Deviant Behavior

Kras, Kimberly R.

doi: 10.1080/01639625.2021.1977592pmid: N/A

Desistance from sexual offending is of great import to scholars, practitioners, and the public. Despite theoretical advances in life course theories generally, the same work is only beginning for subgroups, like individuals convicted of sexual offenses, who may have a different desistance process than other types of offense categories due to the nature of the crime, structural disadvantage, and mandated treatment contexts. The current study considers the applicability of narrative identity theory, particularly the expression of condemnation and redemption scripts, among a sample of men convicted of sexual offenses. Using narrative analysis of in-depth interviews from a longitudinal qualitative dataset, cognitive scripts emerged in ways that uniquely apply to sex offending behavior and the experience of being labeled a ‘sex offender.’ Participants uniformly express condemnation scripts related to the labeling and structural experience of constant supervision by an array of entities, but seek and find redemption through the experiences offered in treatment. Findings from this study contribute to the growing literature on desistance from sexual offending and have implications for new theoretical developments within life course criminology.

Hussey, Emma; Richards, Kelly; Scott, John

doi: 10.1080/01639625.2021.1978278pmid: N/A

Pedophile hunting – abetted by digital technologies – has spread rapidly, resulting in detrimental outcomes, including suicides of hunters’ targets. The scant research on these groups adopts a functionalist argument that they have emerged to fill a security deficit – to undertake work that police are incapable of due to resource and skill deficits in policing the cybersphere. This paper adopts a critical approach to argue that the expressive nature of such activities must be incorporated into explanations for their rapid spread across the globe. Specifically, pedophile hunting can be understood as embodying the performance of masculinities in the digital realm.

Vilalta-Perdomo, Carlos; López-Ramírez, Pablo; Fondevila, Gustavo

doi: 10.1080/01639625.2021.1982656pmid: N/A

This study explores the capacity of GST theory at the community level to explain differences in homicide rates across Mexico City neighborhoods. We find that higher levels of economic deprivation, population size, and organized crime activity, the latter being a source of strain leading to the deterioration of Mexican communities, are positively associated with homicide rates. However, neither crowding, residential mobility, nor Indian speaking population, the latter as a proxy of minority population, behave consistent with the theory. Interestingly, population density is consistently associated with homicide rates; however, in the opposite direction that is theorized. Furthermore, stable and statistically consistent relationships seem to have a negative quadratic functional form with homicide, meaning that the impact of these sources of strain will increase along the homicide rates distribution only up to a certain value.

Camacho Doyle, Maria; Gerell, Manne; Andershed, Henrik

doi: 10.1080/01639625.2021.1982657pmid: N/A

Perceived unsafety, fear of crime, and avoidance were studied in relation to different types of crime, crime in different time perspectives, concentrated disadvantage, collective efficacy, urbanity, age structure, and neighborhood disorder. Four data sources were used on a large Swedish city; a community survey from 2012 and 2015 among residents, census data on socio-demographics, police data on reported violent (assault and robbery in the public environment), and property crimes (arson, property damage, theft, vehicle theft, and residential burglary) and geographical information on local bus stops and annual passengers visiting these bus stops. Collective efficacy primarily, but also concentrated disadvantage, was strongly related to perceived unsafety, across 102 neighborhoods. Collective efficacy was strongly related to fear of crime. It was not viable to relate the neighborhood variables with avoidance, however. Fear of specific violent crimes was different from fear of specific property crimes and should for future reference be examined separately. Crime, visible disorder, urbanity, and age structure do not seem as important.

Mowen, Thomas J.; Heitkamp, Amanda

doi: 10.1080/01639625.2021.1982658pmid: N/A

The global coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has significantly altered the lives of college students across the United States. Following the outbreak of COVID-19 in the spring of 2020, college campuses were shuttered, classes moved to remote instruction, and university activities, celebrations, and events were canceled. Cast against a backdrop of uncertainty about the future, studies have documented that the pandemic has significantly increased anxiety among college students as they adjust to a “new normal.” Drawing from general strain theory, we examine the influence of specific COVID-19-related strains on a variety of changes in student behavior including binge-watching streaming services, splurging on online shipping, sexting, “hooking up” with random people, and masturbating. Results using structural equation models on data from 1,287 students at a Midwestern university show that specific sources of strain directly are related to binge-watching, online shopping, hooking up with random people, and masturbating, while anxiety was directly related to increased binge-watching, online shopping, and sexting. Anxiety mediated the pathways between some sources of strain and binge-watching and splurging on online shopping. Overall, findings highlight that the global pandemic not only induces anxiety and interrupts academic life but also carries far-reaching consequences for a wide range of behaviors.

Fox, Nicole; Wise, Jamie D.; Nyseth Brehm, Hollie

doi: 10.1080/01639625.2021.1983738pmid: N/A

This case study of heroic deviance focuses onHutu who did not participate in the genocidal violence in 1994 Rwanda and instead risked their lives to rescue Tutsi. Drawing from 45 in-depth interviews, we examine how these deviant heroes invoke religion to narrate their actions. We find that interviewees often neutralize their acts of rescue by attributing responsibility to God. We also theorize why those who engaged in rescue may use religion to neutralize their actions, including coping with trauma, mitigating stigma, and managing impressions. These findings have important implications for the study of deviance and for atrocity prevention policy.

Fowler, Kurt

doi: 10.1080/01639625.2021.1985387pmid: N/A

The term “incel” is a portmanteau of the words “involuntary” and “celibate,” and incels as a group represent a new emergent Internet subculture. Often, they’ve been connected to viewpoints and language that promote toxic masculinity, while encouraging violence against women and minorities. Previous research has often highlighted incels’ views on women and the language used to perpetuate their antifeminist viewpoints and ideology. However, little research has been produced on how incels view themselves and other men. This research uses popular conversations from various incel message boards to qualitatively analyze the discourses incels use to convey the stratification of doing gender within their subculture. Incels use sex as a central metaphor to convey ideas about how power and resources should be distributed in society. Findings suggest that incels use a complex “interpretive repertoire” to describe a gendered spectrum of political agency.

Kleinewiese, Julia

doi: 10.1080/01639625.2021.1990739pmid: N/A

This article empirically tests the theoretical proposition that moral norms of groups can be the reason why “good” people sometimes do “the wrong thing.” The issue is approached from the perspective of Wikström’s Situational Action Theory (SAT). SAT posits that criminal acts are the result of features of the person and the setting. Building on this, the hypotheses forwarded are: The higher the morality of a person and the general moral norms of a setting, the lower the likelihood of committing a deviant action. Moreover, for settings including a group: The higher the moral group norms of the setting, the lower the likelihood of committing a deviant action. These hypotheses are tested by means of a factorial survey (N = 1,679). The results of the analysis using fixed effects restricted maximum likelihood regressions (multilevel models) suggest that moral group norms do, in fact, play a central role in the causation of crime.