Crime and Imprisonment Trends: An Analysis by Individual Crime-Types

This research was done while the author was visiting the Max-Planck-Institut, Freiburg, West Germany. Thanks are due to the Humboldt Foundation for a Fellowship, and to Baruch College for a Scholar Incentive leave of absence that made this research possible.

In this paper, the relationship between crime and imprisonment rates is explored in more detail by examining the rates for individual crime types. Given the observation that aggregate crime rates have increased far more rapidly than imprisonment rates in many countries, the possible existence of an adaptive mechanism is explored, where the imprisonment rates increase with the crime rates for serious offenses but not for minor offenses. Analysis of data from West Germany appears to support such a hypothesis.     

THE IDENTIFICATION OF "CAREER CRIMINALS" FROM "CHRONIC OFFENDERS" IN A COHORT

The findings by Wolfgang et al. that 6.3% of their cohort had 52% of the recorded police contacts is well known. This retrospective analysis has been used to suggest that imprisoning these "chronic" offenders will avert a correspondingly disproportionate amount of crime. On prospective analysis of the arrest histories, however, the recidivism probability is found to be constant after the third contact, suggesting that prior record has little predictive value regarding future criminality. These observations raise important questions about the benefits of "career criminal" programs and their incapacitative effects.