Exploring the utility of entitlement in understanding sexual aggression

Purpose

Sexual aggression on college campuses has received a great deal of research attention. Little criminological theory, however, has systematically linked individual-level risk factors for sexual aggression with broader societal factors like patriarchy. DeKeseredy and Schwartz (1993) proposed that societal patriarchy is translated into individual attitudes of male sexual proprietariness and entitlement, which provide motivation and justifications for sexual violence.

Methods

This study explored the concept of entitlement through various measures and demonstrated the utility of the concept by linking it with other theoretically-relevant variables, including self-control, sexual partners, use of pornography, adversarial sexual beliefs, and rape myth adherence.

Results

Entitlement was significantly correlated with theoretically-relevant variables in the expected directions. Additionally, entitlement was able to distinguish sexually aggressive and nonaggressive men. Multivariate models provided support for the theoretical assertion that entitlement fosters rape-supportive attitudes and behaviors, which in turn was related to sexual aggression.

Conclusions

Entitlement is an important concept in understanding sexual aggression, and the causal relationships implied by theory should be explored further in future research. Implications and directions for future research and theory are discussed.     

The ties that bind or the ties that break: Examining the relationship between visitation and prisoner misconduct

Purpose

Prior theory and research suggest that inmate visitation can reduce misconduct in prison. However, prior studies have not accounted for the longitudinal and heterogeneous nature of these experiences. This paper addresses this research gap by examining variation in visitation experiences and the relationship between patterns of visitation and misconduct.

Methods

Using a cohort of offenders incarcerated in Florida between 2000 and 2002, group-based trajectory model analyses were used to identify groups of inmates based on their visitation and misconduct patterns. Dual trajectory analysis was used to then assess the extent to which the development of visitation and misconduct patterns are interrelated.

Results

Visitation, and more consistent visitation in particular, is associated with less prison misconduct.

Conclusions

Visitation may reduce inmate misconduct. Implications for future research, theory, and policy are discussed.     

Groups, gangs, and delinquency: Does organization matter?

Purpose

A consistent finding of research on delinquency has been that gang members show higher levels of delinquent behavior than non-gang members. However, research attempting to understand the mechanisms underlying this finding is lacking. The basic premise of the current article is that the level of organization found in delinquent groups and gangs matters in clarifying the relationship between membership and delinquency.

Methods

This article examined the association between organization and delinquency in a sample of 523 self-reported juvenile offenders from a high school survey conducted in the province of Quebec, Canada.

Results

The results showed that 1) there is clearly something special about membership in a gang that influences delinquency beyond the more general membership in a delinquent group; 2) the key to understanding finding lies, in part, in the level of organization found in gangs. Organization emerged as the most important factor associated with general delinquency, involvement in violence, and in drug supply offences, significantly (but not completely) reducing the effect of gang membership on delinquency.

Conclusions

Even if most delinquent associations show little signs of formal structure and organization, this study demonstrates the importance of organization as a key mechanism to understand the gang effect on delinquency.     

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.     

Prison gang integration and inmate violence

Purpose

Gang membership has been linked in a number of prior studies with inmate misconduct; known gang members are more prone than non-gang members to act violently behind bars. Theories of intergroup conflict suggest, however, there is reason to expect that broader within-prison gang dynamics, not just gang membership alone, are associated with the incidence of violence.

Methods

We collected data on inmates from a large southern state and estimated multilevel models of inmate-on-inmate violence. Included in our models were a variety of common individual-level correlates of violent misconduct, among them gang membership. Substantive prison-level correlates included the percentage of gang members and “gang integration,” the latter being a measure of gang heterogeneity.

Results

We found a modest association between both gang variables and inmate-on-inmate violence, with gang integration being the most significant of the two.

Conclusions

Gang membership is an important correlate of inmate violence, but attention to broader prison gang dynamics is clearly necessary. We discuss the implications of this finding for theories of inmate violence.     

Procedural justice during police-citizen encounters: The effects of process-based policing on citizen compliance and demeanor

Purpose

Theories of procedural justice have facilitated the development of a process-based approach to policing which emphasizes the fairness of the manner in which the police exercise their discretion. The study examines whether procedurally fair behavior by the police affects two types of citizen behavior during encounters: citizen disrespect toward the police and citizen noncompliance with police requests.

Methods

This study uses data from systematic social observations of police-citizen encounters to examine procedural justice factors on citizen behavior. Because of the reciprocal nature of police-citizen interactions, an instrumental variable is used in the statistical analysis to help address the causal relationship between police force and citizen disrespect.

Results

The statistical analyses find limited support for procedural justice factors. Two types of procedurally fair behavior by the police, police demeanor and their consideration of citizen voice, are significant in reducing citizen disrespect and noncompliance, respectively.

Conclusion

Procedural justice factors have limited and inconsistent impacts on the two types of citizen behavior, and future research should address the limitations of this study and evaluate process-based policing with more data from social observations of police-citizen encounters.     

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.     

Life domains and crime: A test of Agnew's general theory of crime and delinquency

Purpose

This study presents a preliminary test of Agnew's general theory of crime and delinquency. This study examines whether each of the five life domain variables at the core of Agnew's theory is related to recidivism, whether there is a non-linear relationship between the life domains and recidivism, and whether the five life domains interact in causing recidivism.

Methods

Data were derived from the baseline survey of the Maryland Boot Camp Experiment and through a criminal records check conducted by the Maryland Department of Public Safety.

Results

Overall, the results lend weak support for Agnew's general theory. In particular, only two of the five life domains, having a bad job and being a high school dropout, are significantly correlated with recidivism. Further, with the exception of the peers domain, there is neither a linear nor a non-linear relationship between the life domains and recidivism. The results also reveal that none of the two-way bivariate interactions are significant in a multivariate linear probability model.

Conclusions

Although our findings are not supportive of Agnew's (2005) general theory of crime, the theory contains many other implications that we simply did not have the data to address.     

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.     

Changes in self-control during adolescence: Investigating the influence of the adolescent peer network

Purpose

Previous research on changes in self-control during adolescence provides evidence of stability for most individuals but change for some, drawing attention to the role of factors that may account for change. We contribute to this area of research by examining the extent to which changes in peer self-control and peer delinquency within peer networks is related to individual self-control during adolescence.

Method

This study uses longitudinal social network data from three waves of the NSCR School Project to construct growth curve models of self-control and MLM models to examine the factors that contribute to changes in self-control.

Results

Growth curve models demonstrate within and between-individual differences in changes to self-control that occur between ages 12-17. Furthermore, multilevel models reveal that changes in levels of self-control and delinquency among respondent's peers are related to between-individual differences and within-individual changes in self-control, net of parental social control.

Conclusions

This study finds that self-control continues to evolve during adolescence as a result of processes that take place within adolescent peer-networks, calling into question Gottfredson and Hirschi's contention that peers are inconsequential for explaining differences in self-control across individuals.     

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.     

Perceived injustice and delinquency: A test of general strain theory

Purpose

While a growing body of empirical literature supports many key predictions of General Strain Theory (GST), the subjective perception of injustice remains a theoretically important but empirically under-researched type of strain. The present study therefore examines the relations among perceived injustice, anger, and rule-violation.

Methods

Using a sample of middle- and high-school students from 12 schools in Southern New Hampshire, the present study tests GST via a series of OLS, negative binomial, and structural equation analyses using a more precise measure of perceived injustice than prior work and extensive statistical controls for such variables as self-control, differential association, attitudes toward delinquency, and alternative strain measures in a longitudinal context.

Results

Results yield strong support for the notions that perceived injustice promotes delinquency and that this relationship is mediated by situational anger.

Conclusions

Perceived injustice appears to be an important type of strain that should be incorporated into future research and addressed by future delinquency prevention efforts.     

Toward a typology of sexual burglary: Latent class findings

Purpose

To understand fully the nature of residential burglary one must examine the situational context, and offender's behavior during the burglary. Although several behaviors appear to be distinctly related to sexual burglaries, including voyeurism, fetishism, sexual violence, and sexual murder, a systematic typology of the characteristics of residential sexual burglary is lacking. The purpose of the study was to develop a typology of residential sexual burglary.

Methods

The present study investigated 224 incidents of residential burglary with recorded sexual components. A typology classifying these incidents was developed using Latent Class Analysis.

Results

Three types of sexual burglary were identified. Fetishistic noncontact burglaries typically occurred in unoccupied houses and involve fetishistic behavior, but no theft, violence, and weapon. Versatile contact burglaries were characterized by rapes occurring in apartments and involving theft, violence, and weapon. Finally, perpetrators of sexually oriented contact burglaries raped their victim in houses but these incidents rarely involved theft, violence, or weapon. Previous offenses were also analyzed; the three distinct types of burglary appear to be embedded in different prior offense histories. The practical implications are discussed.

Conclusions

This research underscores the importance of examining the situational context and offender's behavior during a residential burglary with sexual components.     

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).     

The persistence of early childhood physical aggression: Examining maternal delinquency and offending,mental health,and cultural differences

Purpose

To examine the persistence of physical aggression in preschoolers and associated correlates (i.e., socio-demographic, socioeconomic, criminality, parenting practices, maternal mental health).

Methods

One-year follow-ups are completed with 240 mothers and their preschool children (boys and girls) from the Vancouver Longitudinal Study on the Psychosocial Development of Children. A series of structural equation models are examined.

Results

Maternal psychological symptoms, juvenile delinquency, and adult offending are associated with higher levels of physical aggression in their offspring. Children of non-Caucasian mothers and those born outside of North are less physically aggressive. Cultural differences in the correlates of physical aggression were identified.

Conclusions

Maternal past delinquency, current adult offending, and mental health are important factors in the development of children’s physical aggression. The findings suggest that there are multiple pathways leading to chronic physical aggression, which may be culturally-based. Cultural differences should be taken into account when developing programs and intervening with families of children with behavioral problems.     

Taxometrics and Criminal Justice: Assessing the Latent Structure of Crime-Related Constructs

Purpose

The taxometric method is introduced as a way of investigating the latent structure of key criminal justice constructs.

Methods

Besides describing the theory, rationale, and procedures behind taxometrics, the taxometric method is applied to Wolfgang, Figlio, and Sellin’s (1972) delinquency cohort data to illustrate how the procedure works.

Results

After defining latent structure, its relevance to criminal justice is explored and the four core principles of taxometric analysis are described: coherent cut kinetics, consistency testing, comparison curve analysis, and evidence-based procedures. Sample and indicator preconditions for taxometric analysis are discussed and empirically-verified procedures for taxometric analysis are outlined: mean above minus below a cut (MAMBAC: Meehl & Yonce, 1996), maximum covariance (MAXCOV: Meehl & Yonce, 1994), maximum eigenvalue (MAXEIG: Waller & Meehl, 1998), maximum slope (MAXSLOPE: Grove & Meehl, 1993), and latent mode factor analysis (L-Mode: Waller & Meehl, 1998).

Conclusions

The taxometric method provides an avenue by which the latent structure of important criminal justice constructs can be explored and criminal justice research can be advanced.     

Similarities and differences between perceptions of peer delinquency,peer self-reported delinquency,and respondent delinquency: An analysis of friendship dyads

Purpose

Despite the peer delinquency measurement debate having profound implications for research, looming questions remain about the validity of various forms of peer delinquency operationalizations. This study examines whether perceptions of peer delinquency form identical latent constructs to both respondent and peer self-reported delinquency.

Methods

Using a dyadic dataset of friendship pairs, confirmatory factor analysis and model comparison tests are used to determine the degree of similarity between perceptions of peer delinquency, respondent self-reported delinquency, and peer self-reported delinquency.

Results

Peer self-reports and respondent perceptions of peer delinquency load on unique constructs across a number of different behaviors. For most behaviors, respondent perceptions of peer delinquency and respondent self-reports load on separate constructs. Results further indicate that respondent and peer self-reported delinquency are separate latent constructs. Finally, the strength of the association between respondent and peer delinquency is substantively smaller in magnitude, by as much as a factor of three in some instances, when peer delinquency is measured via peer self-reports in place of respondent perceptions.

Conclusions

Reports of peer delinquency provided directly from peers demonstrate strong discriminant validity in relation to self-reported delinquency, while perceptions of peer delinquency demonstrate poorer discriminant validity, particularly for theft and violence constructs.     

Incarceration, education and transition from delinquency

Purpose

Much of what is known regarding the transition away from crime is limited to young adulthood and specific life events and samples of non-serious offenders comprised mainly of white males.

Methods

The current study assesses the potential links between educational achievement, post-release schooling, and re-arrest for a cohort of 4,147 incarcerated youths drawn from 115 Florida juvenile institutions and followed for two years post-release.

Results

Incarcerated youths with higher levels of educational achievement are more likely to return to school after release, and those youths who returned to and attended school regularly were less likely to be rearrested within 12 and 24 months. Moreover, among youths who were rearrested, those youth who attended school regularly following release were arrested for significantly less serious offenses compared to youths who did not attend school or attended less regularly.

Conclusions

The study concludes with discussion of the importance of educational achievement as an important turning point for juvenile offenders as they transition into young adulthood.     

Is teen court the best fit? Assessing the predictive validity of the Teen Court Peer Influence Scale

Purpose

Despite the increased use of teen courts for first time, non-violent juvenile offenders, there has been little research examining the decision-making processes regarding which offenders are best suited for this type of intervention. The Teen Court Peer Influence Scale (TCPIS) was developed to assist juvenile justice officials in making these determinations. The purpose of the present research is to determine the predictive validity of the TCPIS.

Methods

The TCPIS was administered to a nonprobability sample of teen court participants in Florida (N = 404) between September 2006 and February 2007. Dependent measures for the validity analysis were developed from the Youth Self-administered Questionnaire and included social bonds, prosocial attitudes, delinquent peer associations, positive perceptions of teen court, and perceived delinquency.

Results

All hypotheses were supported with the TCPIS global score accounting for a significant amount of variance among each of the delinquency measures strengthening the predictive validity of the measure.

Conclusions

These preliminary findings are positive regarding the predictive validity of the TCPIS. With additional research, the TCPIS could be a useful tool for decision-makers regarding which juvenile offenders are the best fit for teen court diversion programs.