An empirical examination of adolescence-limited offending: A direct test of Moffitt's maturity gap thesis

Purpose

Provide the first direct test of Moffitt's (1993) hypothesis linking the maturity gap with adolescent delinquency.

Methods

Data were drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) and a direct measure of the maturity gap was constructed. Negative binomial regression models—survey-corrected to account for the Add Health research design—were estimated.

Results

Consistent with Moffitt's theory, the results of the analyses revealed that the maturity gap was predictive of minor forms of delinquency and drug use but not of more serious types of offending behaviors for males. Findings were less supportive of Moffitt's hypothesis for females.

Conclusions

Moffitt's maturity gap thesis is a viable explanation of adolescent delinquency, especially for males. This portion of the theory, which has largely gone unexamined, warrants further inquiry from criminologists.     

On the relationship of past to future involvement in crime and delinquency: A behavior genetic analysis

Purpose

Criminologists have devoted much attention to identifying the factors that drive stability in antisocial behavior. This body of research has, however, overlooked the contributions of behavior genetic research. This study sought to blend behavior genetics with the different perspectives used by criminologists to explain stability.

Methods

Employing a behavioral genetic research design, the current study analyzed the correlation between adolescent and adulthood crime (a 13 year time span was covered between the two time points) among a sample of sibling pairs drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health).

Results

The findings revealed that genetic factors accounted for nearly all of the stability in offending behavior from adolescence to adulthood. Environmental factors (particularly, of the nonshared variety) accounted for the majority of the changes in offending.

Conclusions

The implications of these results for criminological research and theory are discussed.     

Physical health and crime among low-income urban women: An application of general strain theory

Purpose

Although studies of General Strain Theory (GST) typically include measures of physical health in multi-item indices of strain, no work has investigated the independent influence of physical health on criminal offending. The current research explores the relationship between physical health and criminal offending among low-income women living in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

Methods

Using data from the Welfare, Children, and Families (WCF) project, criminal behavior is predicted over two years with measures of physical health, depression, anxiety, competing strain, and relevant background factors.

Results

Poorer physical health at baseline and declines in physical health increase the odds of offending onset among previous non-offenders and reduce the odds of decreased offending among previous offenders. In offending onset models, higher levels of anxiety and depression at baseline and increases in these symptoms partially mediate the effect of poorer baseline health and fully mediate the effect of the loss of physical health. In decreased offending models, increases in anxiety and depression fully mediate the effect of poorer baseline health and partially mediate the effect of the loss of physical health.

Conclusions

The data suggest that poor health and declines in physical health influence both offending onset and offending escalation directly and indirectly through increases in anxiety and depression.     

Low Resting Heart Rate and Rational Choice: Integrating Biological Correlates of Crime in Criminological Theories

Purpose

The current work examined the association between low resting heart rate and perceptions of the costs and benefits of criminal behavior.

Methods

Data were gathered from a sample of students in introductory criminal justice classes. Perceptions of the costs and benefits of crime were measured in response to scenarios describing assault, theft and drunk driving.

Results

Those with low resting heart rate perceived a lower likelihood of sanction and were less likely to anticipate a sense of guilt/shame should they commit assault during a confrontation. Those with low resting heart rate were also more likely to indicate that they would commit the act described in the assault scenario. Anticipated guilt/shame mediated the relationship between low resting heart rate and intent to engage in assault.

Conclusions

Low resting heart rate was related to estimations of the costs and benefits of offending. Perceived costs (anticipated guilt/shame) mediated the relationship between resting heart rate and intent to commit assault.     

What works (or doesn't) in a DUI court? An example of expedited case processing

Purpose

A number of policy efforts have aimed to reduce drunk driving, including deterrence-based policies and specialized treatment courts. This study examines the impact of expedited court processing on the county-wide rate of DUI offenses. It also examines the links between sanction swiftness, certainty, and severity and changes in DUI rates over time.

Methods

This study uses interrupted time series analysis to assess changes in DUI rates in one county over a time period including the introduction of a full-coverage, expedited court docket for DUI. Additionally, the three components of deterrence were examined.

Result

Findings reveal that the program implementation corresponded with a lower rate of DUI case filings, but not with a general reduction in alcohol-involved collisions in the county. Additionally, only sanction swiftness improved over time, while certainty remained stable and severity declined.

Conclusions

Results indicate that the introduction of the expedited court docket does not appear to have produced a deterrent effect on DUI. It may be that DUI offenders require more than expedited processing to overcome the issues that precipitate their offending. Future research and policy should explore both the impact of swiftness of punishment and the provision of appropriate treatment services in addressing DUI offending.     

Nature and consequences of dismissals: Implications for public safety and crime prevention in criminal courts in America

The role of dismissal as a major case disposition in criminal courts in America has been largely neglected in empirical studies to date, despite long-lasting questions about its nature and important implications for justice goals. This paper is a first attempt to fill in this gap.

Purpose

Drawing on untested assumptions about a possible dismissal-reoffending connection, the paper proposes a public safety framework for examining the nature of dismissals and their consequences for the community. Under this perspective, dismissal is a function of defendants’ risk attributes and contributes to subsequent public safety threat.

Methods

To test these hypotheses, predictive and causal analyses were conducted on an 800-case sample of criminal defendants in one large urban American jurisdiction, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Cases were sampled at the first judicial stage and followed as a cohort for one year to record disposition and post-disposition outcomes.

Results

The findings indicate that defendants’ risk attributes contribute to the explanation of dismissal and that dismissal in itself adds to the probability of subsequent offending.

Conclusions

The findings raise questions about the justice system goals, particularly deterrence and have important policy implications for the processing and disposition of criminal cases in American jurisdictions.     

Assessing the victim-offender overlap among Puerto Rican youth

Purpose

Knowledge about offenders and knowledge about victims has traditionally been undertaken without formal consideration of the overlap among the two. A small but growing research agenda has examined the extent of this overlap. At the same time, there has been a minimal amount of research regarding offending and victimization among minority youth, and this is most apparent with respect to Hispanics, who have been increasing in population in the United States.

Materials &; Methods

This study explores the joint, longitudinal overlap between offending and victimization among a sample of Puerto Rican youth from the Bronx, New York.

Results

Results indicate: (1) an overlap between offending and victimization that persists over time, (2) a considerable overlap in the number, type, direction, and magnitude of the effect of individual, familial, peer, and contextual factors on both offending and victimization, (3) some of the factors related to offending were only relevant at baseline and not for the growth in offending but that several factors were associated with the growth in victimization, and (4) various risk factors could not explain much of the overlap between offending and victimization.

Conclusions

Theoretical, policy, and future research directions are addressed.     

Not by accident: An analytical approach to traffic crash harm reduction

Purpose

This study examines whether a problem-oriented approach used by police in Cincinnati, Ohio called the Crash Analysis Reduction Strategy (CARS) corresponded with a change in the number of traffic crashes that resulted in injuries after implementation onset. Under the CARS model, police developed tactics that focused on targeting high-risk driving behaviors, impaired drivers, and crash hotspot locations within the city.

Methods

Using a two-phase strategy we first assess local impact by examining injury-related traffic crash patterns at targeted locations. Second, we examine whether traffic crashes that resulted in injuries in Cincinnati significantly diverged relative to similar outcomes across a number of comparison sites.

Results

Difference-in-difference negative binomial regression analyses indicates that traffic crashes were significantly lower in Cincinnati - down roughly 5.7% to 10.3% in the post-intervention period - when contrasted with comparison sites.

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that comprehensive problem solving approaches can significantly reduce the risk of life changing events such as automobile crashes that result in injuries beyond traditional policing efforts that explicitly focus on crime and violence.     

Population heterogeneity, state dependence and sexual offender recidivism: The aging process and the lost predictive impact of prior criminal charges over time

Purpose

Two competing theories explain the link between past and future criminal behavior: population heterogeneity and state dependence. Actuarial models of risk prediction emphasize static variables, akin to population heterogeneity. State dependence, has never been tested with similar populations.

Methods

Using survival modeling this study examines both population heterogeneity and state dependence using a sample of adult sex offenders incarcerated in Quebec, Canada from 1994-2000. Analyses were conducted on offenders age 36 and over (n = 242). Official criminal activity was measured at: (a) 18-23 years; (b) 24-29 years; (c) 30-35 years; and, (d) 36 + years.

Results

Cox proportional hazards modeling shows stronger evidence for state dependence, suggesting changeability in risk over time.

Conclusions

Support was found for both offending continuity and discontinuity, or a mixed model of offending. Current actuarial risk assessment tools for adult sex offenders do not accommodate for the inclusion of state dependent and life-course processes, which could have implications for the potential overestimation of offender risk.     

Understanding the relationship between violent victimization and gang membership

Purpose

Research examining factors that precipitate gang violence has contributed substantially to our understanding of gangs and gang activity with respect to offending, yet we still know relatively little about how gangs influence members’ risk of victimization. The current study examines three hypotheses: (1) gang involvement and involvement in other risky lifestyles is related to violent victimization, (2) involvement in gang crime is associated with violent victimization, and (3) the presence of rival gangs is related to violent victimization.

Methods

The present study uses data obtained from 909 recently booked juvenile arrestees who were interviewed as part of the Arizona Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) program.

Results

Our findings indicated that prevalence of violent victimization was highest among gang members, followed by former gang members, gang associates, and non-gang members. After controlling for involvement in gang crime, however, gang membership per se did not significantly influence the juveniles’ risk of serious violent victimization.

Conclusions

Our results call into question the conclusion that gang membership alone increases the likelihood of violent victimization vis-à-vis lifestyle/routine activities and/or collective liability. Instead our findings support prior research on the victim-offender overlap, that offending behaviors increase the risk of victimization.     

Can a perceptual peer deviance measure accurately measure a peer's self-reported deviance?

Purpose

Social learning theory and self-control theory differ considerably in their interpretation of what qualifies as a “valid” measure of peer deviance. While the two theories are epistemological opposites in regards to how to operationalize the peer deviance construct, their differences are reconcilable. The current study seeks to identify a set of perceptual items that accurately measure a peer's self-reported deviance. This measure would satisfy the preferences of both learning and control theories because the measure is perceptual but also accurate.

Methods

Using data from 2,154 individuals in friendship pairs where each respondent perceived 26 peer behaviors and self-reported the same behaviors, regression, item-response, and mean difference tests are used to perform item deletion.

Results

Five perceptual peer deviance items are identified which are not significantly different from the peer's self-reported deviance. When scaled together and inserted into multivariate regressions, however, the perceptual peer deviance items are still related to the respondent's deviance more strongly than the peer's self-reported deviance.

Conclusions

We are unable to identify a set of perceptual items that is interchangeable with a peer's self-reported deviance. Accordingly, the theoretical debate between Akers and Gottfredson and Hirschi regarding the measurement of differential association may not be empirically resolvable.     

Developmental trajectories of nonsocial reinforcement and offending in adolescence and young adulthood: An exploratory study of an understudied part of social learning theory

Purpose

Within social learning theory, nonsocial reinforcement has been hypothesized to have a link with offending. The purpose of the present study was to address two questions: (1) Does nonsocial reinforcement change or remain stable over time? And (2) does nonsocial reinforcement have a reciprocal link with offending, as Wood et al. (1997) would expect?

Methods

We used a subsample (N = 413) of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) data and semi-parametric group-based modeling (SPGM).

Results and Conclusions

The SPGM suggested three distinct groups of nonsocial reinforcement (one trajectory group appeared to have a low but stable rate of nonsocial reinforcement, one trajectory appeared to be higher but stable, another trajectory higher but also stable). A cross-tabulation of the nonsocial reinforcement trajectories and offending trajectories indicated that offending increased as nonsocial reinforcement became greater. Study limitations and implications are also discussed.     

Youth violence at school and the intersection of gender, race, and ethnicity

Purpose

Research has revealed that school-based activities are related to youth violence at school; however, the intersection of gender, race, and ethnicity in this relationship remains uncertain.

Methods

This study utilizes data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 and incorporates multilevel modeling techniques to examine the intersectionality of gender, race, and ethnicity in the relationship between school-based activities and youth victimization at school.

Results

Racial and ethnic minority male involvement in school sports is linked to an increase in school-based victimization, while White American male involvement in school sports is associated with a decrease in school-based victimization. On the other hand, school sports appears to be an insulating factor against victimization for girls regardless of their race or ethnicity.

Conclusions

This research underscores the importance of understanding the intersection of gender, race, and ethnicity when examining youth violence.     

Pathways through drugs and crime: Desistance, trauma and resilience

Purpose

To develop theoretical understandings of pathways through drugs and crime.

Method

Critical and theoretical review.

Content

Discourse about drugs and crime tends to focus either on delinquency, nowadays including some drug use, or on drug dependence. There are other pathways through drugs and crime, which deserve further exploration, not forgetting that most people desist from offending, or that drug dependence is a relatively rare outcome of drug use. A notable pathway involves a temporary period of intense substance use and offending which often remits without intervention. It is hypothesised that such periods are often caused by traumatic life events, or the persisting effects of earlier trauma, and that intense use converts to more protracted drug dependence when trauma and/or its effects continue. One way that this can happen is that drug use itself causes or perpetuates trauma and, then, use continues to cope with the negative psychological effects of trauma, in a vicious circle.

Conclusions

There is need to assess and treat trauma amongst substance users and to avoid over treating intense substance use that might remit untreated. Normative adult substance use outcomes need to be researched and theorised.     

Marked for Death: An Empirical Criminal Careers Analysis of Death Sentences in a Sample of Convicted Male Homicide Offenders

Background

Although prior criminal record and concurrent criminal charges constitute the main eligibility and aggravating circumstances used in capital sentencing, relatively little research has examined the criminal careers of offenders who are ultimately sentenced to death.

Materials and Methods

Using official criminal history data for 618 incarcerated male homicide offenders selected from 8 states—191 of whom were sentenced to death—the current study explored the criminal careers of offenders that received the most severe legal punishment.

Results

Poisson regression incidence rate ratio models indicated that multiple measures of prior criminal activity including contemporaneous and prior history of violence, prior incarceration, early onset of arrest, juvenile homicide offending, and juvenile child molestation were associated with subsequently being sentenced to death. Separate models for white, African American, and Hispanic males showed contrasting effects in their criminal careers and varying relationships between prior criminal career and current capital offending.

Conclusion

The current study adds to the literature on lifespan criminality by applying Poisson regression analyses and a criminal careers approach to study the most extreme offenders including those sentenced to death.     

Marijuana But Not Alcohol Use During Adolescence Mediates the Association Between Transmissible Risk for Substance Use Disorder and Number of Lifetime Violent Offenses

Aim

This study determined the extent to which alcohol and marijuana use during adolescence mediates the relation between transmissible risk for substance use disorder (SUD) and lifetime number of different types of violent offenses.

Methods

The transmissible liability index was administered to 359 10-12 year old youths who were tracked to 22 years of age. Past year frequency of alcohol and marijuana consumption was longitudinally tracked to age 22 at which time lifetime violent offenses was recorded.

Results

Rate of increase in marijuana use mediated the association between transmissible risk and lifetime number of different types of violent offenses. No association was found between past year frequency of alcohol use and violent offenses.

Conclusions

Prevention directed at lowering the psychological characteristics associated with transmissible risk for SUD may also reduce violent offending.     

Assessing the effectiveness of drug courts on recidivism: A meta-analytic review of traditional and non-traditional drug courts

Purpose

The objective of this research was to systematically review quasi-experimental and experimental evaluations of the effectiveness of drug courts in reducing offending.

Methods

Our search identified 154 independent evaluations: 92 evaluations of adult drug courts, 34 of juvenile drug courts, and 28 of DWI drug courts. The findings of these studies were synthesized using meta-analysis.

Results

The vast majority of adult drug court evaluations, even the most rigorous evaluations, find that participants have lower recidivism than non-participants. The average effect of participation is analogous to a drop in recidivism from 50% to 38%; and, these effects last up to three years. Evaluations of DWI drug courts find effects similar in magnitude to those of adult drug courts, but the most rigorous evaluations do not uniformly find reductions in recidivism. Juvenile drug courts have substantially smaller effects on recidivism. Larger reductions in recidivism were found in adult drug courts that had high graduation rates, and those that accepted only non-violent offenders.

Conclusions

These findings support the effectiveness of adult drug courts in reducing recidivism. The evidence assessing DWI courts' effectiveness is very promising but more experimental evaluations are needed. Juvenile drug courts typically produce small reductions in recidivism.     

Is stalking a learned phenomenon? An empirical test of social learning theory

Purpose

We examine the extent to which components of social learning theory (i.e., definitions, differential reinforcement, and differential association/modeling) predict stalking victimization and perpetration using survey data from a large sample of college students.

Methods

Among a sample of 2,766 college students, logistic regression models were estimated to analyze the relationships between social learning theory and stalking perpetration and victimization.

Results

Results suggest that victimization and perpetration are functions of social learning. The findings also indicated that females were significantly more likely to be both stalking victims and perpetrators.

Conclusions

Regarding stalking perpetration and victimization, our results suggest that there may be responses, attitudes, and behaviors that are learned, modified, or reinforced primarily through interaction with peers. Overall, social learning theory concepts appear to be important predictors of stalking perpetration and victimization that help to develop theoretical explanations for stalking.     

Does the measurement of peer deviance change the relationship between self-control and deviant behavior? An analysis of friendship pairs

Purpose

The measurement debate between social learning and self-control theories has predominantly focused on self-control, leaving an unexplored and equally important measurement controversy concerning the operationalization of the peer delinquency construct. This study addresses how self-control's relationship with deviant and criminal behavior changes when peer deviance is statistically controlled for using an indirect, perceptual measure or a self-report directly from a peer.

Methods

Data from 796 friendship pairs are used to estimate a series of regression models that regress respondent deviance onto indirect and direct peer deviance and attitudinal and behavioral self-control measures while controlling for elements of the social bond and demographic characteristics.

Results

When an indirect measure of peer delinquency is replaced with a direct measure from respondents’ friends, the relationships between self-control - attitudinal and behavioral measures - and deviance and criminal behavior are consistently larger. The use of a direct peer deviance measure does not prove the peer deviance-crime relationship spurious, but does substantially weaken the relationship between self-control and deviance and criminal behavior.

Conclusions

The strength of the relationship between self-control and deviant/criminal behavior is contingent on how peer deviance is operationalized, regardless of how self-control is measured (attitudinally or behaviorally).