Individual Differences in the Deterrence Process: Which Individuals Learn (Most) from Their Offending Experiences?

Objectives

To test whether individuals differ in deterrability by studying whether the effect of criminal experiences on perceived detection risk varies by criminal propensity.

Methods

Data from the British “Offending, Crime and Justice Survey”, a four-wave panel study on criminal behavior and victimization, are analyzed. Two subsamples for analyses are constructed: one of non-offenders at first measurement, to analyze the effect of gaining first offending experiences during the time of study (n = 1,279) and one sample of individuals who have committed offenses within the past year (n = 567), to analyze the effect of police contact among active offenders. Fixed-effects regressions of perceived detection risk on criminal experiences and interactions between criminal experiences and measures of criminal propensity (risk-affinity, impulsivity) are estimated.

Results

Analyses support learning models for the formation and change of risk perceptions, but individual differences by criminal propensity are present in the deterrence process: After gaining first offending experiences, impulsive individuals as well as risk-averse individuals are more likely to lower their perceptions about the probability of detection than less impulsive or risk-affine individuals are. A positive effect of police contact on expected detection risk is restricted to risk-averse individuals.

Conclusions

Findings support claims that deterrence works differently for crime-prone individuals. The differential effects of impulsivity and risk-affinity underline the importance of not combining constituent characteristics of criminal propensity in composite indices, because they might have differential effects on deterrence.     

Timing of Change in Criminal Offending Around Entrance into Parenthood: Gender and Cross-Country Comparisons for At-Risk Individuals

Objectives

This article examines the timing of change in criminal offending relative to entrance into parenthood, in light of four competing theoretical frameworks (social control, routine activities, strain and cognitive transformation). Moreover, it analyzes whether criminal developments over time are gender- or country-specific.

Methods

Using samples of men and women at risk of offending in the Netherlands and Norway, this study investigates monthly changes in offending probabilities around the time of first birth (5 years before, 5 years after). The implemented smoothing splines technique allowed for a flexible exploration of changes in offending probabilities for both pre-childbirth and post-childbirth periods.

Results

The results show that the probabilities to offend decline ahead of childbirth for all individuals analyzed. The post-childbirth period is characterized by increases in offending probabilities. However, in these overall trends, the exact timing and magnitude of change differs by gender and country of residence.

Conclusions

The results offer partial support for the cognitive transformation hypothesis because offending rates decline before childbirth. The post-childbirth period converges with assumptions of the strain theory (for males in particular) because offending probabilities increase in this period. Additional analysis investigating changes in property offending shows that economic strain does not explain the upward trend of the overall offending after childbirth.

     

Incentivizing Responses to Self-report Questions in Perceptual Deterrence Studies: An Investigation of the Validity of Deterrence Theory Using Bayesian Truth Serum

Objective

Criminological researchers want people to reveal considerable private information when utilizing self-report surveys, such as involvement in crime, subjective attitudes and expectations, and probability judgments. Some of this private information is easily accessible for subjects and all that is required is for individuals to be honest, while other information requires mental effort and cognitive reflection. Though researchers generally provide little or no incentive to be honest and thoughtful, it is generally assumed that subjects do provide honest and accurate information. We assess the accuracy of deterrence measures by employing a scoring rule known as the Bayesian truth serum (BTS)—that incentivizes honesty and thoughtfulness among respondents.

Method

Individuals are asked to report on self-report offending and estimates of risk after being assigned to one of two conditions: (1) a group where there is a financial incentive just for participation, and (2) a BTS financial incentive group where individuals are incentivized to be honest and thoughtful.

Results

We find evidence that there are some important differences in the responses to self-reporting offending items and estimates of the probability of getting arrested between the groups. Individuals in the BTS condition report a greater willingness to offend and lower estimates of perceived risk for drinking and driving and cheating on exams. Moreover, we find that the negative correlation between perceived risk and willingness to offend that is often observed in scenario-based deterrence research does not emerge in conditions where respondents are incentivized to be accurate and thoughtful in their survey responses.

Conclusion

The results raise some questions about the accuracy of survey responses in perceptual deterrence studies, and challenge the statistical relationship between perceived risk and offending behavior. We suggest further exploration within criminology of both BTS and other scoring rules and greater scrutiny of the validity of criminological data.     

Recidivism in a Sample of Serious Adolescent Offenders

Objectives

A broad research literature in criminology documents key aspects of how criminal offending develops and changes over the life span. We contribute to this literature by showcasing methods that are useful for studying medium-term patterns of subsequent criminal justice system involvement among a sample of serious adolescent offenders making the transition to early adulthood.

Methods

Our approach relies on 7 years of post-enrollment follow-up from the Pathways to Desistance Study. Each person in the study was adjudicated delinquent for or convicted of one or more relatively serious offenses during adolescence. Their local jurisdiction juvenile court petition records and their adult FBI arrest records were systematically searched.

Results

We estimate in-sample 7 year recidivism rates in the 75–80 % range. Our analysis also provides recidivism rate estimates among different demographic groups within the sample. Extrapolated long-term recidivism rates are estimated to be on the order of 79–89 %.

Conclusions

The Pathways data suggest that recidivism rates of serious adolescent offenders are high and quite comparable to the rates estimated on other samples of serious offenders in the extant literature. Our analysis also reveals a pattern of heightened recidivism risk during the earliest months and years of the follow-up period followed by a steep decline.

     

The Consequences of Maladaptive Coping: Integrating General Strain and Self-Control Theories to Specify a Causal Pathway Between Victimization and Offending

Objectives

Drawing from general strain and self-control perspectives, the role of maladaptive coping (i.e., substance use) in the causal pathway between victimization and offending is explored. Specifically, the present study investigates: (1) the extent to which self-control influences substance use in response to victimization, and (2) whether victims with low self-control and who engage in substance use are more likely to commit violent offenses in the future.

Methods

Three waves of panel data from the Gang Resistance Education and Training program are used (N = 1,463), and negative binomial regression models are estimated to explore the interactive effects of low self-control, victimization, and substance use on violent offending.

Results

Victims with low self-control are more likely to engage in substance use post-victimization, and low self-control and substance use are found to exert significant conditional effects on the pathway between victimization and offending. These results remained robust even after controlling for prior violent offending, peer influences, prior substance use, and other forms of offending.

Conclusions

The causal pathway between victimization and offending can be explained by drawing upon key concepts drawn from self-control (i.e., how self-control shapes coping responses) and general strain (i.e., how those responses influence offending above and beyond self-control) theories, indicating that these two perspectives can and should be integrated more explicitly to explain the dynamics of victimization and offending.     

Self-Control Theory and Nonlinear Effects on Offending

Objectives

This paper examines Gottfredson and Hirschi’s (A general theory of crime. Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1990) self-control theory and develops theoretical arguments for why self-control may have a differential effect on offending depending on the level of self-control.

Methods

We test the argument that the association between self-control and violent offending (n = 5,681) and non-violent offending (5,672) is nonlinear by using generalized propensity score analyses of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.

Results

The results indicate that self-control and offending are nonlinearly related in a manner that involves two thresholds. Specifically, among individuals at the high end of the self-control spectrum, there was little evidence of an association between variation in self-control and offending. However, among individuals in the middle part of the self-control spectrum, a positive association obtained—that is, the greater the level of low self-control, the greater the likelihood of offending. Finally, among individuals at the low end of the self-control spectrum, there was, once again, little evidence of an association.

Conclusions

A nonlinear association between self-control and offending may exist and have implications for self-control theory and tests of it. Studies are needed to investigate further the possibility of a nonlinear association and to test empirically the mechanisms that give rise to it.     

During,After, or Both? Isolating the Effect of Religious Support on Recidivism During Reentry

Objectives

To examine the independent and interdependent roles of baseline religious support during incarceration and within-individual changes in religious support on recidivism during the prisoner reentry process.

Methods

Using data from the Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative, cross-lagged dynamic panel models are used to examine the respective roles of baseline differences and within-individual changes in religious support on two variety indices encompassing substance use and criminal offending while simultaneously controlling for pre-incarceration levels of substance use and offending.

Results

Findings show that within-individual increases in religious support protect against substance use post-release, while baseline levels of religious support do not significantly influence substance use. Additionally, baseline levels of religious support fail to condition this relationship. Findings assessing criminal offending demonstrate that baseline religious support and within-individual changes in religious support fail to relate to offending independently. However, an interaction term reveals that the combination of the two relates to significantly lower levels of offending post-release.

Conclusions

Findings offer encouragement for those involved in the work of providing religious support to ex-offenders in the community, reaffirming that tailoring support programs to the religious or spiritual ways individuals make meaning in their lives can improve reentry outcomes. Methodologically, failing to distinguish between baseline levels of religious support and post-release changes in religious support fails to capture the complexity of religiosity on the reentry process.

     

Assessing the Effectiveness of Correctional Sanctions

Objectives

Despite the dramatic expansion of the US correctional system in recent decades, little is known about the relative effectiveness of commonly used sanctions on recidivism. The goal of this paper is to address this research gap, and systematically examine the relative impacts on recidivism of four main types of sanctions: probation, intensive probation, jail, and prison.

Methods

Data on convicted felons in Florida were analyzed and propensity score matching analyses were used to estimate relative effects of each sanction type on 3-year reconviction rates.

Results

Estimated effects suggest that less severe sanctions are more likely to reduce recidivism.

Conclusions

The findings raise questions about the effectiveness of tougher sanctioning policies for reducing future criminal behavior. Implications for future research, theory, and policy are also discussed.     

The Coverage of American Indians and Alaskan Natives in Criminal Justice and Criminology Introductory Textbooks

This paper examines the coverage of American Indians and Alaskan Natives (AI/AN) in the most widely read introductory criminal justice and criminology books published between 2004 and 2010. The current research extends upon Young’s (J Crim Justice Educ 1:111–116, 1990) assessment of AI/ANs in criminal justice and criminology introductory textbooks, where he found no mention of AI/ANs. The replication of Young (J Crim Justice Educ 1:111–116, 1990) is especially important because AI/ANs continue to face a wide array of social issues (i.e. substance abuse and poverty), which leads to an overrepresentation of AI/ANs in the criminal justice system. To accomplish this, a content analysis was conducted on thirty-one introductory criminal justice and criminology textbooks to determine whether AI/ANs have received more academic coverage in current textbooks. The findings reveal that introductory criminal justice and criminology textbooks still under represent AI/ANs despite experiencing crime, victimization, and justice related problems.     

A Prospective Examination of Criminal Career Trajectories in Abused and Neglected Males and Females Followed Up into Middle Adulthood

Objectives

To examine the extent to which there are differences in the developmental course of offending among individuals with maltreatment histories, compared to nonmaltreated controls, and whether these patterns vary for males and females.

Methods

This paper uses data from a longitudinal study in which abused and neglected children (N = 908) were matched with non-maltreated children (N = 667) and followed prospectively into adulthood. Group-based trajectory modeling was conducted using official criminal history records collected through mean age 51. Patterns of criminal offending were first considered for the whole sample, with abuse status and sex included as time-stable covariates, and then separately by subgroup (control females, maltreated females, control males and maltreated males).

Results

Analyses revealed that a three-group model provided the best fit (nonoffenders, low-level chronic offenders, mid-level chronic offenders) for the overall sample. Child maltreatment and sex were significant predictors, with offenders more likely to be male and abused/neglected, compared to non-offenders. Separate analyses for the four subgroups revealed some similarities across groups in the characterization of offending trajectories, although trajectories for abused/neglected females differed significantly from trajectories for control females. Additional analyses suggest that desistance from offending may be largely a function of incapacitation due to early death, rather than imprisonment.

Conclusions

These new analyses provide evidence that child maltreatment affects patterns of offending and that there is an impact on females and males, although the impact differs by gender. Future research should build on this work by examining the mechanisms through which child maltreatment leads to differential patterns of offending throughout the life course.

     

Gangs and Violence: Disentangling the Impact of Gang Membership on the Level and Nature of Offending

Objectives

To determine whether membership in youth gangs provides a unique social forum for violence amplification. This study examines whether gang membership increases the odds of violent offending over and above involvement in general delinquent and criminal behavior.

Methods

Five waves of data from a multi-site (seven cities) panel study of over 3,700 youth originally nested within 31 schools are analyzed. We estimate four level repeated measures item response theory models, which include a parameter to differentiate the difference in the log of the expected event-rate for violent offense items to the log of the expected event-rate for nonviolent offense items.

Results

Depending on the comparison group (gang youth, overall sample), periods of active gang membership were associated with a 10 or 21% increase in the odds of involvement in violent incidents. When the sample is restricted to youth who report gang membership during the study, the proportionate increase in the odds of violence associated with gangs is statistically similar for males and females. After youth reported leaving the gang their propensity for violence was not significantly different than comparison group observations, although levels of general offending remain elevated.

Conclusions

While results are limited by the school-based sampling strategy, the importance of gang prevention and intervention programming for violence reduction is highlighted. Preventing youth from gang membership or shortening the length of gang careers through interventions may reduce absolute levels of violence.     

The Incapacitation Effect of First-Time Imprisonment: A Matched Samples Comparison

Objectives

The logic of incapacitation is the prevention of crime via the forced removal of known offenders from the community. The challenge is to provide a plausible estimate of how many crimes an incarcerated individual would have committed, were s/he free in the community rather than confined in prison. The objective of this study is to provide estimates of the incapacitation effect of first-time imprisonment from a sample of convicted offenders.

Methods

The data are official criminal records of all individuals convicted in The Netherlands in 1997. Two different analytical strategies are used to estimate an incapacitation effect. First, the offending rate of the imprisoned individuals prior to their confinement in 1997 provides a “within-person counterfactual”. Second, imprisoned offenders are paired with comparable non-imprisoned offenders using the method of propensity score matching in order to estimate a “between-person counterfactual”. Incapacitation estimates are provided separately for juvenile imprisonment (ages 12–17) as well as adult imprisonment (ages 18–50), and for male and female offenders.

Results

The best estimate is that 1 year of incarceration prevents between 0.17 and 0.21 convictions per year. The use of additional data sources indicates that this corresponds to between roughly 2.0 and 2.5 criminal offenses recorded by the police.

Conclusions

The current results suggest that, insofar as imprisonment is used with the primary goal of reducing crime through incapacitation, a general increase in the use of incarceration as the sanction of choice is not likely to yield major crime control benefits.     

Preventing Crime is Hard Work: Early Intervention,Developmental Criminology,and the Enduring Legacy of James Q. Wilson

Objective

The late James Q. Wilson (1931-2012) was a prolific scholar and made many important contributions to the field of criminology. Less well known, however, is that Wilson was a great advocate of early prevention of delinquency and later offending. This essay examines this aspect of Wilson's overall contribution to criminology.

Materials and methods

Narrative review of Wilson's research and writings on early crime prevention and developmental criminology.

Results

Three key events delineate Wilson's long-lasting support for early crime prevention: his 1983 "Raising Kids" article with its special focus on family-based prevention; his help to initiate and champion developmental and longitudinal research on offending in the 1980s and 1990s; and his influential writings and behind-the-scenes work on early prevention throughout the 1990s and 2000s.

Conclusions

Wilson played an important role in advocating for early crime prevention. Without question, this is part of his enduring legacy to the field of criminology.     

Crime Continuity and Psychological Inertia: Testing the Cognitive Mediation and Additive Postulates with Male Adjudicated Delinquents

Objectives

Crime continuity is one of the best documented and least understood aspects of criminal behavior. Psychological inertia, the notion that cognitive variables mediate the relationship between earlier and later expressions of the same behavior, was tested as a possible explanation for crime continuity.

Methods

The cognitive mediation and additive postulates of the psychological inertia theorem were tested in a path analysis using self-report data from 1170 male delinquent members of the Pathways to Desistance study (Mulvey in Paper presented at the American Society of Criminology Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, 2012). Wave 1 delinquency served as the independent variable, Wave 3 delinquency served as the dependent variable, Wave 2 outcome expectancies for crime, self-efficacy, general criminal thinking, and social capital served as the mediator variables, and 12 different baseline measures from criminological theory served as control variables in this study.

Results

General criminal thinking and low self-efficacy successfully mediated the relationship between past and future offending after age, race, early behavioral problems, peer criminality, family criminality, parental knowledge and monitoring, parental hostility, routine activities, measured intelligence, and precursors for each of the mediators were controlled. Social capital (cumulative disadvantage), by comparison, failed to mediate crime continuity in this study.

Conclusions

Effective cognitive mediation of the relationship between Wave 1 offending and Wave 3 offending and evidence that the effect may be additive offer preliminary support for the cognitive mediation and additive postulates of the psychological inertia theorem. Practical implications of these results include the need to routinely assess cognitive factors in criminal populations and target these factors for intervention.

     

First do no harm: a look at correctional policies and programs today

Objectives

This paper reviews the historical changes in correctional policies and the impact these changes have had on the operations of corrections and correctional programs. Social changes and theoretical perspectives moved corrections away from a focus on rehabilitation to programs characterized by deterrence, incapacitation, and control. Similarly, theoretical criminology encouraged corrections to move away from rehabilitation towards programs designed to provide social opportunities such as employment and housing for offenders. This paper examines whether these changes in policies and programs have been effective in reducing recidivism. The question is: What works in corrections?

Methods

This paper reviews the research examining the impact of correctional policies and programs on the later criminal activities of offenders and delinquents. Research using systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and the Maryland method scores is used to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of various types of programs, management strategies, and policies.

Results

Research demonstrates programs based on deterrence, incapacitation and increased control do not reduce the future criminal activities of offenders and delinquents. Nor have programs targeting social opportunities such as employment and housing been effective in reducing recidivism. The most effective programs target individual-level change in thinking and information processing.

Conclusions

In the search for ways to sanction offenders, U.S. correctional policies and programs using control, deterrence, and incapacitation have harmed individuals and communities. Such programs have not been effective in reducing recidivism. While programs that provide social opportunities for offenders do not necessarily harm offenders neither do they decrease later criminal activities. Effective programs bring about a cognitive transformation in offenders and delinquents. Theorists have begun to develop hypotheses about how and why these transformations are effective. The current emphasis on evidence-based programs, the research evidence on what is effective and the need to reduce the cost of corrections suggest we are on the brink of another paradigm change. Where this will take us is still unclear, but the paradigm will have to address the current problems facing the U.S. correctional systems.     

A quasi-experimental test of the effects of criminal justice involvement on later mental health

Objectives

While many criminological theories posit causal hypotheses, many studies fail to use methods that adequately address the three criteria of causality. This is particularly important when assessing the impact of criminal justice involvement on later outcomes. Due to practical and ethical concerns, it is challenging to randomize criminal sanctions, so quasi-experimental methods such as propensity score matching are often used to approximate a randomized design. Based on longitudinal data from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development, the current study used propensity score matching to investigate the extent to which convictions and/or incarcerations in the first two decades of life were related to adverse mental health during middle adulthood.

Methods

Propensity scores were utilized to match those with and without criminal justice involvement on a wide range of risk factors for offending.

Results

The results indicated that there were no significant differences in mental health between those involved in the criminal justice system and those without such involvement.

Conclusions

The results did not detect a relationship between justice system involvement and later mental health suggesting that the consequences of criminal justice involvement may only be limited to certain domains.

     

When Criminal Coping is Likely: An Examination of Conditioning Effects in General Strain Theory

Objectives

This paper addresses a central problem in general strain theory (GST): the mixed results regarding those factors said to condition the effect of strains on crime. We test Agnew’s (Deviant Behav 34(8):653–670, 2013) assertion that a criminal response to strain is likely only when individuals score high on several factors that increase the propensity for criminal coping or possess markers that indicate a strong propensity for criminal coping.

Methods

We use survey data from nearly 6000 juveniles from across the United States to examine whether the effect of criminogenic strains across several domains—perceptions of police, school environment, and victimization—on crime are conditioned by: (1) respondents’ criminal propensity and (2) gang membership. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first criminological study to employ an analytical framework that simultaneously considers nonlinear (i.e., curvilinear) dynamics, non-additive (i.e., interactive) effects, and non-normally distributed dependent variables. This approach has the advantage of properly differentiating nonlinear and non-additive dimensions and therefore significantly improving our understanding of conditioning effects.

Results

We find considerable support for Agnew’s (2013) postulation about conditioning effects and GST. Criminal behavior is more likely among those with a strong overall propensity for criminal coping and among gang members. Furthermore, we discover that the conditioning effects are, themselves, nonlinear. That is, the effect of criminal propensity on moderating the relationship between our three measures of strain and delinquency varies across the range of the criminal propensity index. Our models that simultaneously consider both the non-additive and nonlinear relationship between strains, criminal propensity, and criminal offending better fit the data than models that consider these dimensions separately. These results hold whether examining a composite measure of criminal activity or, alternatively, three separate subscales indexing violent, property, and drug offenses.

Conclusion

Our study advances GST and the crime literature by identifying the types of strained individuals most likely to engage in criminal coping. Additionally, the analytical framework we adopt serves as a model for the correct measurement and interpretation of conditioning effects for criminological data, which almost invariably violate the assumptions of the linear regression model. Parametric interactions are the most commonly investigated type of interactions, but other kinds of interactions are also plausible and may reveal conditional relationships that are either overlooked or understated when analysts adopt a fully parametric framework. We demonstrate the utility of expressly modeling both the nonlinear effects of component variables in an interaction and the nonlinear nature of the conditioning effect.

     

“Because You’re Mine, I Walk the Line”? Marriage, Spousal Criminality, and Criminal Offending Over the Life Course

Objectives

This study is an analysis of the relationship between marriage and crime in a high-risk sample of Dutch men and women. Marriages are classified as to whether the spouse had been convicted of a crime prior to the marriage, in order to ascertain if one??s criminal career after marriage unfolds differently depending on the criminal history of one??s spouse.

Methods

Data are from the Criminal Career and Life-Course Study, a random sample of all individuals convicted of a criminal offense in the Netherlands in 1977 (N?=?4,615). Lifetime criminal histories for all subjects are constructed from age 12 to calendar year 2003. Official marriage records are also consulted, and the criminal history of all spouses are similarly constructed. Fixed-effects Poisson models are estimated to quantify the relationship between marriage, spousal criminality, and conviction frequency, controlling for age, parenthood, prior conviction, and prior incarceration.

Results

Among men, marriage reduces the frequency of criminal conviction, but only if the marriage is to a non-convicted spouse. Marriage to a convicted spouse, on the other hand, is indistinguishable from singlehood??it neither discourages nor promotes criminal behavior. Among women, marriage has a crime-reducing effect, regardless of the criminal history of the spouse. A set of preliminary follow-up analyses suggests further that men with more extensive criminal histories, and with more stable marriages, benefit in a more pronounced way from marriage to a non-convicted spouse. However, even unstable marriages to non-convicted spouses appear to reduce conviction frequency while they last.

Conclusions

Marriage is indeed a salient transition in the criminal career, but there are important differences depending on the characteristics of the offender (gender, criminal history), the characteristics of the spouse (criminal history), and the characteristics of the marriage (duration). The authors conclude that while marriage matters, it does not necessarily mean the end of a criminal career, and that processes of both partner selection and partner influence deserve close attention by marriage-crime researchers. Qualifications of the study??s findings include the use of conviction data from official sources, the use of a sample of men and women who were all convicted of a crime at some point in their lives, the study of legal marriage in the Netherlands, and the inability to measure potential mechanisms for the observed marriage effects.     

Rational Misbehavior? Evaluating an Integrated Dual-Process Model of Criminal Decision Making

Objectives

Test the hypothesis that dispositional self-control and morality relate to criminal decision making via different mental processing modes, a ‘hot’ affective mode and a ‘cool’ cognitive one.

Methods

Structural equation modeling in two studies under separate samples of undergraduate students using scenarios describing two different types of crime, illegal downloading and insurance fraud. Both self-control and morality are operationalized through the HEXACO model of personality (Lee and Ashton in Multivariate Behav Res 39(2):329–358, 2004).

Results

In Study 1, negative state affect, i.e., feelings of fear and worry evoked by a criminal prospect, and perceived risk of sanction were found to mediate the relations between both dispositions and criminal choice. In Study 2, processing mode was manipulated by having participants rely on either their thinking or on their feelings prior to deciding on whether or not to make a criminal choice. Activating a cognitive mode strengthened the relation between perceived risk and criminal choice, whereas activating an affective mode strengthened the relation between negative affect and criminal choice.

Conclusion

In conjunction, these results extend research that links stable individual dispositions to proximal states that operate in the moment of decision making. The results also add to dispositional perspectives of crime by using a structure of personality that incorporates both self-control and morality. Contributions to the proximal, state, perspectives reside in the use of a new hot/cool perspective of criminal decision making that extends rational choice frameworks.