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.     

ADHD and criminality: A primer on the genetic, neurobiological, evolutionary, and treatment literature for criminologists

Objective

This state of the art review of 102 studies is a primer on ADHD and its major comorbidities for criminologists unfamiliar with the genetic, neurobiological, and evolutionary literatures.

Materials and methods

Neurological, genetic, medical, and criminal justice data bases were keyword searched for articles on ADHD and/or articles using ADHD as a major independent variable.

Results

ADHD is a disorder that is closely connected to externalizing behaviors, conduct problems, and criminal behavior across the life course.

Conclusions

To date, ADHD research has been carried out primarily by biomedical researchers and de-emphasized by criminologists whose training is overwhelmingly in the social sciences. The special expertise of criminologists in uncovering environmental correlates of antisocial behavior can benefit biomedical researchers who in turn can assist criminologists in uncovering the individual-level correlates of antisocial behavior.     

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.     

Does victimization reduce self-control? A longitudinal analysis

Purpose

To examine the effect of victimization on self-control.

Method

Five waves of data from the GREAT survey are analyzed; the effect of prior victimization on subsequent self-control is estimated using the dynamic panel generalized-method of moments.

Results

Victimization reduces subsequent self-control in the near term.

Conclusions

The findings point to another source of low self-control, help to explain why prior victimization is linked to subsequent victimization, and provide support for general strain theory - which predicts that strains such as victimization will reduce self-control.     

No change is a good change? Restrictive deterrence in illegal drug markets

Purpose

This study applies the concept of restrictive deterrence to a sample of drug market offenders. In particular, we assess the influence of behavioral changes post-arrest on time to rearrest.

Methods

The sample consists of arrest data on all drug offences in South Australia from the start of 2000 to the end of 2007 (n = 26819). Cox proportional hazard models are used to conduct survival analyses. Supplementary models focus on those repeatedly arrested for cannabis cultivation to assess the influence of adjusting amounts of drugs on time to rearrest.

Results

Changing behaviors is related to more rapid rearrest. Switching offense location, drug seriousness, and charge seriousness are all risk factors. However, among offenders repeatedly arrested for cannabis cultivation, changing location and increasing the number of plants they grow is related to a longer period before rearrest.

Conclusions

Offenders that change their drug market behavior after being arrested appear to be placing themselves in situations in which they are more likely to fail due to the dangers of breaking into an unfamiliar market or offense pattern. Offenders with the longest post-arrest survival seem to be those that maintain their overall pattern of behavior while implementing subtle arrest avoidance techniques.     

Personality, antisocial behavior, and aggression: A meta-analytic review

Purpose

Although the relationship between personality and antisocial behaviors has been widely examined and empirically supported in the psychological literature, relatively few efforts to study this relationship have appeared in mainstream criminology.

Materials and methods

The current study focuses on the domains and facets from the Five-Factor Model of personality, and how they are related to antisocial and aggressive behaviors.

Results

The meta-analytic findings indicate that the higher-order traits of Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Neuroticism demonstrate the most consistent relationships with these outcomes. At the lower-order trait level, straightforwardness, compliance, and altruism from Agreeableness, deliberation from Conscientiousness, angry hostility from Neuroticism, and warmth from Extraversion were among the strongest correlates.

Conclusion

The findings are consistent with previous meta-analytic studies, thus providing compelling support for their utility in understanding antisocial and aggressive behavior. As such, they should be afforded greater theoretical and empirical attention within criminology.     

The Severe 5%: A Latent Class Analysis of the Externalizing Behavior Spectrum in the United States

Objective

Criminological research consistently demonstrates that approximately 5% of study populations are comprised of pathological offenders who account for a preponderance of antisocial behavior and violent crime. Unfortunately, there have been no nationally representative epidemiological studies characterizing the severe 5% group.

Materials and Methods

Data from the 2001-2002 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC), a nationally representative sample of 43,093 non-institutionalized U.S. residents aged 18 years and older were analyzed using latent class analysis to assess sociodemographic, psychiatric, and behavioral characteristics.

Results

Four-classes of respondents were identified vis-à-vis lifetime externalizing behaviors. A normative class (66.1% of respondents) demonstrated little involvement in antisocial conduct. A low substance use/high antisocial behavior class (20.7% of respondents) and high substance use/moderate antisocial behavior (8.0% of respondents) class evinced diverse externalizing and psychiatric symptoms. Finally, a severe class (5.3% of respondents) was characterized by pathological involvement in more varied and intensive forms of antisocial and externalizing behaviors and extensive psychiatric disturbance.

Conclusions

The current study is the first nationally representative epidemiological study of criminal careers/externalizing behavior spectrum in the United States and validates the existence of the 5% pathological group demonstrated by prior research.     

Correlates and consequences of pre-incarceration gang involvement among incarcerated youthful felons

Objective

The primary aim of the study is to document the prevalence and variation in types of pre-incarceration gang membership among a sample of incarcerated felons. The second goal is to consider if and how pre-incarceration gang involvement affects institutional behavior.

Materials and Methods

This study builds on the existing literature by considering if and how different types of pre-incarceration gang involvement effect prison misconduct. This relationship is examined while controlling for attitudinal measures and pre-prison social characteristics that may condition entrance into gangs and involvement in serious prison misconduct. The study includes a sample of 504 youthful adults incarcerated in a large Midwestern state in 1996.

Results

The results highlight that there is a high degree of variation in pre-incarceration gang involvement. Moreover, involvement in different types of gangs also is a significant predictor of prison misconduct. Individuals involved in organized/criminal gangs at the point of incarceration experienced significantly more serious misconduct reports than their non-gang counterparts, but similar findings were not evident for those involved in unorganized gangs.

Conclusions

Even among a relatively serious population of youthful adult offenders, pre-incarceration gang involvement is uncommon. Pre-incarceration involvement in organized gangs represents a significant risk factor for prison misconduct.     

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.     

The genetic origins of psychopathic personality traits in adult males and females: Results from an adoption-based study

Purpose

Research has consistently revealed that measures of psychopathy and psychopathic personality traits represent some of the most consistent predictors of violent criminal involvement. As a result, there has been a considerable amount of interest in trying to identify the various etiological factors related to psychopathy. The current study builds on this existing body of literature by examining the genetic foundations to psychopathic personality traits.

Methods

An adoption-based research design is used to estimate genetic effects on psychopathic personality traits. Adoptees are drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.

Results

Analyses revealed that having a biological criminal father was related to psychopathic personality traits for male adoptees, but not for female adoptees. For males, having a criminal biological father increased the odds of scoring in the extreme of the psychopathic personality trait scale by a factor ranging between 4.3 and 8.5. However, there was no association between having a biological criminal mother and psychopathic personality traits for adoptees.

Conclusions

Psychopathic personality traits are transmitted from father-to-offspring due to genetic reasons.     

The effect of perceived risk and victimization on plans to purchase a gun for self-protection

Purposes

To determine if perceived risk of criminal victimization, and past criminal victimization experiences, increases the likelihood of a person owning a gun for self-protection, and to determine if defects in past research concerning the way gun ownership was measured had obscured such effects.

Methods

We analyzed data on over 2,500 U.S. adults, using different ways of measuring gun ownership, and also analyzed future plans (among persons who did not own a gun at the time of the survey) to acquire a gun for self-protection. The latter procedure avoids the causal order problem attributable to the possibility that acquiring a gun might affect victimization risks and perceived risks, as well as the reverse.

Results

The estimated effect of perceived risk and prior victimization changed from being nonsignificant when household gun ownership was the dependent variable (as in most prior research) to being increasingly strong, and statistically significant, when gun ownership of the individual respondent for defensive reasons was measured. Further, once the causal order issue was side-stepped, risk and victimization showed even stronger, significant positive effects on planning to get a gun.

Conclusions

Crime affects gun ownership, in addition to any effects that gun ownership may have on crime.     

Compstat in Australia: An analysis of the spatial and temporal impact

One of the major trends in policing sweeping across democratic societies since the mid-1990s is a management approach commonly known as COMPSTAT. Despite widespread global adoption, empirical evaluation of the impact of COMPSTAT lags behind popular accounts of its crime control benefits.

Purpose

This article evaluates the crime control impact of Queensland Police Service's version of COMPSTAT known as “Operational Performance Reviews” (OPRs).

Method

A mixed model analytic approach was used to assess the role of OPRs in explaining spatial and temporal variations in crime patterns across Queensland's 29 police districts.

Results

Analysis of the impact of OPRs on reported crime (specifically assaults, robberies and unlawful entries) suggests major differences between police districts, and that some districts are driving overall statewide crime reductions, whilst others confound positive effects of implementation of OPRs in Queensland.

Conclusions

The results demonstrate that the crime drop experienced throughout Queensland found in prior research (Mazerolle et al., 2007) is most likely attributable to a small number of police districts. The implication of these findings is that a number of districts could (and should) be called-upon during maturation of Queensland's OPRs to reduce specific crime problems in their districts and facilitate ongoing crime reductions across the state.     

A comparative analysis of general strain theory

Purpose

Since its introduction in 1992, general strain theory (GST) has garnered much empirical support. The large share of this support, however, derives from studies conducted in the United States. There is little comparative research on GST, particularly research that examines the effect of the same or similar strains on crime across countries. Thus, we know little about the generalizability of GST. This study attempts to fill this gap by testing GST in five different cities across Europe: Bucharest in Romania, Sofia in Bulgaria, Riga in Latvia, Kaunas in Lithuania and Reykjavik in Iceland.

Methods

We examine the relationship between five strain measures and violent- and property crime among samples of adolescents in each city using regression techniques.

Results

The data are generally supportive of GST, with most of the strains having significant associations with property and violent crime in all or most of the cities.

Conclusion

GST is generalizable to a range of European cities. Implications and examples for future comparative research on GST are discussed.     

Problematic alcohol consumption by police officers and other protective service employees: A comparative analysis

Purpose

To examine differences between members of protective service occupations (PSOs) and other occupational groups on indicators of alcohol use/abuse and mental health.

Methods

A subset of 25,622 observations from the 2009 National Survey of Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) are used to evaluate whether PSO members exhibit a higher likelihood of problematic drinking behaviors and if so, whether these behaviors are mediated by mental health problems.

Results

Logistic regression models indicated that PSO members do not consume alcohol more frequently nor do they exhibit higher likelihood of alcohol abuse/dependency when compared to members of other occupational groups. However, PSO members report higher occurrence of binge drinking. The relationship between PSOs and binge drinking behaviors is mediated by gender, not mental health problems.

Conclusion

The results provide direction for the development of evidence-based alcohol related intervention programs that address the specific needs of police officers and other public servants.     

Characteristics of abstainers from substance use and antisocial behavior in the United States

Purpose

Whether lifetime abstainer's antisocial behavior is maladjusted or well-adjusted is unresolved. The aim of this study was to compare abstainers (defined as persons with no lifetime use of alcohol and other drugs and non-engagement in antisocial or delinquent behavior) with non-abstainers across a range of sociodemographic and mental health characteristics in the United States.

Methods

Data were derived from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions, a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults. Structured psychiatric interviews (N = 43,093) using the Alcohol Use Disorder and Associated Disabilities Interview Schedule — DSM-IV version (AUDADIS-IV) were completed by trained lay interviewers between 2001 and 2002.

Results

The prevalence of abstaining was 11 percent. Abstainers were significantly more likely to be female, Asian and African-American, born outside the U.S., and less likely to be unemployed. Multivariate logistic regression analyses revealed that abstainers were significantly less likely to evidence lifetime mood, anxiety, or personality disorder compared to non-abstainers.

Conclusions

Findings indicate that abstainers are not maladapted and are comparatively more functional than non-abstainers.     

Assessing the effectiveness of mental health courts: A quantitative review

Purpose

The purpose of this review is to quantitatively review the accumulating MHC studies that have been conducted of both peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed studies. The primary objective of the current study is to provide a clearer picture as to whether MHCs are an empirically efficacious intervention for a significant health and criminological problem.

Methods

This study used meta-analytic techniques to assess the effectiveness of MHCs. A systematic search of the literature and electronic databases through July 2009, as well as an e-mail survey of mental health court program directors, generated 18 studies.

Results

Aggregate effects for recidivism outcomes revealed a mean effect size of -0.54 and -0.55 among quasi-experimental studies analyzed separately. There was a positive improvement among a limited number of clinical outcomes.

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that MHCs are an effective intervention but this assertion is not definitive. Methodologically, many of the studies are not as strong as would be ideal thus limiting our conclusions.     

First-time DWI offenders are at risk of recidivating regardless of sanctions imposed

Objective

Research demonstrates that punitive approaches to DWI employed by the judiciary have failed to significantly reduce recidivism. However, little is known about the deterrent effects of administrative and diversion sanctions. We examine whether such sanctions deter first-time DWI offenders.

Methods

We grouped combinations of administrative, judicial, and diversion sanctions routinely employed in the state of Maryland for processing drivers arrested for DWI into one of eight mutually exclusive disposition sequences. We applied this classification to Maryland drivers who had been licensed in the state and had precisely one DWI on their record prior to January 1, 1999. We then used a proportional hazards model to estimate the probability of remaining free of a new DWI during a 6-year period (January 1, 1999 - December 31, 2004) as a function of the disposition of the index violation, and of selected factors that could affect that probability.

Results

Drivers with a prior DWI were at relatively high risk of recidivating regardless of how they were sanctioned. Those who received administrative and alternative sanctions had a risk of recidivating similar to that of drivers who were convicted.

Conclusion

All dispositions sequences, not just convictions, indicate that first-time DWI offenders are at high risk of recidivating.     

Social disorganization, Latinos and juvenile crime in the Texas borderlands

Purpose

Using a time-series cross-sectional design, we estimated the effects of social disorganization on juvenile property crime rates in a predominately Latino, Texas-Mexico border region.

Methods

Eighteen years of data from seven independent sources (Bureau of Economic Analysis, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Census Bureau, Texas State Demographer, Internal Revenue Service, Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service, and Uniform Crime Reports) were examined. Counties were utilized as the unit of analysis, and time-series cross-sectional regression models were estimated.

Results

The analysis showed that per capita income was negatively related to juvenile crime in both rural and urban counties. Ethnic heterogeneity was positively related to the outcome in rural, but not urban, counties; while percent foreign-born was negatively related to juvenile crime in urban, but not rural, counties.

Conclusions

The Latino experience, both native- and foreign-born, is important for improving our understanding how economic and social conditions relate to crime. Comparative analyses between distinct geographical environments, such as rural and urban counties, can yield insight how the local context interacts with social disorganization processes.     

Research Note: Assessing the validity of college samples: Are students really that different?

Objective

The purpose of this research note is to explore the validity of college student samples for criminology and criminal justice research. Some scholars have suggested that college populations are comprised of individuals who are different from the rest of society and that the use of college students for social research may distort our theoretical understanding of crime and criminality.

Method

The National Youth Survey is used to assess, college students’ self-reported behaviors, frequency of behaviors, and attitudes in relation to the general population.

Results

The results indicate that there is almost no statistically significant difference in behaviors and only minor differences in the frequency of behaviors and attitudes.

Conclusion

The findings from this investigation suggest that while college students may be culturally unique, this uniqueness does not seem to affect validity.     

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.