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8/11/2019 A Study of the Behavior of Law [Michael R. Gottfredson and Michael J. Hindelang, 1979]
1/17
A Study of the Behavior of LawAuthor(s): Michael R. Gottfredson and Michael J. HindelangSource: American Sociological Review, Vol. 44, No. 1 (Feb., 1979), pp. 3-18Published by: American Sociological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2094813.
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AMERICAN
SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
A
STUDY OF THE
BEHAVIOR OF
LAW*
MICHAEL R.
GOTTFREDSON
MICHAEL
J. HINDELANG
State
University of
New
York,
Albany
State
University of
New
York, Albany
American
Sociological Review 1979, Vol. 44
(February):3-18
In The Behavior of Law, Black
(1976) sets
forth a
theory
of law that
he
argues explains
variations in law
across societies and among individuals within
societies. Black argues that law
can
be conceived of as a
quantitative
variable,
measured
by
the number and
scope
of
prohibitions, obligations and
other
standards to which
people
are
subject.
Law
varies,
according to Black, with other aspects of social life, including stratification, morphology,
culture,
organization,
and
social control. Many of
Black's
principal propositions
regarding
the
quantity
of law
are tested
in this
paper
with
National Crime
Survey
data on the victim's decision
to
report
a
crime
to
the police.
An
alternative model
that
views the
quantity
of
law as
depending
largely
on the
gravity
of the infraction
against legal
norms is
posed
and
tested
against
Black's
theory. The
data
are generally inconsistent
with
the propositions derived from
The Behavior of
Law
and
strongly suggest
that a
theory attempting
to
explain
the
criminal law
cannot
ignore
the
gravity of the infraction
against legal
norms.
Introduction
The Behavior
of Law (Black,
1976) has
been referred to
as a "crashing classic"
(Nader, n.d.) and the most
important
con-
tribution ever
made to the sociology of
law-
"that and more"
(Sherman, 1978).
Although Black's theory has
also been
criticized as "circular"
(Michaels, 1978),
it is apparent that
it will be the stimulus for
a
great deal of research
in
coming years.
This is so because
Black's theory of law is
stated in explicit propositional form and
because he sees the
theory
as
applying
to
so
many aspects
of law
(e.g.,
both
crimi-
nal and civil) and at so
many levels of
analysis (e.g., individual level,
community
level,
and
societal level).
Black
defines
law as "governmental so-
cial control"
(1976:2)
and
argues
that
law
is a quantitative
variable that varies across
time
and
space
as
well as across char-
acteristics
of
individuals:
.
. . the
quantity
of
law is known
by
the
number and
scope
of
prohibitions, obliga-
tions, and other
standards
o which
people
are subject, and by the rate of legislation,
litigation,
and
adjudication....
Any
initia-
tion, invocation,
or application
of
law
in-
creases
its
quantity.
. .
(1976:3)
According
to Black,
the quantity
of law
varies with
other aspects
of social
life:
stratification,
morphology,
culture,
orga-
nization,
and social
control.
In
connection
with each
of these
dimensions
Black sets
forth a series
of propositions
that he
argues
explain
variations
in law
across
societies and among individuals within a
given
society
(1976:6-7).'
For
example,
"law
varies
directly
with rank [e.g.,
in-
come].
. .
.
People
with
less
wealth
have
less law.
They are
less
likely to call
upon
the
law
in
dealing
with
one
another"
(1976:17).
In
this paper
we
will examine
many
of Black's propositions,
empirically
test
their predictions,
and discuss
the
im-
plications
for the sociology
of criminal
law.
*
Address
all
communications
to: Michael
R.
Gottfredson;
Criminal Justice
Research
Center;
One
Alton Road; Albany,
NY 12203.
I
Black discusses
"styles
of law"
as
well as quan-
tity of
law. The styles
include penal,
compensatory,
therapeutic
and conciliatory
(Black,
1976:4-5).
Be-
cause
of the nature
of our
data, we will
limit our
discussion
to penal
(criminal)
law.
3
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4
AMERICAN
SOCIOLOGICAL
REVIEW
The task that Black
(1976:7)
sets for
himself is to
illustrate
a strategy for
the
construction
of
sociological
theory
that
.. .
predicts and explains
social life with-
out regard to the individual as such. It
neither assumes
nor implies
that he is, for
instance,
rational, goal-directed,
pleasure
seeking,
or pain avoiding."
Black is par-
ticularly
concerned
about
avoiding expla-
nations that
rely on individual
motivation.
For example,
he argues repeatedly
that
both the theory
of law and
"the
theory
of
illegal
behavior" explain
the
same facts
(e.g.,
the crime rate).
The theory
of
illegal
behavior,
however,ex-
plains these facts with the principlesthat
motivate
an
individual o violate the
law....
The theory of
law predictsthe
same facts,
but as
an
aspect
of
the
behavior
of
law,
not
of
the motivation
of the individual. (Black,
1976:9)
As
a
consequence
of
this
macrotheoretical
approach,
Black
is careful to avoid
expla-
nations
or propositions
that
rely
directly
upon
variations
in
the
behavior of
indi-
viduals.
He
argues
that the behavior
of
law,
in all respects,
can
be
explained
by
social
structural
variations and
by
the
relative
social structural positions
of
the
actors
(e.g.,
the victim
and
the offender),
without reference
to how the nature
of
individual
behavior
affects the behavior
of
law.
One
of
the
major
difficulties facing
those
who
would test Black's theory
of
law is
that he is not
explicit
about
how
the
objective seriousness of the offense
should
be handled. Contrary
to
the tradi-
tional sociological
use of
the term
serious-
ness,
as
incorporating
the
consequences
of acts
to
individuals,
such
as
bodily
in-
jury
or financial
loss
(see
Sellin
and
Wolfgang,
1964),
Black
defines the seri-
ousness
of infractions
by
the amount of
law
that
they
evoke.
Thus,
Black argues
that
"[i]f
a
poor
man commits
a
crime
against
another
poor
man,
for
example,
this is less serious than if both are
wealthy.
Less
happens
.
.
.,"
and
that
"the
more
organized
the victim of a
crime,
for
instance,
the more
serious
is the of-
fense"
(Black,
1976:17,95).
For
Black
(1976:9),
". . .
the
seriousness
of deviant
behavior
is
defined
by
the
quantity
of
law
to
which
it is
subject."
What
this
implies,
therefore, is that Black's entire theoretical
framework is
designed
to
account
for
the
quantity of law without
including
the
con-
sequences
of the
deviance
to the victim
as
a dimension of the theory. This is so be-
cause
the
quantity
of law is
Black's de-
pendent
variable-a
quantity
that
varies
as a function of
stratification, morphol-
ogy,
culture, organization,
and
(nonlegal)
social
control-and, thus,
"seriousness"
is not
defined apart from the
dependent
variable itself. Hence,
Black
does not use
seriousness
in
its traditional
sense to
ex-
plain
variations in the
quantity
of
law.
None
of
the
formal
propositions presented
incorporates harm to the victim as a con-
sideration,
and never is
variation
in
litiga-
tion, arrest, prosecution,
or
sentencing
accounted
for
by
Black
in
terms of
varia-
tion
in
conduct.
Although Black
frequently uses such
phrases
as "all else
constant" (e.g.,
Black, 1976:28,47,114)
when stating a
theoretical proposition,
such qualifica-
tions can reasonably
apply only to vari-
ables
included in the
theory.
If
"all else
constant"
can refer to variables not incor-
porated
by
the
theory
then the
theory
must be
rejected as untestable.
If
"all
else" is
limited to dimensions and prop-
ositions
formally specified
by Black, then
the
consequences of legal infractions to
individuals
must
be considered by Black
to be
irrelevant
in
accounting for
the
quan-
tity of
law.
For example, in connection
with his
stratification propositions, Black
(1976:31) notes ". . . that these principles
apply
whatever
the
actual behavior of
the
lower
ranks-whether,
for
example,
it
is
more or less
violent
or
predatory-since
their
conduct is more
likely
to be defined
as
illegal
no matter
what
they
do." On the
basis of
such statements and the context
within
which Black
discusses
his
theory of
law,
he must
be
interpreted as
arguing
that
the
individual consequences
of
legal
in-
fractions, such things as
injury and mone-
tary loss, are not an important considera-
tion in
explaining
the
behavior
of law.
At a
minimum,
he
must be
interpreted as argu-
ing that the
individual
consequences
of
legal
infractions, such as harm to victims
of
crimes
(seriousness
of the offense
in
its
conventional
use),
are less
important
than
stratification, morphology,
culture, orga-
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A STUDY OF THE
BEHAVIOR OF LAW
5
nization, and social control
in
determining
the behavior
of law. An alternative
to
Black's theory
of law, therefore, is one
that explains
the behavior of law as
a func-
tion of the individual consequences of
legal infractions
(such as harm to
the vic-
tim) rather than as a
function of Black's
five dimensions
(and their associated
propositions). Our alternative
model is
simply
that
the behavior of criminal
law
depends primarily
on
what
happens be-
tween the victim and
the offender; the ex-
tent of harm suffered
is the
principal
de-
terminant
of the
quantity
of law.
The Data
Many of
the
propositions
set forth
by
Black can be tested
using data
available
from the
National Crime Survey
(NCS)
conducted by
the Bureau
of the Census
for
the
Law
Enforcement
Assistance Ad-
ministration.
Because the methods and
procedures used
in these victimization
surveys
have been discussed
in
detail
elsewhere (U.S.
Bureau of the
Census,
1975;
Hindelang
et
al., 1978), they
will
be
described only briefly here.
In these surveys,
multistage cluster
sampling
is used to select
representative
samples
of
Americans twelve
years
of
age
or
older
in order to ask them about com-
mon assault and
theft
victimizations
that
they
may
have suffered
during
the
six
months
preceding
the interview.
In
this
design about 130,000
persons are inter-
viewed twice per year.
The
data
used here
are for crimes reported as having occurred
during
1974, 1975,
or 1976.
This
paper
is
limited to
personal
crimes
in which there
was
some
actual contact
between the vic-
tim and the offender-rape, robbery,
as-
sault,
and personal larceny (e.g.,
purse
snatch).
Because of
the
complex
sampling
design,
data
weighted
to yield
valid na-
tional estimates
are used
here. For
these
years
the mean
weight
is
about
1,000.2
The
victimization survey
data
are
par-
ticularly well-suited to testing many of
Black's
propositions
because
he
explicitly
frames
much of
his
discussion
in
terms of
criminal
law
examples,
such
as
complaints
to the
police,
arrests,
and
prosecutions.
The
victimization
survey
data
not
only
contain
the requisite
information
Black
discusses about the victim (e.g., social
rank)
and
the
offender
(e.g., number
of
offenders)
but
also
contain
the
informa-
tion
necessary
to assess
a variety
of
ecological
propositions
set
forth
by
Black.
Furthermore,
one
of the
principal
mea-
sures
of the
quantity
of law
discussed
by
Black
(1976:3)
is
complaint
to the
police:
A complaint
o a
legal
official,
for
example,
is morelaw
than
no
complaint,
whether
t
is
a
call to
the police,
a
visit
to a
regulatory
agency, or a lawsuit.Each is an increasein
the
quantity
of law.
For the
crimes
of
common
theft
and
as-
sault,
initiation
of
the criminal
justice
process
is almost
exclusively
in the
hands
of
the victim (Reiss,
1971;
Hindelang
and
Gottfredson,
1976).
Because
victimization
data
include
both
crimes
reported
to
the
police
and
crimes
not
reported
to
the
police,
they
permit
an empirical
assess-
ment of many of Black's propositions re-
garding
initiation
of
the criminal
law.
Consequently,
most
of
this paper
will cen-
ter
on Black's propositions
within
the con-
text
of the
victim's
decision
about
report-
ing
the
offense
to
the
police.
With the
victimization
survey
data
it
is possible
to
assess propositions
relating
to
each
of
Black's
five
major
dimensions.
The
first of
these
is stratification.
Stratification
Black
(1976:
1
1)
defines
stratification
as
the
"vertical aspect
of
social
life,"
the
"uneven
distribution
of the material
con-
ditions
of existence,
such
as food
and
shelter,
and
the
means
by
which
these
are
produced,
such
as
land,
raw
materials,
tools,
domestic animals,
and slaves."
Ac-
cording
to
Black,
the
quantity
of law
var-
ies directly with social rank, and down-
ward
law
(e.g.,
a
complaint
by
a
wealthier
man
against
a
poorer
man)
is more
likely
than
upward
law:
In
the case
of
a
crime,
for
instance,
a
victim
who
is above
the
offender
in rank
is
more
likely
to
call
the
police
than
a
victim
whose
rank
is lower
than
the offender's
....
Hold
2
The weights reflect the inverse of the probability
of selection, adjusted for within-strata nonresponse,
among other factors. See U.S. Bureau
of the Census
(1975) for details.
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6
AMERICAN
SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
constant the
offender's rank and wealthier
people
complain more about
everything. In
criminalmatters,for
instance, the
likelihood
of
a
call to
the police increases with the rank
of the
victim. (1976:21,
27)
With the
victimization
survey data it is
possible to
test this proposition
by exam-
ining the
extent to
which reporting crimes
to
the
police varies as a function of
the
social
rank of
the victim. Most
research
literature
indicates that
offenders
in
crimes
of
common
theft and assault
are
drawn
disproportionately
from
lower
ranks. Because Black
(1976:31,
30) stipu-
lates these findings (".
. .
criminality var-
ies inversely with rank . . . "), from his
stipulation
and his
proposition
it follows
that
the
proportion
of
victims
reporting
their victimizations to
the
police
will
in-
crease with
the
victim's
rank. Table
1
shows the
relationship
between the vic-
tim's
family
income
(Black's
principal
in-
dicator of social
rank) and
proportionate
reporting of victimizations to
the police.3
In
order
to examine the effects of harm
to
the victim
on
reporting
to
the
police,
the data in
Table
1
are
tabulated
also
by
seriousness
level as
measured by the
Sellin-Wolfgang
(1964)
seriousness scale.
This
seriousness
scoring system was de-
veloped using a
magnitude estimation
procedure and it is
designed to
take into
account
the extent and
nature
of
bodily
injury,
weapon use,
intimidation, forcible
sexual
intercourse, and financial loss.4
Table
1
shows a substantial seriousness
effect;
as the
gravity
of
the
victimization
increases so too does
reporting
to
the
police.
Contrary
to Black's
hypothesis,
however, there is little systematic variabil-
ity in
rates of reporting
to the
police,
as a
function of
income.
Collapsing
across
seriousness
level,
the
gamma
for Table
1
between
reporting
to the
police
and
family
income is
-.017; within seriousness levels
the gammas
range
from -.037 to .110. On
the other hand,
the
gamma
for the
rela-
tionship
between
reporting
and
serious-
ness level
(collapsing across
income)
is
.305.
This
effect
is of
similar
magnitude
within income categories (gammas range
from .260 to
.453). Clearly,
Table
1
is not
consistent
with
Black's stratification
pos-
tulate.
One need not
accept
the
stipulation
made
by
Black
regarding
the
inverse rela-
tionship between
criminality and
rank
in
order
to
assess Black's
stratification pos-
tulate with
these data.
A
corollary to the
proposition
tested
above is that people
with
less wealth
are "less
likely to call
upon law in their dealings with
one an-
other
. . .
"
(1976:
17).
What this
implies,
then,
is
that
victimizations between per-
sons
known to
each
other
(and, hence,
likely
to
be
similar in
social
rank)
are
more
likely to be
reported to the
police by per-
sons of
higher rank
than by
persons of
lower rank.
Respondents in
the survey
were
asked
whether the
offender
was
someone
known
to
them (a
relative,
a
good friend, or a casual acquaintance) or
was a
stranger.
The data
presented
in
Table
1
were
analyzed
separately
for
crimes
involving persons reported
by
vic-
tims to
be
nonstrangers.
The results for
crimes
between
nonstrangers,
shown in
Table
2, are
parallel
to
those shown
in
Table
1.
For
nonstranger victimizations
only,
collapsing across
seriousness,
the
gamma between
income and
reporting to
the
police
is
equal
to
-.102;
within
serious-
ness levels gammas ranged from - .110 to
.050.
Thus,
Black's
prediction
that people
with
less wealth
are less
likely
to
call
upon
law in
their
dealings
with
one
another does
not
find
support
in
these data.
Another
stratification
hypothesis
put
forth
by
Black
(1976:15)
is that
wherever
people
are more
equal
there
is
less
law:
I
Victims
were
asked
whether
"the
police
were
informed of this incident in any way?" Those re-
sponding
"no" or
"don't
know"
were classified
as
"no"
for the
purpose
of this
paper.
"Yes"
included
victimizations
reported
to the
police by
the victim
or
someone
in
the
victim's household,
victimizations
reported
by
"someone
else"
and victimizations
in
which
the "police
[were] on
the scene."
Virtually
all
of the
"yes" responses
(95%)
involved
reports
to
the
police.
4
According
to
this method
elements
of the
vic-
timization
are scored
for
seriousness
resulting
in
seriousness
scores
that range
from
zero to
26.
A
victimization
resulting
in a score of zero would
be
an
attempted crime in which no injury or loss was suf-
fered
and in which
no
weapon
was used.
A score
of
26 is indicative
of
a homicide,
although homicide
is
not among
the
crimes
counted
in the survey.
Vic-
timization
events
are concentrated
among
the
lower
seriousness
scores (Hindelang,
1976: Chap.
6).
In
order to
have
a sufficient
number
of
(unweighted)
victimizations,
four
seriousness
levels
were
used:
level
1
=
O
and
1;
level 2
=
2 and 3;
level
3
=
4 and
5;
and
level
4
=
6
or
more.
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8/11/2019 A Study of the Behavior of Law [Michael R. Gottfredson and Michael J. Hindelang, 1979]
7/17
8
AMERICAN
SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
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8/17
A STUDY OF
THE BEHAVIOR
OF LAW
9
Table 3. Proportion of Victimizations
Reported
to Police by Seriousness Level
and Ratio of Number of
Families in Respondent's
Neighborhood with Annual
Incomes under
$5,000 to Total Families in
Neighborhood,
United States, 1974-1976
Proportion
of Families in
Respondent's Neighborhood
with incomes under $5,000
Seriousness
Level
0-10%
11-20W 21-30W
31-100%
Total Gamma
1
35% 37%
38% 37%
37% .023
(1,108,504)
(1,524,432) (839,712)
(745,554) (4,218,202)
2 37%
37%
41%
41%
39%W
.047
(1,671,796)
(2,297,852) (1,364,830)
(1,185,060) (6,519,538)
3
54% 54%
56%
47% 53%
-.051
(1,126,276) (1,641,788)
(997,065) (989,873)
(4,755,002)
4
75%
75% 73%
70%
73%
-.069
(393,980) (608,400)
(419,024)
(506,002) (1,927,406)
Total 45%
46%
48% 46%
.026
(4,300,556) (6,072,472) (3,620,631) (3,426,488) (17,420,147)
families
within
the
victim's
neighborhood
with
annual family incomes of less
than
$5,000.
According to Black's theory
of
law, as
the proportion of families under
$5,000
increases, the rate of reporting to
the
police decreases. Once
again, even at
this level of
aggregation, reporting
is
con-
sistently
related to seriousness level
within each category of neighborhood in-
come level.
There is, however, little sys-
tematic evidence to
support the
proposi-
tion
derived from Black's
theory of law.
In
addition, when the data are regrouped
according to the
percentage
of
all families
with an
annual
family
income of
$15,000
or
more, the
very slight
effect in
Table
3
changes
to
a trend
of
a
similarly weak
magnitude
opposite
to
that predicted by
his
theory.
In
sum, areal stratification
does not produce findings of notable mag-
nitude nor findings
consistently
in
the
direction required by the
theory.
Morphology
The
second dimension relevant to
Black's
(1976:37) theory
of law is mor-
phology:
Morphology
s the
horizontal
aspect
of social
life, the distributionof people in relationto
one
another, including
their
division of
labor,
networks
of
interaction, ntimacy,and
integration. t varies across social settings of
every
kind, whether societies, communities,
neighborhoods,
or
organizations.
.
.
One
village or tribe may have a greater
divisionof
labor-more
differentiation-than
another
....
Some settings are
intimate,
others
im-
personal.
In
some, nearly
every
one partici-
pates
in everything)
in
others, many
are
marginal
or alone.
Morphology
is a central
dimension
in
The
Behavior
of Law because
of its
implica-
tions for
the degree
to which
people
are
involved
in each other's
lives
(Black,
1976:40). Black
contends
that law is
in-
active among intimates and is used in-
creasingly
as
relational
distance increases,
until the point
at which people
exist
en-
tirely
independently
of each
other,
a
point
rarely reached
in modern
societies.
This
observation
is
embodied
in
the
proposi-
tion that
"the relationship
between
law
and
relational
distance
is curvilinear"
(Black,
1976:41).
Up
to a
point,
Black
(1976:46)
notes,
a
community's
size is
predictive of its rate of litigation.
This
derivation can
be tested
with the
victimization
survey
data
by examining
the relationship
between
the size
of the
community
in which
the victim
resides
and the
proportion
of respondents
who
told interviewers that
they had
reported
the victimization
to
the police.
From the
victimization
data
it
is possible to
obtain
the size
of the place
in which the respon-
dent
resided at
the time of
the interview.
These place sizes have been divided into
six
groups as shown
in
Table
4. According
to
Black's theory
of
law,
as place size
increases,
so too should
the proportion
of
victimizations
reported
to the police.
The data
in Table
4
do
not support the
hypothesis.
At each
seriousness
level the
general
trend is
for
the rate
of
reporting
to
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10
AMERICAN
SOCIOLOGICAL
REVIEW
Table 4.
Proportions
of
Victimizations Reported to
the
Police, by
Seriousness Level, and
Size
of
Place,
United
States, 1974-1976a
Place Size
Seriousness
Under
10,000- 50,000-
250,000- 500,000-
1,000,000
Level 10,000 49,000 249,000 499,999 999,999 or more Total Gamma
1
44%
37%
37%
34%
31%
32%
36%
-.112
(546,280)
(957,077)
(970,599)
(309,680)
(457,445)
(466,765) (3,707,846)
2
46%
38%
37% 33%
38%
38%
38%
-.060
(792,968) (1,385,821)
(1,395,100)
(540,047) (730,028)
(776,311)
(5,620,275)
3
53%
57%
54%
49Wo
50o
54%
54%
-.034
(629,018)
(1,001,677)
(980,465)
(405,247) (505,470)
(646,540) (4,168,417)
4
82%
73%
76%
70o 68% 72%
73% -.096
(201,721)
(361,688)
(345,854)
(170,045) (238,581)
(406,385) (1,724,274)
Total
51%
46%
45%
42%
43% 47% - .041
(2,169,986) (3,706,262)
(3,692,019)
(1,425,018)
(1,931,525)
(2.296,001)
a
Cases
in
which the
place
size
has
not
been classified
by
the Bureau
of
the
Census are not included in this
table.
the police to decrease as the size of the
place in which the respondent lives
in-
creases.
Among morphological variables Black
includes radial location, the proximity of
individuals to the center of social life.
Employed persons are
more
integrated
than unemployed and married persons are
more integrated than single persons
(Black, 1976:48). The proposition related
to
radial location
is that "law
varies
di-
rectly with integration" (1976:48). From
this it
follows that (other things being
equal),
for
example, persons
who
are
un-
married and unemployed
will
have lower
rates of reporting to the police than will
persons
who are married and
employed.
To
test
this
proposition, respondents were
categorized with respect to marital status
and employment status. For this purpose,
persons keeping
house were
categorized
as
employed.6
Table 5 shows rates
of
reporting to the
police by employment status and marital
status. A comparison of proportions re-
porting
their victimizations to the
police
among those who
were
married vs. those
who were never married indicates that the
former are
more
likely
than
the latter
to
invoke the criminal justice process.
This
tendency is slightly greater for less serious
victimizations.7
Because Black views
married people as more integrated than
single people these results
are
consistent
with his radical location
hypothesis. Em-
ployment status, a second
indicator of so-
cial integration, however,
is not consis-
tently
related
to
reporting
to the
police
in
the direction predicted by Black's theory
of law. Furthermore,
to the extent that
being in school is viewed as being more
integrated than being unemployed, the
data are generally inconsistent
with
the
integration
proposition.8
For example,
among persons
who have
never been mar-
ried, those
in
school were
less likely than
those unemployed to report
victimizations
to the police (e.g., seriousness level 1,
29%o
s.
35%).
Black also hypothesizes that the quan-
tity of law is related to population density.
The greater the density, the greater the
law.
A
density indicator
available among
the neighborhood characteristics
is
the
ratio of the number of
housing units
in
structures
containing
five or more units
to
the
total number of housing units. Contrary
to
his theory
of
law, there
is
a slight
trend
for the
proportion
of
victimizations
re-
ported
to the
police
to decrease as popula-
tion
density increases (data
not shown
in
tabular form).
For
the least serious victimi-
6
The
"other"
category
shown
in
Table
5
includes
retired
persons
and
persons
who
were unable
to
work.
When tabulated
separately "persons
keeping
house"
were
found
to have
rates
of
reporting
similar
to
those
of employed
persons.
7
Because
of the
number
of cells
in relation
to
the
number of
unweighted
cases
available, for
this
por-
tion
of
the
analysis it
was
necessary to
dichotomize
seriousness. Low
seriousness
includes
Sellin-
Wolfgang
scores
0
through 3
and
high
seriousness
includes
scores
of
4
or
more.
8
Respondents
were
dichotomized into
those
under 35
and
those 35
and
older and
these
findings
maintained.
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A STUDY OF THE BEHAVIOR OF LAW 11
0 oc
~~~
C~~~~l
C-)~~~~~C
0)~ ~ ~ ~ ~~~0
CZ
C ~ ~ ~
l C
Cu~ ~ ~
~~~C0
0)
t-
U
~~~
'0)~ ~~0
c~~~ 0)
~ ~
0
0'6C
"Cl
CZ
0)~ ~
~~~~0 0
0~~~~~~~0
r
00
00
CZ
nations,
40% of
victims residing
in areas
with
no housing units
in structures
con-
taining
five or
more units
and
32%
of vic-
tims residing
in areas with
more than
15%
of housing units in structures containing
five or
more units,
reported
their
victimi-
zations
to the police.
For the
most serious
victimizations,
the respective
figures are
75%
and
71%.
Thus, among
those
mor-
phological
propositions
tested,
only that
relating to
greater reporting
by
married
than
single persons
received support.
Culture
The third dimension discussed by Black
(1976:61)
is culture:
Culture
s the
symbolic
aspect
of social life,
including
expressions
of what is true, good,
and beautiful.
It thus includes
ideas
about
the
nature
of
reality,
whether theoretical
or
practical,
and whether supernatural,
metaphysical,
or empirical.
.
.
Culture
n-
cludes
aesthetic
life
of all
sorts,
the fine
arts
and
the
popular,
such as
poetry
and
painting,
clothing
and
other
decorative
art,
architec-
ture, and even the culinaryarts.
Like
stratification,
culture
varies among
societies
and
within
societies among
indi-
viduals.
"An
individual's
culture depends
upon
how many
ideas
he has,
what he
wears,
eats,
makes,
watches,
and
plays"
(Black,
1976:64).
As an indicator
of the
culture
of individuals,
Black
uses
educa-
tion.
Whether
on the
individual
or
societal
level,
"law
varies directly
with
culture"
(Black, 1976:63). That is, for example,
"literate
and educated people
are
more
likely
to bring
lawsuits against
others"
(Black,
1976:64).
The left
panel
of Table
6
shows again
that
the seriousness
of
the
victimization
is
closely
related
to
reporting
to
the
police.
Regardless
of an
individual's
educational
level,
more serious
victimizations
are
more likely
to
be reported
to
the
police.
The
victim's
educational
level
(excluding
those still in school), as Black's theory
predicts,
is
directly
related
to
reporting
to
the
police.
The
overall
strength
of
this re-
lationship
is,
however,
very
weak.
Col-
lapsing
across
seriousness,
the
gamma
for
the relationship
between
individual
educa-
tional level
and
reporting
to
the
police
is
.109 and
within
seriousness
rows
gammas
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12
AMERICAN
SOCIOLOGICAL
REVIEW
CZOUT~E?R
tndo
s~~~~~I
N
rq
:
g
V.
CZgOsm
e
;__
~
c
tao
range from
.190 for the
least
serious
vic-
timizations to
.063 for
the second least
serious
victimizations.
As
with most
dimensions
in
Black's
theory, culture is seen also as an impor-
tant
predictor
of
variations
in
law across
areas. Once
again,
the
neighborhood
characteristic data
were
used as an indi-
cator of the culture of
areas.
Specifically
the
proportion of
persons
25 to 54
years
of
age
who were
college graduates
to all
per-
sons
25 to
54
years
of
age
was used. The
right panel of Table
6
shows
these areal
data. According to
Black, as
the
propor-
tion
of
educated persons
increases,
so
too
should reporting to the police. Contrary to
this
expectation,
there is
a
slight negative
association
between areal education
and
reporting to
the
police
(gamma
=
-.112);
within the
seriousness
rows the gammas
range from
-.122
to
-
.062.
In
sum,
Black's
cultural propositions are
neither
consistently
nor
strongly
supported.
Organization
Organizations thecorporateaspectof social
life, the
capacity or collective
action.
This
is
found in
any group, whether a
couple
or
a
gang
of
playmates,
a
club,
family,
or
firm,
a
political party,
municipality,
or
state. But
some
groups
are more
organized
han
others.
...
A
society may be
more
or less
organized.
.
Even one individual
may
be
more
organized
han another-as measured
by
his
memberships. Finally, any
group is, by
definition,
more
organized
hanan
individual
on his
own.
(Black, 1976:85,
86)
The first
proposition related to
organiza-
tion is that
"law varies
directly
with
orga-
nization"
(Black,
1976:86). Parallel to
the
stratification
proposition
that downward
law is
greater
than upward law,
Black
(1976:92) argues
that "law is greater
in
a
direction
toward
less
organization than
toward
more
organization." This
implies
that
a
collectivity is more
likely to litigate
against an
individual than vice
versa.
In
connection with criminal offenses, for
example,
"the
police
are
more
likely
to
hear
about a
robbery of a
business than a
robbery
of
an individual
on the street"
(Black,
1976:95).
To this
point
the
use of
victimization
data has
been
restricted to
personal
crimes,
but because the
National
Crime
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12/17
A
STUDY
OF
THE
BEHAVIOR
OF
LAW
13
Survey includes
a
survey
of
a national
probability sample
of
business establish-
ments it is possible to compare reporting
rates according to whether the victim
was
an individual or an organization. In sup-
port of Black's hypothesis, the data indi-
cate that although about one-half
of
the
robberies of
individuals
are reported
to
the police, more than four out
of five rob-
beries of business establishments are
re-
ported to the police.
Black also conceives
of
organization
as
applying
to individuals and
to collections
of individuals. Black considers
two
or
more individuals, by definition, to be
more organized than a single individual.
As noted above, Black puts
forth the
proposition that "law is greater
in
a direc-
tion
toward
less
organization" (Black,
1976:86).
If
victims
of
personal
crimes
are
dichotomized
into less
organized (single
individuals) and
more
organized (two
or
more individuals) and offenders are
simi-
larly dichotomized, Black makes
an
explicit prediction regarding
the rank-
order of the resultant four-fold classifica-
tion with respect to invocation of law.
Specifically,
the
most
likely
to
report
their
victimizations to the police are two
or
more persons
who
are victimized by a
lone individual,
then two or more
persons
victimized by two or more offenders,
then
a lone
victim
of a lone
offender,
and
fi-
nally the
lone victim
of
two or
more of-
fenders
(Black, 1976:97).
The
relevant
data are presented
in
Table
7. With seri-
ousness level controlled, the rank-orderof
cells does not consistently
conform to
predictions derived from Black's theory of
law. This is because
although there
is a
systematic "victim" effect along
the
organizational dimension, there
is
not a
parallel
systematic
"offender"
effect
along
this
dimension. In
sum, there
is evi-
dence
consistent
with the theory
that
more
organized victims
are
systematically
more likely to invoke the law, but there is
no
consistent
(or
substantial)
evidence
that "the more
organized the
offender, the
more of
this immunity
[from
law] he en-
joys"
(Black,
1976:93).
Once again, a
comparatively
strong
seriousness effect is
apparent.
Social Control
Black's
(1976:107)
final
dimension is
social control:
Social
control is the
normativeaspect
of
so-
cial life. It
defines and
responds to deviant
behavior,
specifying
what ought to be:
what
is
rightor
wrong, whatis a
violation,
obliga-
tion,
abnormality,or disruption.
Law
is
so-
cial
control,
but
so are
etiquette, custom,
ethics,
bureaucracy, and the
treatment of
mentalillness.
As with
the other dimensions relevant to
the
behavior
of
law, social control
is
a
quantity
that varies
across
societies,
communities,
organizations,
families and
friendships-a
quantity
with
which
law
varies
inversely
(Black,
1976:107).
In
set-
tings
which
permit
people
continuously
to
observe
and react
to
each other's
conduct,
law
is
less
important
as a mechanism
of
social
control.
This
proposition
can be
tested
by
examining
variations
in
report-
ing
victimizations
to the
police
across
rural, suburban, and urban areas. Much of
Black's discussion
implies
that
in rural
areas,
in
which informal controls
are
tradi-
tionally
viewed
as
stronger
than
in
anon-
ymous
cities,
rates
of
reporting
to
the
police
will
be
lower than those
in
urban
Table 7.
Proportion
of
Victimizations
Reported
to the Police
by Seriousness
Level,
Number of
Victims,
and
Number
of
Offenders,
United
States,
1974-1976
Seriousness
Level
1 2 3 4
Number of
Victims
Number
of
Victims
Number of
Victims
Number
of
Victims
More
More
More
More
Number
of
Than
Than
Than
Than
Offenders
One
One
One
One
One
One
One One
One
34%
55%
36%
53%
44%
66%
71%
86%
(2,618,328)
(450,508)
(3,564,729)
(738,883)
(2,390,365)
(940,594)
(791,691)
(159,048)
More Than
34%
59%W
38%
54%
49%o
69%o
70%W
80%W
One
(989,576)
(360,232)
(1,556,805)
(593,099)
(1,003,481)
(672,093)
(693,466)
(294,856)
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14
AMERICAN
SOCIOLOGICAL
REVIEW
areas. When
the victimization
data are
disaggregated
according
to
the place of the
victim's residence
(data not shown in
tabular form)-within the central
city of
an SMSA (urban), the balance of an
SMSA
(suburban),
or
outside an
SMSA
(rural)-there is
virtually no relationship
between
urbanization and
reporting to the
police. For the
least serious
victimiza-
tions,
the
percentages of
victims
reporting
to
the police in
urban, suburban,
and rural
areas are
36%, 40%o
nd
40%.
For
the
most
serious
victimizations the respective fig-
ures
are 74%, 82% and 79%.
Social control
is
hypothesized
not
only
to vary across macroareas but across
microareas as well.
Black
(1976:110)
maintains that
private social
settings have
more
social control
(other than
law) and,
as a
consequence,
less law
than
do
public
settings.
In
connection with
reporting
crimes
to
the
police,
it
follows
from
this
premise that
reporting should be greater
for
victimizations
occurring
in
public
places ("on the street" and in public con-
veyances) than in homes or offices. The
relevant data are presented in Table 8.
The most private of the places shown in
Table 8 is the home and the least private is
"on
the street.'" These data are contrary
to the prediction that where nonlegal so-
cial control is the greatest (the home), re-
porting to the police will be the least and,
conversely, where nonlegal
social
control
is the least (the street), reporting to the
police
will be the
greatest.
For
each
seri-
ousness
level
rates
of
reporting
to the
police for victimizations occurring
on
the
street were lower than those for victimiza-
tions occurring in the home. They were
also lower
than the rates
for victimizations
occurring "near the home,"
where
social
control
would be
expected
to
be
greater
because
the
crime
occurred within the vic-
tim's own
neighborhood (Black,
1976:109). As a place of occurrence,
"'office/factory" is,
in
Black's
terms,
sub-
ject
to
more
nonlegal social
control than
Table
8. Proportion of
Victimizations
Reported to the
Police,
by Seriousness
Level, Place
of
Occurrence,
and Prior Relationship between Victim and Offender, United States, 1974-1976
Place of
Occurrence
Inside
Commercial
Seriousness Own
Building/Public
Office/
Near
On
Inside
Level Home
Conveyance
Factory
Home
Street
School
Other
Total
stranger 64% 40%
54%
41%
38%
14%
46%
38%
(109,687)
(563,677)
(20,931)
(203,340)
(1,579,663) (292,063)
(241,930) (3,011,291)
1 non-
stranger
49%
38%
24%
51%
35%
11%
31%
36%
(350,178)
(180,818)
(31,665)
(143,252)
(553,573)
(223,076)
(284,418) (1,740,979)
total
53%
40%W
36%
45% 38%
12% 38%
37%
(459,865) (744,494) (52,596) (346,592) (2,133,236) (525,139) (490,398) (4,752,270)
stranger
53%
36% 36%
57%
40%
13% 42% 40%
(251,568)
(1,182,976) (74,458)
(425,562)
(2,446,669) (260,978)
(426,690)
(5,068,901)
2
non-
stranger
52% 27%
16%
56%
32%
13% 30%
36%
(509,410)
(277,995)
(102,491)
(2,953,348)
(536,816)
(205,508)
(260,771)
(2,188,340)
total
52%
34%
25%
57%
39%
13% 37% 39%
(760,979)
(1,460,972) (176,949)
(720,910)
(2,983,485) (466,486)
(687,461)
(7,257,241)
stranger
69Wo
58%
68%
67%
51%
26%
57%
55%
(254,764)
(520,362)
(28,683)
(362,835)
(2,002,965)
(96,996)
(417,622) (3,684,226)
3
non-
stranger
63%
43%
11%
62% 46% 1
6% 42% 50%
(427,788)
(187,233) (23,314)
(269,687)
(470,283) (98,012)
(260,562)
(1,736,875)
total 65% 54% 42% 65% 50%o 21% 52% 53%
(682,552)
(707,595) (51,997)
(632,518)
(2,473,248) (195,008)
(678,184)
(5,421,101)
stranger
85%
78%
76%
88% 70%
25%
69%o
74%
(224,342)
(217,423) (11,474)
(107,126)
(964,752) (8,997)
(130,691)
(1,664,805)
4 non-
stranger 72%
75%
100o
79%o
71%
51%
71%
72%
(176,050)
(30,678)
(1,217)
(43,696)
(103,593) (7,497)
(68,011) (430,742)
total
80%
78%
78%
86% 70%
37%
70%
73%
(400,391)
(248,101) (12,691)
(150,823)
(1,068,345) (16,994)
(198,702)
(2,095,548)
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A
STUDY
OF
THE
BEHAVIOR OF LAW
15
the
street. Rates
of
reporting are higher
(but not consistently) for crimes occurring
on the
street than
for
those occurring
in
offices and factories. Victimizations tak-
ing place "inside schools" have the low-
est rates of reporting to the police, regard-
less of seriousness level. To the extent
that the school is viewed as an institution
having its own independent system of so-
cial controls,
then these school
data are
supportive of Black's proposition.
Also shown in Table 8 are rates of re-
porting to
the
police disaggregated
on the
basis
of
prior relationship between the
vic-
tim
and the offender.
This is
useful
for two
reasons: first, because as place of occur-
rence varies so too does the proportion
of
incidents involving victims and offenders
who
were previously
known to
each
other
(e.g., victimizations occurring in the
vic-
tim's
home involve a disproportionate
number of nonstranger victimizations);
second, because Black suggests that
in-
creased
social control
in
private settings
derives both from the fact that persons
interacting in private settings are likely to
be
friends and acquaintances (among
whom
on-going nonlegal mechanisms
of
social control exist) and that many re-
stricted
places (factories, offices, schools,
etc.)
have their
own
systems
of
security
(Black, 1976:110).
When the
prior
rela-
tionship between the
victim and the
of-
fender is
controlled,
the overall
findings
noted above generally maintain. One ex-
ception
is
that
stranger
victimizations
occurring in offices/factories have rates of
reporting that are generally higher than
those
occurring between strangers
on
the
street.
Black argues that law varies even
with
the
time
of
day. "When people go
to
sleep,
for
instance,
most social control
re-
laxes as well and law increases"
(1976:110). Consistent
with
this
hypoth-
esis is
the
finding
that
for
victimizations of
low seriousness reporting to the police
in-
creases from one-third for those victimiza-
tions
occurring during
the
daytime
to
one-half for
those
occurring
between mid-
night
and
six a.m. As
seriousness
in-
creases,
the
strength
of this
relationship
decreases,
such that for the most
serious
victimizations there
is
little variation
in
reporting
to
the
police by
time
of
occur-
rence
(daytime, 74%; 6 p.m. to
midnight,
75%; midnight to
six
a.m., 72%).
Thus,
overall, the
social control
dimension re-
ceives only
partial
support.
Discussion
The
Behavior of Law
is
an
important
contribution to
the sociology of
law both
because of
the
empirical questions that it
raises and
because it is
generally set
forth
in
such an explicit
manner that it is
testa-
ble.
Black
predicts
that law, which
can be
quantified in
a variety
of ways, is
associ-
ated
with several
critical
dimensions;
Black predicts the direction of these asso-
ciations, and
the conditions
under which
these
associations hold.
Through the use
of
a
great variety of
concrete examples
Black
facilitates the
research task by
translating
central concepts
into
indi-
cators.
The ability
of Black's theory
to
explain
reporting to
the
police
can be
summarized
briefly. According
to
the
stratification
postulates
of
Black's
theory
of
law
as
they
have been
operationalized
here, reporting
to the
police
should
have varied
directly
with the
victim's
rank, should have been
greater for
victimizations
among wealthy
nonstrangers
than among less
wealthy
nonstrangers,
should
have been greater
for
victimizations
between
strangers
than
for
victimizations
between
nonstrangers,
and
should
have varied
directly
with
areal
income. With
the exception of a
slightly
greater overall rate of reporting for
stranger victimizations than
for
nonstranger
victimizations, these stratifi-
cation
propositions
were
not
supported.
The
propositions
relating
to
morphol-
ogy
lead
to the
expectation
that
law
will
be
used
increasingly
as relational
distance
in-
creases.
In
the
context
of
reporting
vic-
timizations
to the
police,
this
implies
that
reporting
will
be
greater
for
larger
com-
munities
than for smaller communities
and
for more densely populated areas than for
less
densely populated
areas.
The
proposi-
tion that law varies
directly
with
integra-
tion
implies
that
reporting
to the
police
will
be
greater
for
employed persons
than
for
unemployed
persons
and
for married
persons
than
for
single persons.
Of
these
four
morphological
expectations
support
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16 AMERICAN
SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
is
found only for
the hypothesis that
mar-
ried persons
have a higher rate
of
report-
ing
to the
police than do
single persons.
Following
Black,
educational level
was
used as the indicator of individual and
neighborhood culture to test
the
proposi-
tion that law
varies
directly
with
culture.
Although
there
is
weak
support
for
this
proposition on
the individual
level,
there
is
weak
evidence contrary to the
hypoth-
esis
on
the areal level.
At
neither the indi-
vidual
level nor the
areal level
is
the
rela-
tionship between education
and
reporting
to
the police as
substantial as
required
by
Black's theory.
Black proposes that law varies directly
with
organization and
hence
the
finding
that
business
establishments
have
a
higher
rate
of
reporting
to the
police
than do
in-
dividuals
is consistent with
Black's
orga-
nizational
hypothesis.
On
the
other
hand,
his
theoretical predictions
regarding
varia-
tions in
rates of
reporting
to the
police
according
to
whether the victim and
the
offender
have greater or
lesser organiza-
tion
are not
consistently supported. The
organization of the victim is associated
with
greater reporting to
the police
but,
contrary to
theoretical
expectations, the
organization of
offenders
does
not
reduce
reporting to the
police.
The
proposition that
law varies in-
versely with
other forms of
social control
was
operationalized
by
examining
rates of
reporting
by extent of
urbanization,
time
of
occurrence,
and
place of
occurrence.
Rates of reporting were found to be ho-
mogeneous across
levels of
urbanization,
but
were found to
vary
somewhat across
time and
place
of
occurrence.
Although
the
data
relating
to
time of
occurrence for
victimizations of low
seriousness
are con-
sistent
with Black's
theoretical
predic-
tions,
those
relating
to
extent
of urbaniza-
tion
are
not, and those
relating to place of
occurrence
offer
only
partial support.
Most
of
the
predictions of
Black's
theory of law are not compatible with
these
victimization
survey
data
on the in-
vocation of the
criminal law.
For a
theory
that
purports
that
".
. . it
is
possible
to
explain all
of
[the behavior of
law]"
(Black,
1976:4),
these
results cannot
be
considered
encouraging. On the
other
hand, at the
trivariate
level, when the di-
mensions central to
Black's theory
of law
are
controlled,
in
every
case there is evi-
dence of
a substantial
seriousness effect.
This is true when both characteristics of
individuals
(Tables 1, 2, 5, and 6)
and
characteristics
of
areas (Tables 3, 4,
and 6)
are
controlled. Also, without exception,
at
the trivariate level the seriousness
effect is
greater-usually
much greater-than
the
effects of the indicators central
to Black's
theory
of
law. In
the few instances
in
which there is some support
for Black's
hypotheses, the strength
of support de-
creases as seriousness
increases.
The centrality of seriousness to the
phenomenon
of reporting to
the police,
particularly
in
conjunction
with the
rela-
tive weakness
of the
dimensions at the
core
of
Black's
theory
of
law, suggests
that
an adequate theory
of criminal
law
must
incorporate
some measure
of the
consequences
of legal infractions
to
indi-
viduals in
order to be an accurate
model.
It is, of course, conceivable
that the rela-
tion between variability
in conduct and
variability in the behavior of law is con-
fined
to reporting of victimizations
to the
police
and is not
of
importance
to
the
quantity of
criminal
law in
other spheres.
However, research concerning
arrest
(Hindelang, 1974; Hagan,
1972; Goldman,
1963), prosecution
(Hagan,
1974)
and
sentencing (Green,
1964; Hagan, 1974;
Chiricos
and
Waldo, 1975)
indicates
that
the gravity of the
infraction against legal
norms is a major determinant of the quan-
tity of
criminal
law
in
general.
To be consistent with
the available
data,
an
adequate
theory
of the behavior
of
criminal law must incorporate
a
proposi-
tion
stating
that
the
quantity
of
criminal
law varies directly
with the
serious-
ness
of
the
infraction. That is,
the
gravity
of the
infraction
against
legal
norms
is
a major
determinant
of how
individuals and legal systems
react
to the
infraction. Such a proposition, however,
is
explicitly
ruled out of Black's theory
by
his stance that the behavior of law
can be
explained
".
.
. without
regard
to the
.
.
.
conduct of
the
deviant"
(Black, 1976:118).
By
excluding
individual conduct from
his
theory,
Black has excluded what
our data
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A STUDY
OF
THE BEHAVIOR OF LAW 17
(and the data of others cited above) have
shown to be an extremely important de-
terminant of the quantity of criminal law.
Unlike Black's definition
of
seriousness
(cited above), seriousness as we have
conceptualized and operationalized it can
be defined independently of the quantity
of
law. The available
research data
sup-
port the notion that within societies there
is general consensus regarding the rank
order
of
common-law infractions
by
seri-
ousness (Rossi et al., 1974). Specifically,
it has been found that such rankings are
generally
consistent
(i.e.,
correlations on
the order of .9) across social class, educa-
tion, race, sex, and age (Rossi et al.,
1974). Furthermore, replications
of the
Sellin-Wolfgang seriousness
scale
in
Canada (Akman
et
al., 1967),
in
Puerto
Rico
(Velez-Diaz and Magargee, 1971),
and
in
England, Taiwan, Brazil, and
Mexico (Pease et al., 1975) show a general
cross-cultural consensus as
well. These
studies suggest that
within and across
societies there
is
general agreement
on
elements
of
many
criminal infractions that
make them more or less serious.9 The data
indicate that variation
in
these elements of
seriousness substantially affects variation
in
the quantity
of
law and cannot be ig-
nored
if
the theory is to model the be-
havior
of
the criminal
law.10
REFERENCES
Akman,
D.,
A. Normandeau,
and
S.
Turner
1967
"The
measurement
of
delinquency
in
Canada." Journal of Criminal Law,
Criminology,
and
Police
Science
58:330-7.
Black,
D.
1976
The Behavior
of
Law.
New
York:
Aca-
demic
Press.
Chiricos,
T.,
and
G.
Waldo
1975 "Socioeconomic
status
and
criminal
sentencing:
an
empirical
assessment
of a
conflict
proposition."
American Sociologi-
cal
Review
40:753-72.
9
See
also Newman's
(1976)
analysis
of
data from
India, Indonesia,
Iran,
Italy,
Yugoslavia,
and
the
United
States.
10
Although
it seems
as though
seriousness
also
would be
predictive
of invocation
of the
law in
some
other
spheres
as
well
(e.g.,
civil),
we
have
limited
our discussion
of the
behavior
of law
to the
criminal
law.
Thus,
Black's
theory
is
much
more
general
(in
applying
to
all
of law)
and
we do
not
maintain
that
our
seriousness
model
would
work
as
well-or
Black's
theory
as
poorly-if
tested
in
contexts
out-
side of
the criminal
law.
Goldman,
N.
1963 The
Differential
Selection
of Juvenile
Of-
fenders
for
Court Appearance.
New
York:
National
Council
on
Crime
and
Delin-
quency.
Green, E.
1970
"Race, social
status,
and criminal
arrest."
American Sociological
Review
35:476-90.
Hagan,
J.
1972
"The labelling
perspective,
the delinquent,
and
the police:
a review
of the
literature."
Canadian
Journal
of
Criminology
and
Cor-
rections
14:150-65.
1974
"Extra-legal
attributes
and
criminal
sentencing:
an assessment
of a
sociological
viewpoint."
Law
and
Society
Review
8:357-83.
Hindelang,
M.
1974 "Decisions of shoplifting victims to invoke
the
criminal justice
process."
Social
Prob-
lems
21:580-93.
1976
Criminal
Victimization
in Eight
American
Cities. Cambridge,
Ma.: Ballinger.
Hindelang,
M.
and
M.
Gottfredson
1976
"The
victim's
decision
not to
invoke the
criminal justice
process."
Pp.
57-78
in
W.
McDonald
(ed.),
Criminal
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COMMON
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THE
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DONALD BLACK
Yale University
American Sociological Review 1979, V