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Previous research has suggested that the racial composition of a jury plays a role in the likelihood of conviction of certain defendants. In general, it has been supported that White jury members are more likely to vote to convict Black defendants, while Black jury members are more likely to vote to acquit Black defendants. Prior research has suffered from flaws that could possibly affect these outcomes. For instance, the use of mock juries to examine jury behavior creates artificiality and may not adequately reflect real jury decision-making. Additionally, research on real juries either focuses on certain types of cases (i.e., capital cases) or suffers from problems relating to insufficient or incomplete trial or jury data. As a result, existing jury research has failed to folly capture or explain the factors that are related to jury decision-making in non-capital felony trials. The current research examined case outcomes in real jury trials of defendants charged with non-capital felonies. In particular, the current study analyzed the relationship between the racial composition of the jury and conviction of black defendants. Results indicated a significant relationship between these two variables.

Studies that examine the effects of welfare, specifically the program of Aid to Families of Dependent Children (AFDC), have primarily examined the relationship between public assistance spending and index, or part one, offenses. In general, the results of past studies have found a negative relationship between welfare and serious crime rates. To date, however, few studies have examined the effects of welfare on the more prevalent part two crimes. Given that previous examinations have found an inverse relationship between index crimes and welfare spending, changes in levels of spending could potentially affect both categories of crime in unwanted directions. As such, this study examined both part one and part two property crimes in relation to welfare spending from 1980 to 1990 in Kentucky counties. Significant positive findings were observed between AFDC spending and part two property crimes.

This article explores the empirical validity of the Social Interactionist (SI) perspective as an explanation of violent victimization. An additional goal is to explain why early puberty among adolescents is connected to violent victimization. Using SI, we theorize that early puberty creates unusually high levels of distress for adolescents (more so for girls than boys), causing them to behave in ways that create grievances with others and provoke victimization. The research hypotheses were tested using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), a nationally representative data set of teenagers attending school in the United States. We found that measures of distress significantly increase violent victimization among members of the sample. Furthermore, the SI measures partially mediated the relationship between early puberty and violent victimization for boys and fully mediated this relationship for girls.

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