In fact, in this study and in other studies where it has been examined, the proportion of low- level offenders who are imprisoned varies dramatically across judges.

Many offenders in many countries receive short sentences of imprisonment. In Canada, for example, in provinces where data are available, about 92% of prison sentences are for 12 months or less.

In this study, recidivism was measured at 1, 3, and 5 years after release. Both the prevalence (the probability of criminal behaviour) and the incidence (number of crimes) were examined as a function of whether those found guilty of relatively low-level offences were sentenced by judges who generally used imprisonment frequently or infrequently.

Being sentenced to prison rather than a non-custodial sanction increased the probability of subsequent criminal behaviour in the first year after release

by 17%. Five years after release, there was still a significant effect: compared to receiving a non-custodial sentence being imprisoned increased the probability of a person engaging in crime by about 7%. Most of those offenders who were imprisoned who do recidivate do so within the first year after release. Those who received a non-custodial sentence take somewhat longer to reoffend (if they do so at all).

The study then examined the effects of imprisonment on the prevalence and incidence of crime for different subsets of offenders. Those being sentenced were divided into two groups – those who had never been imprisoned and those who had some experience of being imprisoned. The effects were generally the same: for both groups: the prevalence and incidence of recidivism were higher for those who were sentenced to prison. All comparisons were significant except for the prevalence of recidivism for repeat offenders 5 years after release. For offenders over 25 years old, the general effect held. However, for young adults (those 18-25 years old) the effect of imprisonment on the prevalence of subsequent crime did not show significant effects. Generally, the results did not apply to those offenders sentenced for the most serious crimes.

Conclusion: It is understandable that we often focus attention on the effects of long prison sentences. Rehabilitative and other programming (e.g., occupational training) tend to be focused on those serving longer sentences. This paper suggests that short prison sentences, compared to non-custodial punishments, can increase the likelihood of future offending. Those advocating the appointment of “tough judges” might want to think about the fact that they may, in effect, be promoting higher crime rates.

Reference: Wermink, Hilde T., A.A.J. Blokland, J. Been, P.M. Schuyt, N. Tollenaar, and R. Apel (2024). Estimating Effects of Short-Term Imprisonment on Crime Using Random Judge Assignments. Justice Quarterly, 41(3), 317-346. 



Article 3

Given the nature of many Black Americans’ interactions with their local police, it is understandable that Black Americans are more afraid of the police than are other members of society. This study demonstrates that fear can be reduced by increasing the amount of ordinary policing that is carried out by non-White and women police officers.

Black Americans – both rich and poor, men and women – have an understandable fear of police officers. Many indicate that they would rather risk being victimized than have unsolicited contact with police officers. Such fear can be counterproductive in that it can deter people from being willing to have contact with the police, as well as reduce the reporting of crimes to the police. In short, fear of police may lead people to avoid situations where they might come in contact with the police.

The especially high fear that Black people have of the police is consistent with data from American police officers themselves. There are large differences in the views of Black and White (American) police officers on such matters as the underlying causes of police killings of Black civilians. In one study, 57% of Black police officers, but only 27% of White police officers indicated that they believed that police killings of Black civilians are signs of broader problems in policing.

In the first study reported here (carried out in spring 2022, two years after the highly publicized killing of George Floyd), American residents (Black and White) on an online survey were asked to indicate which of two police officers portrayed in a picture would make them feel more afraid. The pictures varied on a number of dimensions including the race and sex of the officer along with other features described in a profile associated with the picture (e.g., age, education, being the subject of previous complaints). In a second experiment, respondents were shown pictures of a two-person team of police officers. The officers, again, varied by sex and race. In this second study, respondents were again asked which team would make them feel more afraid.

Overall, Black Americans were substantially more likely than White respondents to state that they were afraid of the police and of crime. Consistent with previous research, Black respondents also reported higher levels of fear of police than did other racial minorities. Indeed most (53%) of the Black respondents reported being afraid or very afraid of being killed by the police, compared to only 14% of White respondents.

Black respondents were, however, significantly less afraid of police officers who were Black or Hispanic/Latino. The race of the police officer did not predict fear among non-Black respondents. All groups of respondents indicated that they were less afraid of being harmed by female police officers than male officers.  Similarly, all groups of respondents were less likely to report fear if the police officer was described as wearing a body camera. Black and non-Black respondents reported more fear if the police officer was described as having a prior complaint lodged for being disrespectful or using excessive force or both.

When teams of two officers were of different races or were both minorities, Black respondents expressed lower levels of fear than if both members of the team were White. Black respondents were also less afraid when at least one of the police officers in a team was a woman. For non-Black respondents, the composition of the two-person teams of police officers (race or sex) did not make any difference.

Conclusion: Clearly Black Americans’ fear of the police is associated with the fact that most American police departments are dominated by White men. One way to reduce fear would be to increase the diversification of police departments on racial and sex dimensions. Diversification of police departments is, of course, easier to propose than to implement. However, it would seem that the assignment of Black/minority and women police officers to patrols in Black neighbourhoods could, as well, have a positive impact.

Reference: Pickett, Justin T., Amanda Graham, Justin Nix, and Francis T. Cullen (2023). Officer Diversity May Reduce Black Americans’ Fear of Police. Criminology, 62, 35-63.



Article 4

The design of delinquency prevention programs might be more effective if those developing them were to focus more attention on the intermediate factors that might be affected by the program. A focus on “change levers” that have repeatedly been shown to be related to offending is likely to be more effective than strategies that ignore the mediators that might affect delinquency rates. 

“The only direct control of delinquency is incapacitation…” (p. 262), a mechanism that is almost never the focus of programs for youths. “Most delinquency programs, therefore, must work indirectly by changing something that, in turn, affects delinquency….”(p. 262).  However, relatively few of these “change levers” have been identified. In contrast, there are an infinite number of interventions that can be done with youths that might or might not affect delinquency.

One problem with many delinquency prevention programs is that they seem to be designed without much consideration of the mediating effect of a particular “change lever” between the program and delinquency. Hence the impact of the program on that change lever is neither considered carefully nor assessed. Change levers have mediational characteristics – outcomes empirically related to delinquency reduction – though not necessarily causally linked to it. 

Many communities have a number of delinquency prevention programs that sound hopeful but are seldom adequately assessed. But programs that might have a measurable (and measured) impact on one or more change lever can be designed in such a way that they can be implemented in a specific social situation. Thus, for example, an effective change lever has been shown to be “school attendance.” Thus a program designed in a particular community to increase school attendance could be evaluated initially in terms of “school attendance” as the outcome variable. The program could then be tailor-made, monitored and adjusted as needed, to account for factors known to affect school attendance in that community. 

This paper looked at a large collection of studies related to juvenile delinquency programs that were released between 1958 and 2015. Each study that was used in this paper had a measure of delinquency as well as a non-delinquency outcome measure (such as school attendance) that might be related to delinquency. A factor was considered as a potential “change lever” if at least 20 studies could be found that examined the relationship between that “change lever” and a delinquency measure. Each study in the analysis had a comparison group of similar juveniles who did not receive the intervention thought to be related to delinquency.

Five different possible “psychological” change levers were examined. Only one – substance use – was reliably related to delinquency. The only one (of three) interpersonal measure that related reliably to delinquency was “family functioning.” Three school factors – attendance, the use of discipline with nondelinquent behaviour, and attitudes about school and teachers – were related to delinquency. However, early dropout of school, academic achievement, and employment were not related to delinquency.

Conclusion: The number of programs designed to address delinquency, combined with the thin evidence base for their effectiveness, presents a challenge for those who want to focus scarce resources on “evidence-based” programs. “A focus on change levers provides an alternative, and potentially more useful and parsimonious way of characterizing the likelihood that an intervention adopted in practice will be successful [in reducing offending] ….  Shifting the focus from lists of recommended programs to a categorization of programs according to the change levers they affect could facilitate the evolution of local programs toward more effective practice” (p. 280). Among other things, such an approach would help identify appropriate youths for a new program.

Reference: Wilson, David B and Mark W. Lipsey (2024). Scaling Up Effective Juvenile Delinquency Programs by Focusing on Change Levers: Evidence from a Large Meta-Analysis. Criminology & Public Policy, 23, 261-286.



Article 5

The COVID-19 effects on domestic violence need to be understood from the perspective of families’ already existing vulnerabilities. Hence “the effects of the pandemic on intimate abuse depends on the social and economic conditions of victims’ lives” (p. 441). Everyone is not affected in the same way.

Data from some studies of domestic violence suggest that increases in domestic violence rates or severity were caused by the COVID pandemic. However, the evidence is not entirely consistent and the reasons for any change are not clear.

This paper goes beyond simple “strain” models that suggest that events like the pandemic simply “overwhelm the resources of the family unit, creating couple conflict and poor regulation of negative emotions” (p. 422). Instead of simply looking at changes in domestic violence rates that coincided with the pandemic, the researcher listened to the accounts of the impact of the pandemic that were offered by poor and marginalized survivors of domestic violence. Most of these survivors “experienced COVID as part of clustered vulnerabilities: the pandemic became another thing in the list of things that made them likely to experience continued abuse and social precarity, compounding problems like housing insecurity and dependence on violent partners” (p. 422). In other words, the impact on any one person depended on that person’s prior situation and vulnerabilities.

In-depth interviews were carried out with 50 survivors of domestic violence in Michigan. Most were interviewed in shelters and, except for the temporary shelter they were in, were homeless. In discussing their experiences with domestic violence during this period (the first 14-17 months of the pandemic), “Many hardly talked about COVID during interviews. Other crises were more pressing” (p. 422). The pandemic, then, was not seen as a simple causal factor that just added one more stress on the couple. However, “COVID did worsen the social contexts in which survivors experienced abuse and sought help” (p. 422).

Most (about 80%) of those interviewed described their experiences of domestic violence during the pandemic in terms that might be called “clustered vulnerabilities” where “survivors’ disadvantages worsened during COVID, and their cluster of vulnerabilities became denser” (p. 423). Hence immediate problems related to such matters as housing, isolation, services, police, health problems or childcare were exacerbated by the pandemic. In many instances, the problems that the survivors had been experiencing prior to the pandemic got worse with the pandemic, but the pandemic itself was not perceived to be a ‘new’ cause of domestic violence. COVID, of course, did, in some instances increase survivors’ dependence on abusive partners. Conversely, for some, the pandemic was seen as a factor that increased their desire to leave the relationship.

An important finding in the study was that “the effects of the pandemic on intimate abuse depend on the social and economic conditions of victim’s lives.... For better-resourced survivors, COVID was an ‘external stressor’ on a relatively stable family unit; for survivors who faced significant instability before the pandemic, COVID did not independently affect relationship dynamics” (p. 441) Rather it simply made a bad situation worse.

Conclusion: By listening to the accounts of actual victims, it became clear that for many survivors of domestic violence, an “acute crisis [such as COVID] exacerbates existing vulnerabilities, especially around housing and systems involvements” (p. 441) Crises such as COVID make these harder to manage: “Crisis... is not so much novel as it is compounding” (p. 441). But a crisis like COVID can change people’s interpretations of abuse. Events like the pandemic are integrated into people’s lives. Hence, the impact of events like a pandemic do not necessarily “add” to the likelihood of domestic violence. The pandemic may have made the existing vulnerabilities that the person was experiencing more serious. Hence it is important to understand that “Effects are not simply additive ad infinitum, but are entangled in complex ways that may produce disadvantage for unexpected outcomes across multiple social arenas” (p. 442).

Reference: Sweet, Paige L. (2024). Clustered Vulnerabilities: The Unequal Effects of COVID-19 on Domestic Violence. American Sociological Review, 89(3), 421-448. 



Article 6

The notion that sex offenders are, compared to other offenders, especially likely to repeat their offences is without empirical support. Furthermore, in the past 50 years, in both the US and Canada, sex offender recidivism rates appear to have dropped even though the dominant societal responses to sex offending have differed in the two countries.

“The belief that sexual recidivism rates are high has been the foundation of more than 80 years of policy- making aiming to prevent sexual offending” (p. 126). Sex offender laws in the US and Canada have varied across time, but largely do not reflect reliable evidence about those convicted of sex offences. Interestingly, however, the laws in both countries appear to focus on re-offending rather than on prevention of sex offences.

The first wave of laws in Canada and the US focused largely on “the notion that indeterminate sentences were necessary to evaluate whether an offender had undergone [sufficient] change…” (p. 130) after being convicted. Canada’s law into the 1970s, for example, allowed people to be designated as “dangerous sexual offenders” if convicted of certain sex offences. They were then sentenced to an indeterminate period of preventive detention instead of a fixed sentence. As it became clear that there were severe limits on the ability of psychiatrists to predict future offending, a shift occurred whereby those convicted of certain sex offences in many US states were required to register as sex offenders. These registries are typically available to the public. There is, however, no “convincing empirical evidence that registration and notification laws helped reduce sexual recidivism” (p. 141). Canada eventually eliminated the category of “dangerous sexual offenders” and established a registry, but it was not available to the public.

Perhaps the most interesting finding is that sexual recidivism – measured in various ways and involving follow-up periods that vary in length – was never very high in either the US or Canada, typically between about 20% and 30%. In both countries, however, numerous studies reported that recidivism rates dropped, beginning with studies where the follow-up period began around 1980. Obviously, the length of the follow-up period in these studies is important and part of the decline in recidivism rates may have come from shorter follow-up periods. The parallel trends of the US and Canada, however, are notable in that the approaches in the two countries to sex offenders are quite different. The availability of treatment does not appear to be a likely explanation for the drop in recidivism rates given that the approaches to correctional treatment in the two countries were quite different and the proportion of prisoners receiving actual treatment was never large. Even the types of treatment offered in the two countries appear to have been quite different.

One problem with an approach to “sexual offenders” that seems to assume that they are a relatively homogenous group is that, given the relatively low rate of reoffending by this group, “one-size-fits-all policies aiming to reduce sexual recidivism rates are overwhelmingly applied to non-recidivists who may not need such extreme penal measures” (p. 183).

Conclusion: What is clear from these findings – in both the US and Canada – is that “the public image of the sex offender as a life-course persistent sexual predator does not fit the reality of 555 empirical studies on recidivism” (p. 183) examined as part of this study. The drop in reoffending does not appear to be related to the implementation of sex offender registration and notification laws in either country. Perhaps the focus on preventing sexual offending from reoccurring should be questioned. Given the relatively low rate of reoffending after a criminal conviction, a focus on preventing sexual offending from occurring in the first place may be a more productive approach to a serious problem.

Reference: Lussier, Patrick, Evan McCuish, and Elizabeth L. Jeglic (2023). Against All Odds: The Unexplained Sexual Recidivism Drop in the US and Canada. Crime and Justice, 52, 125-196.

Article 7

Pretrial detention has significant negative effects on the outcome of criminal cases, even when the characteristics of the offence and the criminal history of the accused are controlled for.

With substantial numbers of people being held in pretrial detention in many countries, the impact of pretrial detention is clearly important. In Canada, for example, data for 2022 show that 46% of the total custodial population in the country consisted of people awaiting trial. This paper reviews the impact of pretrial detention on decisions to plead guilty, and conviction and incarceration rates (see also Criminological Highlights 17(2)#7, 17(3)#1, 17(5)#3, 21(3)#7, 21(4)#4 and this issue, #8). 

Pretrial detention is clearly a controversial issue with many people, including politicians who often suggest that we need to “tighten up” on pretrial release.  Aside from the fact that those in pretrial detention are legally innocent, those detained may well be disadvantaged simply because they have been detained. They may be seen as being more likely to be guilty than those who have been released into the community. 

This paper reviews the research on the impact of pretrial detention on those who were subject to it. A total of 898 studies was examined carefully. Most were not included in the present analysis in large part because they did not adequately control for relevant confounding factors. In the end, 57 different studies were included in the analyses in this paper. These studies looked at the effects of detention in many different US jurisdictions in the three decades since the 1990s. Each study controlled for offence type and/or severity as well as the criminal history of the accused person.

Defendants who were detained in custody while awaiting trial were more likely to plead guilty. Given that finding, it is not surprising that they were also more likely to be convicted than those who did not experience pretrial detention. In the analysis of the effect of pretrial detention on conviction, every study that examined this found a significant effect. The largest effects, however, appeared to be whether the accused person ultimately was incarcerated. All 33 studies examining this relationship showed an effect of pretrial detention on subsequent incarceration with 29 of the 33 studies showing a statistically significant effect. The effects of pretrial detention on charge reduction and sentence length were smaller and/or not significant. 

There was variation across studies in the size of the effects of pretrial detention on the various outcomes. This variation is hard to interpret since the measures used in the different studies varied in how sensitive they were (e.g., continuous vs. binary measures). The range and the nature of the cases may well have varied across studies.

Conclusion: “These findings support the argument that pretrial detainees are at a disadvantage in their case processing compared to their released counterparts. Detained defendants may struggle to prepare their defense and meet their attorneys, as well as lose their jobs and harm their relationships, making them appear a risk if released on probation. As such, detained defendants may be perceived as more blameworthy and dangerous than released defendants and face these more severe outcomes” (p. 363). It is hardly surprising, therefore, that those who are detained while awaiting trial are more likely to be found guilty and incarcerated than their counterparts who are released.

Reference: St. Louis, Stacie (2024). The Pretrial Detention Penalty: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Pretrial Detention and Case Outcomes.  Justice Quarterly, 41(3), 347-370.



Article 8

By detaining accused people who are awaiting trial rather than releasing them immediately back into the community, judges increase the likelihood of a conviction as well as the likelihood that the accused person will eventually receive a prison sentence.

There is substantial evidence that being detained in custody while awaiting trial has harmful effects on accused people and their families. This study takes advantage of the fact that in New York City, cases are assigned to judges for the purpose of decisions on pretrial detention on what is essentially a random basis. Given that judges vary in their propensity to impose pretrial detention, it is possible to draw strong causal conclusions about the impact of the detention decisions on subsequent decisions in the criminal process.

Previous research (e.g., Criminological Highlights 17(3)#1 and #7 this issue) has shown that the decision to detain an accused person has negative effects on decisions about the case. Detention decisions also are linked to increases in subsequent offending (see Criminological Highlights 21(4)#4). This paper looks at the impact of being assigned to judges who differ dramatically in their pretrial detention decisions. It looked at cases assigned to 63 New York City judges, each of whom had made at least 500 detention decisions in one year. Cases in New York City were assigned by a court official in a manner that workloads were balanced across judges. In other words, the nature of the case did not enter into the decision on which judge should hear the case. Hence there is no reason to believe that, overall, the judges got different types of cases. Essentially it seems reasonable to assume that cases were effectively randomly assigned to judges. 

A key initial finding was that judges vary dramatically in their propensities to detain accused people who are awaiting trial.  Among these 63 judges, the rates of detention varied from a low of 17.7% to a high of 50.6%.  One can, therefore, examine the impact of the judge’s propensity to detain on subsequent criminal justice outcomes.

The findings suggest that the assignment of a case to a judge was an important determinant of the ultimate outcome of the case. Cases that were heard by judges who detained a high proportion of those appearing before them were more likely to result in a guilty plea. Given that about 98% of convictions were secured by a guilty plea, the results were similar when the ultimate outcome of the case (conviction or not) was examined. Finally, being assigned to a judge who had a propensity to detain a large portion of their caseload increased the likelihood that the accused person would, eventually be given an carceral sentence. These findings held for cases involving felonies and misdemeanors as well as for both Black and non-Black accused people.

Conclusion: In theory, decisions on pretrial release are independent of decisions on guilt and sentence. These data suggest that this view is not empirically accurate even though the law may suggest it is. Since most convictions are obtained by way of a guilty plea, these findings can be seen as demonstrating that judicial officials who make pretrial release decisions are, in effect, having a large impact on who is convicted and imprisoned. Hence political figures who suggest that we need to “toughen up” on the pretrial release process are indirectly suggesting that we need to convict and incarcerate more people.

Reference: Koppel, Stephen, Tiffany Bergin, René Ropac, Imani Randolph and Hanna Joseph (2024). Examining the Causal Effect of Pretrial Detention on Case Outcomes: A Judge Fixed Effect Instrumental Variable Approach. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 20, 439-456.

This issue of Criminological Highlights was prepared by Anthony Doob, Rosemary Gartner, Maria Jung, Tyler King, Jihyun Kwon, Jane Sprott, and Danielle Van Wagner.