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An Empirical Examination of Conflict Theory: Race and Sentence Length (open access)

An Empirical Examination of Conflict Theory: Race and Sentence Length

The conflict perspective of criminology and societal reaction to crime suggests that the administration of criminal justice is determined and controlled by those segments of society which are relatively powerful. Based on this perspective, it is reasonable to expect that relatively powerful groups or categories will be far less subject to severe criminal sanctions than will those who are relatively powerless. This proposition may be tested at points in the criminal justice system where decisions are made relative to the application of criminal sanction. The findings are that the relationship between race of offender and sentence length considered both with and without selected control variables is a uniformly weak relationship. In certain categories of control variables the relationship between race of offender and sentence length does strengthen slightly, but in no case are the relationships sufficiently strong to be significant at the .05 level. Partial correlation coefficients show the relationship between race of offender and sentence length to be little affected by the control variables. Therefore, the relationship between race of offender and sentence length is in all cases considered, and by every form of analysis, quite weak. Proportional reduction in error in virtually every case considered in this study …
Date: August 1976
Creator: Dison, Jack E.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Voluntary Associations: Membership Attrition and Structural Characteristics (open access)

Voluntary Associations: Membership Attrition and Structural Characteristics

The problem of this research was to investigate David Sills' explanation of membership attrition in voluntary associations. Using the membership population of the Dallas Association for Retarded Citizens from 1969 through 1974, a survey was conducted to determine whether the organizational characteristics of bureaucracy, minority rule, and goal displacement are associated with membership attrition in a selected voluntary association. The findings of this study support Sills' ideas about the association of goal displacement and minority rule with membership attrition in voluntary associations. Bureaucratization, however, was not found to be related to membership attrition.
Date: May 1976
Creator: Huffman, Ellen Jane
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Marginality, Social Class, and Goal Orientations of American Indian Migrants in Fort Worth, Texas (open access)

The Marginality, Social Class, and Goal Orientations of American Indian Migrants in Fort Worth, Texas

The concepts of marginality, social class, and goal-orientation were operationally defined. The relationships between these concepts were explored in order to discern their utility in describing the marginal conditions of Indian migrants to an urban area. Marginality was found to be reflected by the extent of identification of Indian migrants with the urban community. Marginal conditions were also more closely linked to social class than goal orientations of parents. Differences in the types of marginality experienced are related to the length of residence in the urban area.
Date: May 1976
Creator: Ward, Carol Jane
System: The UNT Digital Library