In 1978, the Social and Demographic Research Institute of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, received a grant from the National Institute of Justice to undertake a comprehensive review of the literature on weapons, crime, and violence in the United States. The purpose of the project is best described as a "sifting and winnowing" of the claims and counterclaims from both sides of the Great American Gun War—the perennial struggle in American political life over what to do, if anything, about guns, about violence, and about crime. The review and analysis of the available studies consumed the better part of three years; the results of this work are contained in this volume. The intention of any review is to take stock of the available fund of knowledge in some topical area. Under the Gun is no different: our goal has been to glean from the volumes of previous studies those facts that, in our view, seem firmly and certainly established; those hypotheses that seem adequately supported by, or at least approximately consistent with, the best available research evidence; and those areas or topics about which, it seems, we need to know a lot more than we do. One of our major conclusions can be stated in advance: despite the large number of studies that have been done, many critically important questions have not been adequately researched, and some of them have not been examined at all. Much of the available research in the area of weapons and crime has been done by advocates for one or another policy position. As a consequence, the manifest intent of many "studies" is to persuade rather than to inform. We have tried to approach the topic from a purely agnostic point of view, treating as an open question what policies should be enacted with regard to gun, or crime, control. Thus, we have tried to judge each study on its own merits, on the basis of the routine standards normally applied to social-scientific research, and not on the basis of how effectively it argues for a particular policy direction. It would, of course, be presumptuous to claim that we have set aside all our own biases in conducting this study. Whether or not our treatment is fair and objective is clearly something for the reader, and not us, to decide.
This life-course analysis of family development focuses on the social dynamics among family members. It features parent-child relationships in a larger context, by examining the help exchange between kin and nonkin and the intergenerational transmission of family characteristics.
For the past decade, transaction, and now Society, has dedicated itself to the task of reporting the strains and conflicts within the American system. The work done in the magazine has crossed disciplinary boundaries. This represents much more than simple cross-disciplinary "team efforts." It embodies rather a recognition that the social world cannot be easily carved into neat academic disciplines; that, indeed, the study of the experience of blacks in American ghettos, or the manifold uses and abuses of agencies of law enforcement, or the sorts of overseas policies that lead to the celebration of some dictatorships and the condemnation of others, can best be examined from many viewpoints and from the vantage points of many disciplines. The editors of Society magazine are now making available in permanent form the most important work done in the magazine, supplemented in some cases by additional materials edited to reflect the tone and style developed over the years by transaction.
This book reviews and develops Bayesian non-parametric and semi-parametric methods for applications in microeconometrics and quantitative marketing. Most econometric models used in microeconomics and marketing applications involve arbitrary distributional assumptions. As more data becomes available, a natural desire to provide methods that relax these assumptions arises. Peter Rossi advocates a Bayesian approach in which specific distributional assumptions are replaced with more flexible distributions based on mixtures of normals. The Bayesian approach can use either a large but fixed number of normal components in the mixture or an infinite number bounded only by the sample size. By using flexible distributional approximations instead of fixed parametric models, the Bayesian approach can reap the advantages of an efficient method that models all of the structure in the data while retaining desirable smoothing properties. Non-Bayesian non-parametric methods often require additional ad hoc rules to avoid "overfitting," in which resulting density approximates are nonsmooth. With proper priors, the Bayesian approach largely avoids overfitting, while retaining flexibility. This book provides methods for assessing informative priors that require only simple data normalizations. The book also applies the mixture of the normals approximation method to a number of important models in microeconometrics and marketing, including the non-parametric and semi-parametric regression models, instrumental variables problems, and models of heterogeneity. In addition, the author has written a free online software package in R, "bayesm," which implements all of the non-parametric models discussed in the book.
The sentencing guidelines written by the U.S. Sentencing Commission for the federal crime courts were designed to lead to uniform the just punishments for convicted criminals. How well did the Commission's judgments about what were just punishments compare to the view of the American public? Using data from a 1994 national household survey, the authors compare the punishments described by the Commission to those desired by the public. Contrary to the frequency claims of excessive leniency on the part of judges that are often asserted by journalists and shapers of opinions, Rossi and Berk find strong correspondence between the median sentences deemed appropriate by the public and the sentences prescribed by the guidelines. Although the authors conclude that the Commission was able to match prescribed punishments closely to the American consensus for most crimes, in one category -- drug trafficking offenses -- the guidelines were much harsher in dealing with offenders. The national survey used a factorial survey as its design strategy, allowing for analysis of a large variety of federal crimes and variations in the social characteristics of convicted felons. A wealth of detail, along with ample graphic and tabular illustrations, extends the book's application to issues of consensus and variations in punitiveness by region and socioeconomic characteristics of respondents.
In 1978, the Social and Demographic Research Institute of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, received a grant from the National Institute of Justice to undertake a comprehensive review of the literature on weapons, crime, and violence in the United States. The purpose of the project is best described as a "sifting and winnowing" of the claims and counterclaims from both sides of the Great American Gun War - the perennial struggle in American political life over what to do, if anything, about guns, about violence, and about crime. The review and analysis of the available studies consumed the better part of three years; the results of this work are contained in this volume.The intention of any review is to take stock of the available fund of knowledge in some topical area. Under the Gun is no different: our goal has been to glean from the volumes of previous studies those facts that, in our view, seem firmly and certainly established; those hypotheses that seem adequately supported by, or at least approximately consistent with, the best available research evidence; and those areas or topics about which, it seems, we need to know a lot more than we do. One of our major conclusions can be stated in advance: despite the large number of studies that have been done, many critically important questions have not been adequately researched, and some of them have not been examined at all.Much of the available research in the area of weapons and crime has been done by advocates for one or another policy position. As a consequence, the manifest intent of many "studies" is to persuade rather than to inform. We have tried to approach the topic from a purely agnostic point of view, treating as an open question what policies should be enacted with regard to gun, or crime, control. Thus, we have tried to judge each study on its own merits, on the basis of the routine standards normally applied to social-scientific research, and not on the basis of how effectively it argues for a particular policy direction. It would, of course, be presumptuous to claim that we have set aside all our own biases in conducting this study. Whether or not our treatment is fair and objective is clearly something for the reader, and not us, to decide.
The most accurate and comprehensive picture of homelessness to date, this study offers a powerful explanation of its causes, proposes short- and long-term solutions, and documents the striking contrasts between the homeless of the 1950s and 1960s and the contemporary homeless population, which is younger and contains more women, children, and blacks.
Through the use of specific examples to illustrate evaluation research goals and methods, this book provides readers with an overview of the science and politics of evaluation research. The Second Edition includes coverage of meta-analysis, selection models and instrumental variables.
Armed and Considered Dangerous is a book about "bad guys" and their guns. But Wright and Rossi contend that for every suspected criminal who owns and abuses a firearm, a hundred or more average citizens own guns for sport, for recreation, for self-protection, and for other reasons generally regarded as appropriate or legitimate. Armed and Considered Dangerous is the most ambitious survey ever undertaken of criminal acquisition, possession, and use of guns. There are vast differences between the average gun owner and the average gun-abusing felon, but the analyses reported here do not suggest any obvious way to translate these differences into gun control policies. Most policy implications drawn from the book are negative in character: this will not work for this reason, that will not work for that reason, and so on. When experts are asked, "Okay, then what will work?" they usually fall back on the old warhorses of poverty, the drug problem, or the inadequate resources of the criminal justice system, and otherwise have little to say. This is not a failure of social science. It simply asks more of the data than the data were ever intended to provide. Several of Wright and Rossi's findings have become "coin of the realm" in the gun control debate, cited frequently by persons who have long since forgotten where the data came from or what their limitations are. Several other findings, including many that are important, have been largely ignored. Still other findings have been superseded by better and more recent data or rendered anachronistic by intervening events. With the inclusion of a new introduction detailing recent statistics and updated information this new edition of Armed and Considered Dangerous is a rich source of information for all interested in learning about weapon behavior and ownership in America.
Natural Hazards and Public Choice: The State and Local Politics of Hazard Mitigation presents a research project that emerged from a concern for estimating the balance of support versus opposition to prospective social policies that aim to reduce the risks of damage or injuries from major natural hazard events via the regulation of land use and establishment of building and occupancy standards in high-risk areas. The volume begins with an overview of the research project and the main findings. Separate chapters describe the study design; assess the views of politically influential people regarding the seriousness of natural hazards; measure the support for federal disaster policies; and consider public opinion on hazards-mitigation issues in California. Subsequent chapters cover the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP); patterns of activity, influence, and power among key positions and groups in local communities with respect to issues involving disasters; and hazard mitigation activities at the state level.
First Published in 2017. The Education of Catholic Americans was a famous, comprehensive study of the effects of Catholic education in America by two very wellknown, heavily published sociologists, Fr. Andrew M. Greeley and Peter H. Rossi. The book was one of many seminal studies of different aspects of life and groups within American society sponsored by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. This edition has a new introduction by Stephen M. Krason.
Money, Work, and Crime: Experimental Evidence presents the complete details of the Department of Labor’s $3.4 million Transitional Aid Research Project (TARP), a large-scale field experiment which attempted to reduce recidivism on the part of ex-felons. Beginning in January 1976, some prisoners released from state institutions in Texas and Georgia were offered financial aid for periods of up to six months post-release. Payments were made in the form of Unemployment Insurance benefits. The ex-prisoners who were eligible for payments were compared with control groups released at the same time from the same institutions. The control groups were not eligible for benefits. The assumption that modest levels of financial help would ease the transition from prison life to civilian life was partially supported. Ex-prisoners who received financial aid under TARP had lower rearrest rates than their counterparts who did not receive benefits and worked comparable periods of time. Those receiving financial aid were also able to obtain better-paying jobs than the controls. However, ex-prisoners receiving benefits took longer to find jobs than those who did not receive benefits. The TARP experiment makes a strong contribution both to an important policy area—the reduction of crime through reducing recidivism—and to the further development of the field and experiment as a policy research instrument.
Shows what happens when a specific social policy is tried out on an experimental basis prior to being enacted into law. By providing a trial of a variety of negative income tax plans carried out over a three-year period in four communities, the New Jersey-Pennsylvania Income Maintenance Experiment was designed to observe whether income maintenance would lead to reduced work effort on the part of those who received subsidies. This book evaluates the final project reportso n the experiment issued by Mathematica, Inc. and the Institute for Reasearch on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin. A Publication in the Continuities in Evaluation Research Series.
An Economic Analysis of Crime and Justice: Theory, Methods, and Applications presents the applications of economic theory and econometric methods to various problems in criminology. The book is divided into three parts. Part I discusses models of criminal recidivism. The second part tackles the economic model of crime. Part III estimates cost functions for prisons. Specific chapters in the book cover topics on statistical analysis of qualitative outcomes; analysis of two measures of criminal activity: the arrest rate and the conviction rate; and long-run estimate of cost function for a group of Federal Correctional Institutions. Economists, correctional administrators, and criminal justice professionals will find the book a great source of information and insight.
The long-awaited new edition is here! Evaluation: A Systematic Approach, by Peter H. Rossi, Mark W. Lipsey, and Gary T. Henry, is the best-selling comprehensive introduction to the field of program evaluation, covering the range of evaluation research activities used in appraising the design, implementation, effectiveness, and efficiency of social programs. Evaluation domains are presented in a coherent framework that not only explores each, but recognizes their interrelationships, their role in improving social programs and the outcomes they are designed to affect, and their embeddedness in social and political context. Relied on as the “gold standard” by professors, students, and practitioners for 40 years, the new Eighth Edition includes a new practical chapter on planning an evaluation, entirely new examples throughout, and a major re-organization of the book’s content to better serve the needs of program evaluation courses
Fine-tune your marketing research with this cutting-edge statistical toolkit Bayesian Statistics and Marketing illustrates the potential for applying a Bayesian approach to some of the most challenging and important problems in marketing. Analyzing household and consumer data, predicting product performance, and custom-targeting campaigns are only a few of the areas in which Bayesian approaches promise revolutionary results. This book provides a comprehensive, accessible overview of this subject essential for any statistically informed marketing researcher or practitioner. Economists and other social scientists will find a comprehensive treatment of many Bayesian methods that are central to the problems in social science more generally. This includes a practical approach to computationally challenging problems in random coefficient models, non-parametrics, and the problems of endogeneity. Readers of the second edition of Bayesian Statistics and Marketing will also find: Discussion of Bayesian methods in text analysis and Machine Learning Updates throughout reflecting the latest research and applications Discussion of modern statistical software, including an introduction to the R package bayesm, which implements all models incorporated here Extensive case studies throughout to link theory and practice Bayesian Statistics and Marketing is ideal for advanced students and researchers in marketing, business, and economics departments, as well as for any statistically savvy marketing practitioner.
The research reported in this volume was designed to provide estimates of the extent of damages and injuries from certain natu ral hazards inflicted on households in the United States. In addi tion, it reports on sources of aid proffered to households and the extent to which there are differences among households in the receipt of help. This volume represents the latest installment in a series of monographs stemming from the Social and Demographic Re search Institute's (SADRI) program of research on the effects of natural hazard events in the United States. The first volume in our series (Wright, Rossi, Wright, & Weber-Burdin, 1979) reported on the long-range effects of natural hazards on the population and housing stocks of neighborhoods and communities. The second volume (Rossi et aI. , 1982) assessed the support for hazard mitiga tion policies existing among local and state political elites in a sample of states and local communities in the United States. The main findings of these two monographs can be summarized as follows. First, long-range effects (up to 10 years postevent) of nat ural hazard events are minimal: Local communities and neighbor hoods that have been impacted by floods, tornadoes, or hurricanes appear to be no different in their population and housing growth patterns over the period 1960 to 1970 than comparable commu nities that went unscathed. Apparently, household and communi ty resources plus outside aid were sufficient ordinarily to restore impacted areas to normal growth patterns.
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