The continued importance of measuring potentially harmful impacts of crime prevention programs: the academy of experimental criminology 2014 Joan McCord lecture

Objective

Joan McCord was a very influential criminologist and strong advocate for measuring potentially harmful effects in well-meaning crime prevention programs. This paper demonstrates the continued importance of measuring adverse program effects by reviewing the available research evidence on classic and contemporary gang streetworker programs.

Methods

This paper draws upon the evaluation findings of existing gang streetworker evaluations and presents the unpublished results of a rigorous quasi-experimental evaluation of a contemporary gang streetworker program that directly measured whether the intervention impacted the violent gun behaviors of treated gangs relative to untreated gangs.

Results

Evaluations of classic pre-1970s gang streetworker programs generally found that these interventions increased gang delinquency by reinforcing group identity and enhancing gang cohesion. Evaluations of contemporary gang streetworker programs are mixed, with several studies documenting concerning increases in gang violence. An unpublished evaluation found that the streetworker program was well-implemented and executed. However, the intervention was associated with increased shootings by and against treatment gangs relative to control gangs.

Conclusion

These findings suggest that contemporary gang streetworker programs are at high risk of generating unintended adverse outcomes for treated gang members relative to their untreated counterparts. Existing and planned programs should be monitored with a high degree of vigilance and evaluated with controlled evaluation designs.

     

Can “disciplined passion” overcome the cynical view? An empirical inquiry of evaluator influence on police crime prevention program outcomes

Objectives

Investigate the degree and nature of influence that researchers have in police crime prevention programs and whether a high degree of influence is associated with biased reporting of results.

Methods

Meta-analytic inquiry of experimental and quasi-experimental studies (n?=?42), drawn from four Campbell Collaboration systematic reviews of leading police crime prevention strategies: problem-oriented policing, ??hot spots?? policing, ??pulling levers?? policing, and street-level drug enforcement.

Results

Larger program effects are not associated with studies with higher involvement on the part of the evaluator (e.g., assisting in strategy design, monitoring implementation, overcoming implementation problems).

Conclusions

This study does not find support for the cynical view, which holds that researchers have a personal stake in the program or are pressured to report positive results. Importantly, the evaluator??s involvement in the implementation of the program may be a necessary condition of successfully executed police experiments in complex field settings.     

The Andrews’ principles of risk, needs, and responsivity as applied in drug treatment programs: meta-analysis of crime and drug use outcomes

Objectives

The purpose of the present meta-analysis was to answer the question: Can the Andrews principles of risk, needs, and responsivity, originally developed for programs that treat offenders, be extended to programs that treat drug abusers?

Methods

Drawing from a dataset that included 243 independent comparisons, we conducted random-effects meta-regression and ANOVA-analog meta-analyses to test the Andrews principles by averaging crime and drug use outcomes over a diverse set of programs for drug abuse problems.

Results

For crime outcomes, in the meta-regressions, the point estimates for each of the principles were substantial, consistent with previous studies of the Andrews principles. There was also a substantial point estimate for programs exhibiting a greater number of the principles. However, almost all the 95 % confidence intervals included the zero point. For drug use outcomes, in the meta-regressions, the point estimates for each of the principles was approximately zero; however, the point estimate for programs exhibiting a greater number of the principles was somewhat positive. All the estimates for the drug use principles had confidence intervals that included the zero point.

Conclusions

This study supports previous findings from primary research studies targeting the Andrews principles that those principles are effective in reducing crime outcomes, here in meta-analytic research focused on drug treatment programs. By contrast, programs that follow the principles appear to have very little effect on drug use outcomes. Primary research studies that experimentally test the Andrews principles in drug treatment programs are recommended.     

Long-term evaluation of a bimodal universal prevention program: effects on antisocial development from kindergarten to adolescence

Objectives

Only a handful of studies on developmental crime prevention contain very long-term evaluations and all these addressed high-risk groups in English-speaking countries. In contrast, this article investigates long-term outcomes of a bimodal universal prevention program within the Erlangen-Nuremberg Development and Prevention Study (ENDPS) in Germany.

Methods

The ENDPS is a combined prospective longitudinal and experimental project that originally consisted of 675 kindergarten children from 609 families who were nearly representative for the local area. In the prevention part of the project, a group-wise randomization and matched pairs design was used to evaluate a training of children’s social problem solving skills, a parent training on positive parenting behavior, and a combination of both programs. Originally, 239 children were each in the program group and control group. Outcomes were measured after ca. 3 months, and 2, 5, and 10 years. The outcome measures varied over time and contained, inter alia, reports on child behavior in the Social Behavior Questionnaire (SBQ) from kindergarten teachers, school teachers, mothers, and the youngsters themselves. The overall retention rates in the ENDPS were satisfactory (e.g., 90 % after 10 years), but missing data from various informants further reduced the groups over time. The outcome evaluation was mainly carried out by causal regression models.

Results

There were various desirable effects of the program not only in the short and medium term but also after 5 and 10 years, i.e. on externalizing behavior, property offences, and total behavioral problems. The significant effects were mostly small (d?=?.23–.59) and significances became rare over time. As a trend, the combined parent and child training and the child training alone were more effective; however, this was not consistent across all follow-ups. The outcomes did not only vary with regard to time but also between different measures and informants. The youth self-reports and teacher reports were more suitable to detect effects than the mothers’ reports. Children at higher risk seemed to benefit most from the intervention; however, this was also not fully consistent across measures and times.

Conclusions

The various desirable effects of a relatively short and inexpensive universal program are in accordance with a public health approach in developmental crime prevention. However, it should not be seen as an alternative to selective and indicated approaches, but as a ‘foot in the door’ for high-risk children and families that need more intensive and costly programs. The variations in results across time, outcome measures, informants, and program components confirm the heterogeneity of meta-analytic findings in the field. Therefore, one must be aware of ‘fishing for significances’ and research on ‘what works’ should go beyond the content of programs. More studies should investigate how characteristics of program delivery, contexts, participants, and evaluation methods contribute to effectiveness.     

Long-term follow-up of a preschool experiment

Objectives

This study was designed to provide experimental evidence of the effects of a preschool program on young children living in poverty. It began as a program evaluation but now, half a century later, serves as a test of the long-term effects and return on investment of high-quality preschool education for young children living in poverty.

Methods

This study was conducted in the U.S., beginning in the 1960s, and has generated data on study participants from birth through 40, with new data now being collected at age 50. The study used random assignment procedures to assign 123 children to a preschool program and a control group who receive no preschool program.

Results

Program participants surpassed non-participants in intellectual performance at school entry, school achievement throughout schooling, commitment to schooling, high school graduation rate, adult employment rate and earnings, reduced childhood antisocial behavior, and reduced adult crime and incarceration. The program's return on investment was at least seven times as great as its operating cost.

Conclusions

While these powerful results have been found not only in this study but in several similar studies, they have not been found in studies of larger preschool programs, such as the Head Start Impact Study. This discrepancy suggests that differences between the two types of programs account for the better results found in studies such as this one. Among these differences are highly qualified teachers, a valid child development curriculum, extensive engagement of parents, and regular assessment of program implementation and children's development     

Analyzing the Influence of Micro-Level Factors on CCTV Camera Effect

Objectives

Despite the popularity of closed circuit television (CCTV), evidence of its crime prevention capabilities is inconclusive. Research has largely reported CCTV effect as “mixed” without explaining this variance. The current study contributes to the literature by testing the influence of several micro-level factors on changes in crime levels within CCTV areas of Newark, NJ.

Methods

Viewsheds, denoting the line-of-sight of CCTV cameras, were units of analysis (N = 117). Location quotients, controlling for viewshed size and control-area crime incidence, measured changes in the levels of six crime categories, from the pre-installation period to the post-installation period. Ordinary least squares regression models tested the influence of specific micro-level factors—environmental features, camera line-of-sight, enforcement activity, and camera design—on each crime category.

Results

First, the influence of environmental features differed across crime categories, with specific environs being related to the reduction of certain crimes and the increase of others. Second, CCTV-generated enforcement was related to the reduction of overall crime, violent crime and theft-from-auto. Third, obstructions to CCTV line-of-sight caused by immovable objects were related to increased levels of auto theft and decreased levels of violent crime, theft from auto and robbery.

Conclusions

The findings suggest that CCTV operations should be designed in a manner that heightens their deterrent effect. Specifically, police should account for the presence of crime generators/attractors and ground-level obstructions when selecting camera sites, and design the operational strategy in a manner that generates maximum levels of enforcement.     

Risky Facilities: Crime Radiators or Crime Absorbers? A Comparison of Internal and External Levels of Theft

Objectives

To undertake the first exploration of the nature of the relationship between internal crime (those that happen within facilities) and external crime (those occurring outside but in the nearby locale of facilities). The following questions are addressed. Do those localities that suffer high volumes of crime internally within their facilities also suffer high levels of crime in their immediate external environment? How is this influenced by the distribution of internal theft across facilities? What are the likely mechanisms for any relationship found?

Methods

Spatial regression is used to explore these relationships using data for 30,144 incidents of theft from a Metropolitan area of the UK arranged into small 50 × 50 m grid squares. Variables used in the analysis include counts of external and internal theft, counts of victimized and ‘risky’ facilities, indicators of land-use and a proxy for the on-street population.

Results

There is found to be a strong positive relationship between internal and external theft that appears to be strengthened by the existence of facilities suffering particularly high crime volumes. Results suggest that internal theft problems precede external ones and that the physical concentration of chronically risky facilities is a particularly strong predictor of external theft problems.

Conclusions

An argument is made that risky facilities act as crime ‘radiators’, causing crime in the immediate environment as well as internally. This has implications for crime prevention policy in terms of facility placement and management.     

Prisons and Crime, Backwards in High Heels

Objectives

Prisons reduce crime rates, but crime increases prison populations. OLS estimates of the effects of prisons on crime combine the two effects and are biased toward zero. The standard solution—to identify the crime equation by finding instruments for prison—is suspect, because most variables that predict prison populations can be expected to affect crime, as well. An alternative is to identify the prison equation by finding instruments for crime, allowing an unbiased estimate of the effect of crime on prisons. Because the two coefficients in a simultaneous system are related through simple algebra, we can then work backward to obtain an unbiased estimate of the effect of prisons on crime.

Methods

Potential instruments for crime are tested and used to identify the prison equation for the 50 U.S. states for the period 1978–2009. The effect of prisons on crime consistent with this relationship is obtained through algebra; standard errors are obtained through Monte Carlo simulation.

Results

Resulting estimates of the effect of prisons on crime are around ?0.25 ± 0.15. This is larger than biased OLS estimates, but similar in size to previous estimates based on standard instruments.

Conclusions

When estimating the effect of a public policy response on a public problem, it may be more productive to find instruments for the problem and work backward than to find instruments for the response and work forward.     

Procedural justice and police legitimacy: a systematic review of the research evidence

Objectives

We undertook a systematic review and meta-analysis to synthesize the published and unpublished empirical evidence on the impact of police-led interventions that use procedurally just dialogue focused on improving citizen perceptions of police legitimacy.

Methods

The systematic search included any public police intervention where there was a statement that the intervention involved police dialogue with citizens that either was aimed explicitly at improving police legitimacy, or used at least one core ingredient of procedural justice dialogue: police encouraging citizen participation, remaining neutral in their decision making, conveying trustworthy motives, or demonstrating dignity and respect throughout interactions. The studies included in our meta-analyses also had to include at least one direct outcome that measured legitimacy or procedural justice, or one outcome that is common in the legitimacy extant literature: citizen compliance, cooperation, confidence or satisfaction with police. We conducted separate meta-analyses, using random effects models, for each outcome.

Results

For every single one of our outcome measures, the effect of legitimacy policing was in a positive direction, and, for all but the legitimacy outcome, statistically significant. Notwithstanding the variability in the mode in which legitimacy policing is delivered (i.e., the study intervention) and the complexities around measurement of legitimacy outcomes, our review shows that the dialogue component of front-line police-led interventions is an important vehicle for promoting citizen satisfaction, confidence, compliance and cooperation with the police, and for enhancing perceptions of procedural justice.

Conclusions

In practical terms, our research shows the benefits of police using dialogue that adopts at least one of the principles of procedural justice as a component part of any type of police intervention, whether as part of routine police activity or as part of a defined police crime control program. Our review provides evidence that legitimacy policing is an important precursor for improving the capacity of policing to prevent and control crime.     

Using Space–Time Analysis to Evaluate Criminal Justice Programs: An Application to Stop-Question-Frisk Practices

Objectives

Effects of place-based criminal justice interventions extend across both space and time, yet methodological approaches for evaluating these programs often do not accommodate the spatiotemporal dimension of the data. This paper presents an example of a bivariate spatiotemporal Ripley’s K-function, which is increasingly employed in the field of epidemiology to analyze spatiotemporal event data. Advantages of this technique over the adapted Knox test are discussed.

Methods

The study relies on x–y coordinates of the exact locations of stop-question-frisk (SQF) and crime incident events in New York City to assess the deterrent effect of SQFs on crime across space at a daily level.

Results

The findings suggest that SQFs produce a modest reduction in crime, which extends over a three-day period. Diffusion of benefits is observed within 300 feet from the location of the SQF, but these effects decay as distance from the SQF increases.

Conclusions

A bivariate spatiotemporal Ripley’s K-function is a promising approach to evaluating place-based crime prevention interventions, and may serve as a useful tool to guide program development and implementation in criminology.

     

Information retrieval in systematic reviews: a case study of the crime prevention literature

Objectives

A defining feature of a systematic review is the data collection; the assembling of a meticulous, unbiased, and reproducible set of primary studies. This requires specialist skills to execute. The aim of this paper is to marshal tacit knowledge, gained through a systematic search of the crime prevention literature, to develop a ‘how-to guide’ for future evidence synthesists in allied fields.

Methods

Empirical results from a recent systematic search for evidence in crime prevention are supplied to illustrate key principles of information retrieval.

Results

Difficulties in operationalizing a systematic search are expounded and possible solutions discussed. Empirical results from optimizing the balance between sensitivity and precision with the criminological literature are presented. An estimation of database overlap for crime prevention studies is provided to guide other evidence synthesists in streamlining the search process.

Conclusions

A high-quality search will involve a substantial time investment in honing the research question, specifying the precise scope of the work, and trialing and testing of search tactics. Electronic databases are a lucrative source of eligible studies, but they have important limitations. The diversity of expression across the criminological literature needs to be captured by the use of many search terms—both natural language and controlled vocabulary—in database searches. Complementary search tactics should be employed to locate eligible studies without common vocabulary. Grey literature should be ardently pursued, for it has a central role in the crime prevention evidence base.

     

The power of policing partnerships: sustaining the gains

Objectives

Third Party Policing (TPP) involves partnerships between police and third parties where the legal powers of third parties are harnessed to prevent or control crime problems. This paper explores the characteristics and mechanisms of TPP as a crime control strategy, focusing on how the partnership approach in policing can help sustain crime control gains over the long run. Using the ABILITY Truancy Trial as an example, I examine how policing can contribute to long-term social change for high-risk young people living in poor-performing school districts and high-risk communities.

Methods

The ABILITY Trial includes 102 young truants randomly allocated to a control (business-as-usual) or an experimental condition. The experimental condition activates the key theoretical components of Third Party Policing (TPP): a partnership between police and participating schools that activates and escalates (where needed) jurisdictional truanting laws (the legal lever).

Results

The paper presents a theoretical discussion of TPP and uses the ABILITY Trial to highlight the way TPP works in practice. Baseline data are presented for the ABILITY Trial. Outcome results are not presented.

Conclusions

Third Party Policing partnerships rest on the capacity of police to build relationships with third parties who have a stake in the crime problem, who possess responsive regulation legal levers, and who have a clear mandate to offer long-term solutions and help sustain the crime control gains. Partnerships, I argue, offer long-term solutions for police because they activate latent mechanisms, building the capacity for third parties to both maintain short-term gains and sustain the crime control gains beyond the lifespan of the initial police intervention.     

The Age Structure-Crime Rate Relationship: Solving a Long-Standing Puzzle

Objectives

Develop the concept of differential institutional engagement and test its ability to explain discrepant findings regarding the relationship between the age structure and homicide rates across ecological studies of crime. We hypothesize that differential degrees of institutional engagement—youths with ties to mainstream social institutions such as school, work or the military on one end of the spectrum and youths without such bonds on the other end—account for the direction of the relationship between homicide rates and age structure (high crime prone ages, such as 15–29).

Methods

Cross sectional, Ordinary Least Squares regression analyses using robust standard errors are conducted using large samples of cities characterized by varying degrees of youths’ differential institutional engagement for the years 1980, 1990 and 2000. The concept is operationalized with the percent of the population enrolled in college and the percent of 16–19 year olds who are simultaneously not enrolled in school, not in the labor market (not in the labor force or unemployed), and not in the military.

Results

Consistent and invariant results emerged. Positive effects of age structure on homicide rates are found in cities that have high percentages of disengaged youth and negative effects are found among cities characterized with high percentages of youth participating in mainstream social institutions.

Conclusions

This conceptualization of differential institutional engagement explains the discrepant findings in prior studies, and the findings demonstrate the influence of these contextual effects and the nature of the age structure-crime relationship.     

The Effects of Immigrant Concentration on Changes in Neighborhood Crime Rates

Objectives

This study investigated the extent to which immigrant concentration is associated with reductions in neighborhood crime rates in the City of Los Angeles.

Methods

A potential outcomes model using two-stage least squares regression was estimated, where immigrant concentration levels in 1990 were used as an instrumental variable to predict immigrant concentration levels in 2000. The instrumental variables design was used to reduce selection bias in estimating the effect of immigrant concentration on changes in official crime rates between 2000 and 2005 for census tracts in the City of Los Angeles, holding constant other demographic variables and area-level fixed effects. Non-parametric smoothers were also employed in a two-stage least squares regression model to control for the potential influence of heterogeneity in immigrant concentration on changes in crime rates.

Results

The results indicate that greater predicted concentrations of immigrants in neighborhoods are linked to significant reductions in crime. The results are robust to a number of different model specifications.

Conclusions

The findings challenge traditional ecological perspectives that link immigrant settlement to higher rates of crime. Immigration settlement patterns appear to be associated with reducing the social burden of crime. Study conclusions are limited by the potential for omitted variables that may bias the observed relationship between immigrant concentration and neighborhood crime rates, and the use of only official crime data which may under report crimes committed against immigrants. Understanding whether immigrant concentration is an important dynamic of changing neighborhood patterns of crime outside Los Angeles will require replication with data from other U.S. cities.     

A randomized test of initial and residual deterrence from directed patrols and use of license plate readers at crime hot spots

Objectives

To test the effects of short-term police patrol operations using license plate readers (LPRs) on crime and disorder at crime hot spots in Mesa, Arizona.

Methods

The study employed a randomized experimental design. For 15 successive 2-week periods, a four-officer squad conducted short daily operations to detect stolen and other vehicles of interest at randomly selected hot spot road segments at varying times of day. Based on random assignment, the unit operated with LPRs on some routes and conducted extensive manual checks of license plates on others. Using random effects panel models, we examined the impact of these operations on violent, property, drug, disorder, and auto theft offenses as measured by calls for service.

Results

Compared to control conditions with standard patrol strategies, the LPR locations had reductions in calls for drug offenses that lasted for at least several weeks beyond the intervention, while the non-LPR, manual check locations exhibited briefer reductions in calls regarding person offenses and auto theft. There were also indications of crime displacement associated with some offenses, particularly drug offenses.

Conclusions

The findings suggest that use of LPRs can reduce certain types of offenses at hot spots and that rotation of short-term LPR operations across hot spots may be an effective way for police agencies to employ small numbers of LPR devices. More generally, the results also provide some support for Sherman’s (1990) crackdown theory, which suggests that police can improve their effectiveness in preventing crime through frequent rotation of short-term crackdowns across targets, as it applies to hot spot policing.     

Long-term effects of the Moving to Opportunity residential mobility experiment on crime and delinquency

Objectives

Using data from a randomized experiment, to examine whether moving youth out of areas of concentrated poverty, where a disproportionate amount of crime occurs, prevents involvement in crime.

Methods

We draw on new administrative data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Moving to Opportunity (MTO) experiment. MTO families were randomized into an experimental group offered a housing voucher that could only be used to move to a low-poverty neighborhood, a Section 8 housing group offered a standard housing voucher, and a control group. This paper focuses on MTO youth ages 15–25 in 2001 (n = 4,643) and analyzes intention to treat effects on neighborhood characteristics and criminal behavior (number of violent- and property-crime arrests) through 10 years after randomization.

Results

We find the offer of a housing voucher generates large improvements in neighborhood conditions that attenuate over time and initially generates substantial reductions in violent-crime arrests and sizable increases in property-crime arrests for experimental group males. The crime effects attenuate over time along with differences in neighborhood conditions.

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that criminal behavior is more strongly related to current neighborhood conditions (situational neighborhood effects) than to past neighborhood conditions (developmental neighborhood effects). The MTO design makes it difficult to determine which specific neighborhood characteristics are most important for criminal behavior. Our administrative data analyses could be affected by differences across areas in the likelihood that a crime results in an arrest.     

Race, Space, and Violence: Exploring Spatial Dependence in Structural Covariates of White and Black Violent Crime in US Counties

Objectives

To join the literature on spatial analysis with research testing the racial invariance hypothesis by examining the extent to which claims of racial invariance are sensitive to the spatial dynamics of community structure and crime.

Methods

Using 1999?C2001 county-level arrest data, we employ seemingly unrelated regression models, spatial lag models, and geographically weighted regression analyses to (1) compare the extent of racial similarity/difference across these different modeling procedures, (2) evaluate the impact of spatial dependence on violent crime across racial groups, and (3) explore spatial heterogeneity in associations between macro-structural characteristics and violent crime.

Results

Results indicate that spatial processes matter, that they are more strongly associated with white than black violent crime, and that accounting for space does not significantly attenuate race-group differences in the relationship between structural characteristics (e.g., structural disadvantage) and violent crime. Additionally, we find evidence of significant variation across space in the relationships between county characteristics and white and black violent crime, suggesting that conclusions of racial invariance/variation are sensitive to where one is looking. These results are robust to different specifications of the dependent variable as well as different units of analysis.

Conclusions

Our study suggests the racial invariance debate is not yet settled. More importantly, our study has revealed an additional level of complexity??race specific patterns of spatially heterogeneous effects??that future research on social structure and racial differences in violence should incorporate both empirically and theoretically.     

Bayesian Spatio-Temporal Modeling for Analysing Local Patterns of Crime Over Time at the Small-Area Level

Objectives

Explore Bayesian spatio-temporal methods to analyse local patterns of crime change over time at the small-area level through an application to property crime data in the Regional Municipality of York, Ontario, Canada.

Methods

This research represents the first application of Bayesian spatio-temporal modeling to crime trend analysis at a large map scale. The Bayesian model, fitted by Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation using WinBUGS, stabilized risk estimates in small (census dissemination) areas and controlled for spatial autocorrelation (through spatial random effects modeling), deprivation, and scarce data. It estimated (1) (linear) mean trend; (2) area-specific differential trends; and (3) (posterior) probabilities of area-specific differential trends differing from zero (i.e. away from the mean trend) for revealing locations of hot and cold spots.

Results

Property crime exhibited a declining mean trend across the study region from 2006 to 2007. Variation of area-specific trends was statistically significant, which was apparent from the map of (95 % credible interval) differential trends. Hot spots in the north and south west, and cold spots in the middle and east of the region were identified.

Conclusions

Bayesian spatio-temporal analysis contributes to a detailed understanding of small-area crime trends and risks. It estimates crime trend for each area as well as an overall mean trend. The new approach of identifying hot/cold spots through analysing and mapping probabilities of area-specific crime trends differing from the mean trend highlights specific locations where crime situation is deteriorating or improving over time. Future research should analyse trends over three or more periods (allowing for non-linear time trends) and associated (changing) local risk factors.     

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.     

Acquisitive Crime and Inflation in the United States: 1960–2012

Objectives

Inflation is conspicuous by its absence from recent research on crime and the economy. We argue that price inflation increases the rate of crimes committed for monetary gain by fueling demand for cheap stolen goods.

Methods

The study includes inflation along with indicators of unemployment, GDP, income, consumer sentiment, and controls in error correction models of acquisitive crime covering the period from 1960 to 2012. Both short- and long-run effects of the predictors are estimated.

Results

Among the economic indicators, only inflation has consistent and robust short- and long-run effects on year-over-year change in the offense types under consideration. Low inflation helps to explain why acquisitive crime did not increase during the 2008–2009 recession. Imprisonment rates also have robust long-run effects on change in acquisitive crime rates.

Conclusions

Incorporating inflation into studies of crime and the economy can help to reduce the theoretical and empirical uncertainty that has long characterized this important research area in criminology.