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20 J. Res. Crime & Delinquency 1 (1983)

handle is hein.journals/jrcd20 and id is 1 raw text is: Editor's Comments The lead article in the January 1982 issue of the Journal ofResearch in Crime and Delinquency was writ- ten by Rodney Stark and his colleagues and described the conditions under which religious commitment operated as a restraining force on delinquent behavior. Coincidentally, at the start of 1983 Stark and his colleagues again author the lead article in the Journal, and again it is an article of significance to researchers in the field of crime and delinquency. The writers identify a number of data sets existing before the 1930s, some of which trace back to the 19th Century, that can be used for criminal justice analysis. They make a convincing case about the efficacy of these data in general and demonstrate in specific cases how they may be em- ployed. Pursuing once again a religious theme, for example, they show a strong negative correlation between church membership and crime, and by analyzing these two variables against a third, population turnover, they are able to distinguish two forms of deviance, impulsive and utili- tarian, upon which they are able to comment. Stark and his associates then use these data to examine correlations between detention rates, population turnover, and church membership. They make some interesting comments about the assertions of those who have written from a critical perspective about the juvenile court-the crit- ics of the so-called child savers movement. It is a demonstration of how these data can be brought to bear on theoretical questions which in turn have important policy implications. The authors have performed a service to all of those in the field by focusing our attention on these valuable sources. Examination of these and similar ones undoubtedly will be stimu- lated by this article, and it is certain that in the future it will result in new articles in this journal and others. The next three articles in the Journal deal with the difficult area of evaluative research. The first, by Blomberg, is conceptual and addresses the issue of evaluative research with respect to treatment effects. In this instance it is diversion programs, but he goes on to discuss the general case. Blomberg underscores the need to identify: (1) the types of persons subjected to the intervention in sufficient complexity to be able to measure results differentially; (2) the specific kind of services rendered, an impor- tant point because often what may be called a treatment intervention JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN CRIME AND DELINQUENCY, JANUARY 1983 1

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