M T Berg
Biographic Data
| ID | 24893 |
|---|---|
| NAME | M T Berg |
| GIVEN NAMES | M T |
| FAMILY NAME | Berg |
| SIGNATURE | BERG M T |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Iowa |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2709-0950 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 48 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 276 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 48 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Violence, Gun Violence, and Mental Illness in a National Sample of Incarcerated Adults
The validity of a link between gun violence and mental illness has been the subject of ongoing research and policy debates. This study compares the burden of mental illness among adults incarcerated for violent versus property offenses as well as for firearm versus non-firearm violence, including lethal and non-lethal acts. The study utilizes the 2016 Survey of Prison Inmates (SPI) data. Results show that respondents convicted of violent crimes a…
School Honor Cultures and Violence: The Role of Cultural Orientation and Dispersion
We examine whether adolescents attending schools with honor-oriented cultures are more likely to engage in violence, net of their own honor attitudes. Studies typically estimate a culture’s strength by averaging the residents’ attitudes, but this cannot adequately account for variation among residents. Recent research in cultural sociology suggests that a culture’s orientation and dispersion are influential. Using data from the Second Internation…
Exploring crime through physical and social neighborhood factors: Greenspace and social disconnection in Los Angeles
When is violence honorable? Honor attitudes and aggression
Studying Crime Trends: Introduction to the Special Issue
The study of change over time in crime rates is as old as criminology itself. A fundamental question about crime rates is whether they are moving up or down. This special issue of the Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice brings together recent research on trends in crime and related issues, such as arrests, imprisonment, terrorism, and reporting crimes to the police. These papers show that the study of crime trends is alive and well in crimin…
Forecasting Future Crime Rates
Despite its importance for testing criminological theories and informing crime control policy, forecasting crime rates has all but disappeared from criminology. We argue for a resurgence of crime forecasting in the study of crime trends. As an example of the value, as well as the challenges, of forecasting, we engage in a forecasting exercise based on data from New York City. We discuss each of the steps taken to forecast New York’s violent and p…
Extending a Social Control Framework to Explain the Link between Romantic Relationships and Violent Victimization by Non-Intimate Perpetrators: A Study of Actor and Partner Effects
Victim data reveals that romantic relationships correspond to significant reductions in violent victimizations committed by strangers and acquaintances. This study offers a more detailed exploration of this finding. Specifically, we investigate the effect of relationship quality and structure on victimization risk in combination with mechanisms a social control perspective would suggest as theoretically possible. We also consider the independent …
Are Men Reluctant to Assault Women Even When Intoxicated
Alcohol intoxication leads to anti-normative behavior. Because violence against women is more anti-normative than violence against men, we suggest that the effects of alcohol on violence against women should be stronger. We found support for this hypothesis in an analysis of more than 1,100 interpersonal disputes reported by male prison inmates and male community members. We find that the tendency for men to be more willing to threaten and attack…
Recreating Human Mobility Patterns Through the Lens of Social Media: Using Twitter to Model the Social Ecology of Crime
Studies of neighborhood crime are often limited in their ability to account for the dynamic nature of human mobility, a central tenet of prominent theoretical perspectives on the spatial distribution of crime. Yet, recent work indicates the utility of social media data for estimating the size and composition of such ambient population. In the present study, we assess whether four Twitter-derived measures are associated with crime counts across 2,…
Incarceration Exposure, Biological Aging, and Depression Symptoms in an African American Sample of Older Adults
Objectives: The study draws upon perspectives on life-course stressors and health to assess whether lifetime incarceration exposure is a determinant of biological aging and self-reported depression. Methods: Using data from a sample of 460 African American participants (average age= 57) in the Family and Community Health Study, the study examined two epigenetic indices of biological aging, DunedinPoAm and GrimAge, as well as a self-reported measu…
Alleyways and crime in Denver, Colorado census blocks
When men fight with women (versus other men): Limited offending during disputes
What transpires in a dispute, even a violent dispute, is affected by the tendency for adversaries to engage in “limited offending.” We focus on one restraint: the tendency of men to limit their aggression in their disputes with women. Analyses are based on an incident‐level survey about interpersonal disputes administered to 503 men who are incarcerated and 220 men who had never been incarcerated. Using multinomial and logistic regression models,…
Shifts in lifestyle and socioeconomic circumstances predict change-for better or worse-in speed of epigenetic aging: A study of middle-aged black women
Incarceration exposure and epigenetic aging in neighborhood context
Neighborhood structural disadvantage and biological aging in a sample of Black middle age and young adults
The Meaning of the Victim–Offender Overlap for Criminological Theory and Crime Prevention Policy
Criminological theory developed without an expectation of a victim–offender overlap. Among most crime theorists and policymakers, to solve crime it is necessary to solve the criminal offender. Modern choice theories took a different view by evolving from victim data, treating target vulnerability as essential to the criminal act and with full awareness of the overlap. Here, we discuss the emphasis on offenders in criminology as being inconsistent…
Unstable Childhood, Adult Adversity, and Smoking Accelerate Biological Aging Among Middle-Age African Americans: Similar Findings for GrimAge and PoAm
Objectives: The recent biological clocks GrimAge and PoAm are robust predictors of morbidity and mortality. Little research, however, has investigated the factors that influence their ticking speed. No study has used multivariate analyses to examine whether childhood adversity, adult hardship, lifestyle practices, or some combination of these factors best explains acceleration of these indices. Methods: Using a sample of 506 middle-age African Am…
Push and pushback: Control behavior as a precipitant of verbal and violent disputes
We examine to what extent control behavior precipitates disputes involving adversaries in different social relationships. We hypothesize that disputes between intimate partners and illegal business partners are more likely than other disputes to involve control because they involve a higher level of interdependence between the participants. A sample of male inmates ( n = 479) and nonoffenders ( n = 206) were asked whether control behaviors (e.g.,…
Predicting the probability of violence in actor–target relational dyads: Self-control and interpersonal provocations as mutual properties
If disputes are ever-present in human interaction, all relational dyads contain potential offenders and targets. We theorize that each dyad partner’s self-control independently influences the likelihood of violence and that low self-control will express itself in provocative behaviour. Using two waves from the Interpersonal and Conflict Resolution survey, with measures collected from each member of 443 couples, we create dyads and analyse the ind…
Losing Years Doing Time: Incarceration Exposure and Accelerated Biological Aging among African American Adults
Research suggests that incarceration exposure increases the prevalence of morbidity and premature mortality. This work is only beginning to examine whether the stressors of the incarceration experience become biologically embedded in ways that affect physiological deterioration. Using data from a longitudinal sample of 410 African American adults in the Family and Community Health Study and an epigenetic index of aging, this study tests the exten…
(Re)Setting Epigenetic Clocks: An Important Avenue Whereby Social Conditions Become Biologically Embedded across the Life Course
Research on biological embedding of the social environment has been expedited by increased availability of biomarkers. Recently, this arsenal of measures has been expanded to include epigenetic clocks that indicate in years the extent to which an individual is older or younger than their chronological age. These measures of biological aging, especially GrimAge, are robust predictors of both illness and time to death. Importantly for sociologists,…
Reappraising and Redirecting Research on the Victim–Offender Overlap
The strong positive association between offending and victimization, or the victim–offender overlap, has received considerable amount of research attention in recent years. Empirical research has made important strides in unpacking the sources of the phenomenon, but important questions remain unanswered. Ambiguity surrounds the utility of certain theoretical explanations for the overlap, the nature of the phenomenon, and the methodological tools …
Childhood Adversities as Determinants of Cardiovascular Disease Risk and Perceived Illness Burden in Adulthood: Comparing Retrospective and Prospective Self-Report Measures in a Longitudinal Sample of…
Nerve” and violent encounters: An assessment of fearlessness in the face of danger
The findings from a large body of research on the ecology of violence indicate that individuals demonstrate a willingness to engage in violence to reduce their risk for violent victimization. Scholars have suggested that a reputation for toughness and aggression acts as an informal signal that deters mistreatment. Anderson (1999), in his street code thesis, in particular, argued that adherence to the street code functions as a signal that reduces…
Childhood adversity and cardiovascular disease risk: An appraisal of recall methods with a focus on stress-buffering processes in childhood and adulthood
The Victim–offender Overlap in Context: Examining the Role of Neighborhood Street Culture
Although numerous studies have found a strong relationship between offending and victimization risk, the etiology of this relationship is not well understood. Largely absent from this research is an explicit focus on neighborhood processes. However, theoretical work found in the subculture of violence literature implies that neighborhood street culture may help to account for the etiology of this phenomenon. Specifically, we should expect the mag…
Cynical Streets: Neighborhood Social Processes and Perceptions of Criminal in Justice
Studies have found that African Americans are more likely to perceive racial biases in the criminal justice system than are those from other racial groups. There is a limited understanding of how neighborhood social processes affect variation in these perceptions. This study formulates a series of hypotheses focused on whether perceived racial biases in the criminal justice system or perceptions of injustice vary as a function of levels of moral …
The Opioid Hydra: Understanding Overdose Mortality Epidemics and Syndemics Across the Rural-Urban Continuum
The rapid increase of fatal opioid overdoses over the past two decades is a major U.S. public health problem, especially in non-metropolitan communities. The crisis has transitioned from pharmaceuticals to illicit synthetic opioids and street mixtures, especially in urban areas. Using latent profile analysis, we classify n = 3,079 counties into distinct classes using CDC fatal overdose rates for specific opioids in 2002-2004, 2008-2012, and 2014-…
The correctional melting pot: Race, ethnicity, citizenship, and prison violence
Cognition and Crime: Offender Decision Making and Script Analyses
Using Census Data to Understand County-Level Differences in Overall Drug Mortality and Opioid-Related Mortality by Opioid Type
Objectives. To examine associations of county-level demographic, socioeconomic, and labor market characteristics on overall drug mortality rates and specific classes of opioid mortality. Methods. We used National Vital Statistics System mortality data (2002–2004 and 2014–2016) and county-level US Census data. We examined associations between several census variables and drug deaths for 2014 to 2016. We then identified specific classes of counties…
Losing Years Doing Time: Incarceration Exposure and Accelerated Biological Aging among African American Adults
Research suggests that incarceration exposure increases the prevalence of morbidity and premature mortality. This work is only beginning to examine whether the stressors of the incarceration experience become biologically embedded in ways that affect physiological deterioration. Using data from a longitudinal sample of 410 African American adults in the Family and Community Health Study and an epigenetic index of aging, this study tests the exten…
Shifts in lifestyle and socioeconomic circumstances predict change-for better or worse-in speed of epigenetic aging: A study of middle-aged black women
The Meaning of the Victim–Offender Overlap for Criminological Theory and Crime Prevention Policy
Criminological theory developed without an expectation of a victim–offender overlap. Among most crime theorists and policymakers, to solve crime it is necessary to solve the criminal offender. Modern choice theories took a different view by evolving from victim data, treating target vulnerability as essential to the criminal act and with full awareness of the overlap. Here, we discuss the emphasis on offenders in criminology as being inconsistent…
Exploring theoretical linkages between self-control theory and criminal justice system processing
Taking sides: Gender and third‐party partisanship in disputes
We examine the role of a norm protecting women in understanding third‐party partisanship in verbal and violent disputes. Our analyses are based on reports provided by male inmates and men they know who have never been arrested. The results show that third parties are more likely to support female adversaries than male adversaries. The gender effect is stronger when we control for the relational distance between adversaries, which indicates that a…
Do career criminals exist in rural America
Neighborhood structural disadvantage and biological aging in a sample of Black middle age and young adults
(Re)Setting Epigenetic Clocks: An Important Avenue Whereby Social Conditions Become Biologically Embedded across the Life Course
Research on biological embedding of the social environment has been expedited by increased availability of biomarkers. Recently, this arsenal of measures has been expanded to include epigenetic clocks that indicate in years the extent to which an individual is older or younger than their chronological age. These measures of biological aging, especially GrimAge, are robust predictors of both illness and time to death. Importantly for sociologists,…
Does Aggression Deter or Invite Reciprocal Behavior? Considering Coercive Capacity
How do people respond to aggression? Theory differs on whether aggressive behavior deters antagonists or provokes retaliation, and the empirical evidence is mixed. We bridge contradictory findings in the literature by identifying a previously unexamined moderating variable: the extent to which individuals can increase their coercive capability (which we call escalating). We argue that when escalating is costly, aggression deters potential antagon…
Childhood/Adolescent stressors and allostatic load in adulthood: Support for a calibration model
Marked for Death: An Empirical Criminal Careers Analysis of Death Sentences in a Sample of Convicted Male Homicide Offenders
The interpersonal context of depression and violent behavior: A social psychological interpretation
Depression is a particularly prevalent form of psychopathology affecting millions of individuals worldwide. It is associated with a variety of adverse social and behavioral outcomes. Numerous observational studies have found that depressed individuals have significantly elevated rates of interpersonal violence. As of now, the social mechanisms that explain the association between depression and violence remain understudied and not well understood…
Lessons of an Honour Code: A Consideration of Conflict-related Processes and Interpersonal Violence
Criminological research has long suggested that attitudes concerned with honour and aggression, such as the ‘street code’, are related to violent offending and victimization. Comparatively, little information is known, however, about the mechanisms through which these attitudes increase violence. Drawing from interactionist perspectives of aggression and subcultural theories, we examine the mediating role of two conflict-related tendencies: dispu…
Bring a gun to a gunfight: Armed adversaries and violence across nations
A Multilevel Examination of Neighborhood Social Processes and College Enrollment
A Multilevel Examination of Neighborhood Social Processes and College Enrollment Get access Mark T. Berg, Mark T. Berg Direct correspondence to: Mark T. Berg, Department of Sociology, University of Iowa, 126 W. Seashore Hall, Iowa City, Iowa 52242. E-mail: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Eric A. Stewart, Eric A. Stewart Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Pu…
Push and pushback: Control behavior as a precipitant of verbal and violent disputes
We examine to what extent control behavior precipitates disputes involving adversaries in different social relationships. We hypothesize that disputes between intimate partners and illegal business partners are more likely than other disputes to involve control because they involve a higher level of interdependence between the participants. A sample of male inmates ( n = 479) and nonoffenders ( n = 206) were asked whether control behaviors (e.g.,…
Childhood Adversities as Determinants of Cardiovascular Disease Risk and Perceived Illness Burden in Adulthood: Comparing Retrospective and Prospective Self-Report Measures in a Longitudinal Sample of…
Nerve” and violent encounters: An assessment of fearlessness in the face of danger
The findings from a large body of research on the ecology of violence indicate that individuals demonstrate a willingness to engage in violence to reduce their risk for violent victimization. Scholars have suggested that a reputation for toughness and aggression acts as an informal signal that deters mistreatment. Anderson (1999), in his street code thesis, in particular, argued that adherence to the street code functions as a signal that reduces…
Childhood adversity and cardiovascular disease risk: An appraisal of recall methods with a focus on stress-buffering processes in childhood and adulthood
Gang members, career criminals and prison violence: Further specification of the importation model of inmate behavior
The importation model posits that inmate behavior is primarily an extension of the assorted antisocial behaviors that criminal offenders develop in the community. Persons involved in gangs are viewed as especially at‐risk for prison misconduct. Using the official infraction records of 831 male inmates sampled from the southwestern USA, this study explored the prison violence records of inmates involved in street gangs, prison gangs and both types…
Do career criminals exist in rural America
The correctional melting pot: Race, ethnicity, citizenship, and prison violence
Exploring theoretical linkages between self-control theory and criminal justice system processing
Reentry and the Ties that Bind: An Examination of Social Ties, Employment, and Recidivism
Scholars consistently find that reentering offenders who obtain steady work and maintain social ties to family are less likely to recidivate. Some theorize that familial ties may operate through employment to influence recidivism and that such ties may also serve a moderating role. The current study employs an integrated conceptual framework in order to test hypotheses about the link between familial ties, post‐release employment, and recidivism.…
Marked for Death: An Empirical Criminal Careers Analysis of Death Sentences in a Sample of Convicted Male Homicide Offenders
Men, Women, and Postrelease Offending: An Examination of the Nature of the Link Between Relational Ties and Recidivism
Numerous studies have examined the postrelease behaviors of men and women, highlighting the importance of social bonds in understanding positive reentry. However, there is evidence that the effect of social bonds on recidivism may vary by gender. Furthermore, research suggests that an individual’s propensity for criminality, including prior criminal history, may hinder the development and maintenance of positive social bonds and subsequently affe…
The Victim–offender Overlap in Context: Examining the Role of Neighborhood Street Culture
Although numerous studies have found a strong relationship between offending and victimization risk, the etiology of this relationship is not well understood. Largely absent from this research is an explicit focus on neighborhood processes. However, theoretical work found in the subculture of violence literature implies that neighborhood street culture may help to account for the etiology of this phenomenon. Specifically, we should expect the mag…
A Multilevel Examination of Neighborhood Social Processes and College Enrollment
A Multilevel Examination of Neighborhood Social Processes and College Enrollment Get access Mark T. Berg, Mark T. Berg Direct correspondence to: Mark T. Berg, Department of Sociology, University of Iowa, 126 W. Seashore Hall, Iowa City, Iowa 52242. E-mail: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Eric A. Stewart, Eric A. Stewart Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Pu…
Bring a gun to a gunfight: Armed adversaries and violence across nations
Neighborhood Social Processes and Adolescent Sexual Partnering: A Multilevel Appraisal of Anderson’s Player Hypothesis
An increasing amount of sociological research is directed at unpacking the social processes behind neighborhood effects on youth behavioral outcomes. The goal of the current study is to build upon these prior efforts and advance research on neighborhood cultural mechanisms and adolescent sexual-partnering behaviors. We formulate and test a series of multilevel hypotheses informed by Anderson’s research on the relationship between neighborhood cul…
Cynical Streets: Neighborhood Social Processes and Perceptions of Criminal in Justice
Studies have found that African Americans are more likely to perceive racial biases in the criminal justice system than are those from other racial groups. There is a limited understanding of how neighborhood social processes affect variation in these perceptions. This study formulates a series of hypotheses focused on whether perceived racial biases in the criminal justice system or perceptions of injustice vary as a function of levels of moral …
Cognition and Crime: Offender Decision Making and Script Analyses
The Mobilization of Criminal Law
Perhaps few decisions have more of an impact on the operational functioning of the criminal justice system than the decision by victims of crime to notify the police. Researchers in the United States and abroad have found that victims often choose not to mobilize the criminal law in the aftermath of a victimization event. A large percentage of property and violent crimes never appear in official crime data estimates. Most remain hidden in the dar…
Does Aggression Deter or Invite Reciprocal Behavior? Considering Coercive Capacity
How do people respond to aggression? Theory differs on whether aggressive behavior deters antagonists or provokes retaliation, and the empirical evidence is mixed. We bridge contradictory findings in the literature by identifying a previously unexamined moderating variable: the extent to which individuals can increase their coercive capability (which we call escalating). We argue that when escalating is costly, aggression deters potential antagon…
What is past is prologue: A population‐based case‐control study of repeat victimization, premature mortality, and homicide
We examined risk of male premature mortality associated with recent criminal victimization. Prior victimization is among the most consistent predictors of future risk but the explanation of repeat victimization remains elusive. Two general perspectives frame this debate. According to the state-dependence perspective, repeat victimization is forged through intervening processes connecting an initial with a subsequent violent victimization. Accordi…
Childhood/Adolescent stressors and allostatic load in adulthood: Support for a calibration model
The Cost of Being Cool: How Adolescent Pseudomature Behavior Maps onto Adult Adjustment
The interpersonal context of depression and violent behavior: A social psychological interpretation
Depression is a particularly prevalent form of psychopathology affecting millions of individuals worldwide. It is associated with a variety of adverse social and behavioral outcomes. Numerous observational studies have found that depressed individuals have significantly elevated rates of interpersonal violence. As of now, the social mechanisms that explain the association between depression and violence remain understudied and not well understood…
Using Census Data to Understand County-Level Differences in Overall Drug Mortality and Opioid-Related Mortality by Opioid Type
Objectives. To examine associations of county-level demographic, socioeconomic, and labor market characteristics on overall drug mortality rates and specific classes of opioid mortality. Methods. We used National Vital Statistics System mortality data (2002–2004 and 2014–2016) and county-level US Census data. We examined associations between several census variables and drug deaths for 2014 to 2016. We then identified specific classes of counties…
Taking sides: Gender and third‐party partisanship in disputes
We examine the role of a norm protecting women in understanding third‐party partisanship in verbal and violent disputes. Our analyses are based on reports provided by male inmates and men they know who have never been arrested. The results show that third parties are more likely to support female adversaries than male adversaries. The gender effect is stronger when we control for the relational distance between adversaries, which indicates that a…
Lessons of an Honour Code: A Consideration of Conflict-related Processes and Interpersonal Violence
Criminological research has long suggested that attitudes concerned with honour and aggression, such as the ‘street code’, are related to violent offending and victimization. Comparatively, little information is known, however, about the mechanisms through which these attitudes increase violence. Drawing from interactionist perspectives of aggression and subcultural theories, we examine the mediating role of two conflict-related tendencies: dispu…
Reappraising and Redirecting Research on the Victim–Offender Overlap
The strong positive association between offending and victimization, or the victim–offender overlap, has received considerable amount of research attention in recent years. Empirical research has made important strides in unpacking the sources of the phenomenon, but important questions remain unanswered. Ambiguity surrounds the utility of certain theoretical explanations for the overlap, the nature of the phenomenon, and the methodological tools …
Childhood Adversities as Determinants of Cardiovascular Disease Risk and Perceived Illness Burden in Adulthood: Comparing Retrospective and Prospective Self-Report Measures in a Longitudinal Sample of…
Nerve” and violent encounters: An assessment of fearlessness in the face of danger
The findings from a large body of research on the ecology of violence indicate that individuals demonstrate a willingness to engage in violence to reduce their risk for violent victimization. Scholars have suggested that a reputation for toughness and aggression acts as an informal signal that deters mistreatment. Anderson (1999), in his street code thesis, in particular, argued that adherence to the street code functions as a signal that reduces…
Psychology (39 works) · Crime Patterns and Interventions (26 works) · Criminology (25 works) · Social Psychology (21 works) · Medicine (20 works) · Political science (20 works) · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis (19 works) · Sociology (19 works) · Demography (14 works) · Law (12 works)