Deviant Behavior

Norton-Hawk, Maureen A.

doi: 10.1080/01639620152472804pmid: N/A

In depth interviews with incarcerated female street prostitutes provide evidence that ''get tough'' policies are often counter?productive. For example, arresting prostitutes increases the level of violence both against these women and by them. Rehabilitation programs based on the lives and experiences of street prostitutes that will provide a path into legal employment need to be developed.

Hawdon, James E.

doi: 10.1080/01639620152472813pmid: N/A

Although it is known that state initiatives can help produce moral panics, the role policy rhetoric assumes in creating, sustaining, and terminating moral panics has not been theoretically addressed. This article offers a typology of drug policies and illustrates how each is used at varying stages of a moral panic. It is argued that moral panics begin when proactive and punitive statements are used in combination. Moral panics subside when reactive and rehabilitative rhetorical statements are issued concurrently. The argument is empirically tested by analyzing the presidential addresses of the Reagan and Bush administrations for drug-related statements. Regression analysis, analysis of variance, and crosstabular analyses are used to test several hypotheses derived from the theoretical discussion. The empirical evidence supports the theoretical discussion and the constructionist perspective of social problems.

Charles E. Menifield, Winfield H. Rose, John Homa, Anita Brewer Cunningham,

doi: 10.1080/01639620152472822pmid: N/A

Although the juvenile arrest rate has declined in the last few years, public awareness of juvenile crime has not diminished (Snyder 1996; Schiraldi 1998). The recent rash of rural school shootings has, in fact, heightened public awareness of juvenile crime and delinquent behavior. This research examines acts of school violence that have been committed by juveniles in three rural school districts and analyzes how the newspaper media present these acts relative to similar acts committed by juveniles in urban school settings. Our content analysis of the Wall Street Journal, Louisville Courier Journal, New York Times, St. Louis Post Dispatch, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post reveals that these newspapers present school violence in these two settings very differently and that these differences are reflected in the way the political system reacts to such incidents.

doi: 10.1080/01639620152472831pmid: N/A