犯罪参与类型再思考——兼议分工分类与作用分类的反思

犯罪参与类型的设置在本质上是对构成要件符合性的解释，以此为理论基点，在犯罪参与立法上形成了一元参与体系与二元参与体系。在二元犯罪参与体系之下，以犯罪事实支配理论为代表的实质客观说形成了正犯界定的实质化倾向，但此种理论学说完全颠覆了其赖以建立的前提即基本构成要件与修正构成要件之间的制度性区别。我国刑法学界传统观点在共犯人类型上形成的分工分类法与作用分类法的认识过于表面化，对于犯罪参与类型与构成要件之间的关联应为学界研究的重点。     

ONSET AGE,PERSISTENCE, AND OFFENDING VERSATILITY: COMPARISONS ACROSS GENDER*

Offending specialization has received considerable attention in past research on criminal careers. Relatively little attention has been given to examining the relationships between various sub‐group differences and the extent to which individuals tend toward specialization or versatility in their criminal careers. In the present analysis, we examine hypotheses derived from Moffitt's recent developmental theory that bear directly on offending specialization. Our analysis examines direct relationships between gender, onset age, persistence and offending specialization as well as the interaction of these influences and offending specialization. Our findings reveal results that are both consistent and inconsistent with Moffitt's dual taxonomy of offending behavior.     

CAN RATIONAL CHOICE BE CONSIDERED A GENERAL THEORY OF CRIME? EVIDENCE FROM INDIVIDUAL‐LEVEL PANEL DATA

In the last few decades, rational choice theory has emerged as a bedrock theory in the fields of economics, sociology, psychology, and political science. Although rational choice theory has been available to criminologists for many years now, the field has not embraced it as other disciplines have. Moreover, rational choice scholars have fueled this skepticism of the theory's generality by modeling offender decision making that is one‐sided—large on the costs of crime (sanction threats), short on the benefits of crime. In this article, we directly assess the generality of rational choice theory by examining a fully specified model in a population that is often presumed to be less rational—adolescents from lower socioeconomic families who commit both instrumental (property) and expressive crimes (violence/drugs). By using a panel of N = 1,354 individuals, we find that offending behavior is consistent with rational responses to changes in the perceived costs and benefits of crime even after eliminating fixed unobserved heterogeneity and other time‐varying confounders, and these results are robust across different subgroups. The findings support our argument that rational choice theory is a general theory of crime.     

Decisions to offend in men who sexually abuse their daughters

Abstract

A group of nine intrafamilial child molesters of daughters and stepdaughters from Canada and the United Kingdom were interviewed about their analysis of opportunities to sexually offend. Questions focused on the evaluation of immediate and life circumstances surrounding the offence, including how the offender defined, created and responded to opportunities for offending. An equally important goal was identifying strengths in resisting opportunities and coping with spoiled attempts. The interviews were transcribed and subjected to grounded theory analysis. Consistent with the rational choice theory of criminal behaviour the majority of offenders identified information and decision-making processes used to evaluate opportunities for offending. Themes related to offender and victim characteristics, as well as situational factors, are identified and discussed with respect to risk and protective factors. Offenders described positive relationships, greater social/community connectedness and successful employment as present in their lives when not offending. These elements are consistent with positive approaches to sexual offender treatment and management.     

Specialization and versatility in sexual offenders referred for civil commitment

Offense specialization and versatility have been investigated in general offender populations, but have only recently been examined in sexual offenders. This study explored the extent of both tendencies in the criminal histories of 572 adult male sexual offenders referred for civil commitment. The specialization threshold and the diversity index were used to compare offender subgroups by referral status (committed versus observed) and offense type (rape, child molestation, and incest). Offense versatility was the more likely tendency across the sample. Committed and observed offenders did not differ. Although predominantly versatile, child molesters were significantly more likely than rapists to specialize in sexual offenses, and were also more likely to specialize in child molestation (compared to rapists specializing in rape). These results confirm previous findings on criminal versatility among sexual offenders. This adds to a growing body of research that questions universal and selective crime control policies designed exclusively for sexual offenders.     

UNDERSTANDING CRIME DISPLACEMENT: AN APPLICATION OF RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY

It has been claimed that the rational choice perspective, which sees criminal behavior as the outcome of decisions and choices made by the offender, can provide a useful framework for analyzing crime control policies. By developing the concept of "choice-structuring properties," which refers to the constellation of opportunities, costs, and benefits attaching to particular kinds of crime, this paper attempts to develop rational choice theory in order to improve analysis of crime displacement—a concept frequently invoked by the critics of opportunity-reducing measures of crime prevention.     

Perceived arrest risk,psychic rewards,and offense specialization: A partial test of rational choice theory†

In prior tests of Beckerian rational choice theory, the notion that individuals are responsive to the (dis)incentives associated with crime has been supported. Much of this research has comprised composite scores of perceived rewards and risks of multiple, often disparate, crime types that are then used to predict “general” offending behavior. Although the results of such prior tests are informative, we believe that this tendency has resulted in two shortcomings. First, a central component of mathematical rational choice theory is overlooked, namely, that responsivity to incentives will be crime specific. That is, offenders should prefer crime types that subjectively offer greater rewards and fewer risks relative to other crimes. Second, individual differences in offending specialization are not addressed, of which Clarke and Cornish (1985) and Shover (1996) argued rational choice theories are well suited to explain. Using a sample of serious offenders, we find that in a given time period, individuals are more likely to engage in crime types they viewed as more intrinsically rewarding and less risky compared with other crimes. Furthermore, individuals displayed greater specialization in violence to the extent they view violence as more rewarding and less risky than property offenses     

Criminal career progression among serious youthful offenders in Australia

An important question from research on criminal careers is whether the processes that generate participation in criminal activity are similar to those that drive offending frequency among those who have initiated. This article considers basic demographic correlates asking whether those factors are associated with both initial and sustained early adulthood criminality in Australia. Three findings emerged from the study: (1) the offenders exhibited high levels of criminal activity during early adulthood; (2) males were more likely than females to offend and offend at higher rates as adults; and (3) Indigenous youth were more likely than non-Indigenous youth to offend and offend at higher rates as adults. Overall, the study results showed that basic correlates of crime were linked to both participation and frequency of offending in early adulthood—even within a sample of serious offenders. The article addresses the theoretical implications of the findings and directions for future research.     

INVESTIGATING THE STABILITY OF CO‐OFFENDING AND CO‐OFFENDERS AMONG A SAMPLE OF YOUTHFUL OFFENDERS*

Scholars have long argued that delinquency is a group phenomenon. Even so, minimal research exists on the nature, structure, and process of co‐offending. This investigation focuses on a particular void, namely the stability of 1) co‐offending and 2) co‐offender selection over time, for which divergent theoretical expectations currently exist that bear on issues central to general and developmental/life‐course theories of crime. By relying on individual‐level, longitudinal data for a sample of juvenile offenders from Philadelphia, we find that distinct trajectories of co‐offending exist over the course of the juvenile criminal career. This inquiry also develops an individualized measure of co‐offender stability, which reveals that delinquents generally tend not to “reuse” co‐offenders, although frequent offenders show a greater propensity to do so. The discussion considers the theoretical and policy implications of these findings as well as provides some avenues for future research.     

The effect of offender characteristics on offense specialization and escalation

The primary goal of this research is to investigate whether adolescent correlates of criminal behavior also serve as correlates of specialization and escalation in the criminal career. Prior research on offense sequences has focused on (1) establishing the existence of specialization and escalation and on (2) testing whether observed patterns of offense sequences differ across age and race of offender. We use data on 2,294 offenders from the Predicting Parole Performance in the Era of Crack Cocaine study (Haapanen & Skonovd, 1999). A series of multinomial logit models test for significant behavioral, social, and psychological correlates of the likelihood of offender specialization and escalation. The results show that without taking into account offender characteristics, there is evidence of specialization and escalation comparable to that found in prior research. Once offender background characteristics are controlled statistically, overall evidence of specialization and escalation is significantly reduced, indicating that (1) background characteristics are important predictors of types of offending and (2) background characteristics help to explain patterns of offending across the criminal career.     

AN EXAMINATION OF OFFENSE SPECIALIZATION USING MARGINAL LOGIT MODELS*

Research on offense specialization has concluded that there is a great deal of versatility in offending. Although the preponderance of evidence supports versatility, some research points to a small but significant tendency to specialize. Beyond this observation there is little consensus over the degree of offense specialization, the similarities and differences between people who commit violent acts and those who engage in other criminal behavior, or the extent to which general causal processes are sufficient to explain variation in diverse forms of crime and delinquency. At the heart of the confusion is the fact that criminal behaviors across a wide spectrum are positively correlated with one another. In our opinion, the conclusion that general offending trumps offense specialization is the result of research designs that predetermined such a conclusion. We propose an alternative method, marginal logit modeling, that supports many desirable features suited to the investigation of offense specialization. We analyze nine self‐reported delinquent behaviors (with a tenth category representing “No Offense”) from the Add Health study. We show that violent offenders are more likely to engage in additional violent offenses, nonviolent offenders are more likely to engage in additional nonviolent offenses. For some offense types, we find no evidence of a tendency to commit both violent and nonviolent offending. For others, the offense generalization effect is weak compared to the offense specialization effect.     

Females' initiation into violent street crime

The present study is concerned with understanding when and how women become involved in violent street crime. Specifically, the study explores the correlates or explanatory factors of such offending in a sample of women arrested and/or incarcerated for violent street crimes in New York City. The findings suggest that an adequate understanding of female offending must consider the impact of neighborhood, peer, and addiction factors which affect both males' and females' participation in criminal violence. In addition, different configurations of these factors appear to contribute to the initiation of violent offending, depending on the age of onset. Early initiation into violent crime was accompanied by participation in a wide variety of other offending behaviors and deviant lifestyles. In contrast, those women who began their violent offending later did so in the context of a criminal career which, until the beginning of substance abuse, was more specialized and focused on typically nonviolent, gender-congruent activities (e.g., prostitution, shoplifting).     

Rational Choice and the Gender Gap in Crime: Establishing the Generality of Rational Choice Theory in Russia and Ukraine

Abstract

Using data elicited from a random sample of 1435 adults residing in Lviv, Ukraine, and Nizhni Novgorod, Russia, this study tests rational choice theory (RCT) across gender groups. It seeks to determine whether men and women have different perceptions of sanction risk and crime rewards, whether the formation of these perceptions is gender-specific, and whether RCT predicts criminal behavior equally for men and women. Results suggest that, for both genders, perceptions of crime rewards appear more important than sanction threats. Furthermore, perceived rewards of crime, but not sanction threats, partially explain associations between offending and personal and vicarious experiences with crime. Finally, the performance of RCT is consistent, but not identical, in explaining crime by men and women. The gender gap in offending appears to reflect differences between men and women in levels of perceived rewards, most likely acquired through direct and vicarious experiences with crime as well as through gender-variant emotional bonds.     

Toward an Integrated Model of Offending Frequency: A Replication Study

Criminology is limited by a paucity of replication studies. As such, the measurement of key concepts and the empirical support for theory is open to skepticism. Drawing on the RAND Survey of Inmates and a replication of it, the current study developed an integrated model of offending frequency that contained measures from the rational choice, criminal identity, and criminal careers literatures. A confirmatory structural equation model revealed that criminal self‐concept partially mediated the effects of background risk factors. Perceived costs of crime had no significant effect. Perceived benefits of crime were directly and indirectly (through criminal identity) related to offending frequency. However, differences in measures and variance across data sets contributed to discrepant model fit. This attests to the importance and increasing need for precise replication in criminological research.     

共犯处罚根据论的反思与修正:新混合惹起说的提出

混合惹起说虽然是共犯处罚根据论的通说,但是其最大不足在于,无法有效应对新型网络共同犯罪。造成这种问题的根本原因是,混合惹起说以限制从属性说作为理论基础,主张只有犯罪结果对正犯与共犯而言均具有违法性,才可能处罚共犯。然而,既然共同犯罪的本质是行为的共同而非犯罪的共同,成立共犯理应只需从属于正犯的实行行为,而且,对正犯的违法性评价未必连带作用于共犯,因而可以采取最小从属性说,无须采取限制从属性说。如此,就需要对混合惹起说进行修正:处罚共犯,只要求犯罪结果对共犯而言具有违法性即可,无需对正犯也具有违法性。这样既可以有效地应对新型网络共同犯罪等问题,也可以对共犯故意创造"利益冲突状态"的行为作出准确评价。     

ON THE RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY OF SELF‐REPORTED ILLEGAL EARNINGS: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE STUDY OF CRIMINAL ACHIEVEMENT*

The study of the monetary returns to criminal activity is a central component in many emerging areas of criminology, including rational choice and offender decision‐making, desistance, and criminal achievement. Scholars have been increasingly captivated with specification of the earnings function and with examining how variations in illegal earnings predict important outcomes such as persistence in offending. The potential utility of findings in related empirical studies hinges on the quality of the key measure, self‐reported illegal earnings. Yet to date scant attention has been paid by researchers to the measurement properties of this metric. We analyze self‐reported illegal earnings generated from a variety of instrumental crimes by using data from the Pathways to Desistance Study (n = 585) and the National Supported Work Project (n = 1,509), which are two longitudinal data sets of active offenders separated by more than 30 years. Findings based on analyses both within and between data sets reveal support for the internal consistency reliability and criterion validity of self‐reported illegal earnings. Moreover, the results reveal premiums in terms of higher earnings associated with different crime types, which are persistent both over time and across data sets. Implications and future directions for advancing the theoretical study of criminal achievement are also discussed.     

共犯最小从属性说之再提倡——兼论帮助信息网络犯罪活动罪的性质

限制从属性说以正犯行为同时具有构成要件该当性与违法性作为共犯的成立前提,因而面临无法有效应对新型网络共同犯罪的危机.为解决这一危机,该说中有着眼于帮助对象必须是他人的"犯罪",主张帮助信息网络犯罪活动罪只是"帮助犯的量刑规则"的,也有以刑法分则条文的定罪机能为根据,提出"帮助犯正犯化"说的.但是,共犯的违法性不从属于正...     

“Prison doesn’t stop them” Orchestrating criminal acts from behind bars

This article is about crime entrepreneurs that manage to organize criminal acts in the outside world, while being imprisoned. An examination of police intelligence on 13 cases, the Dutch penitentiary law, visits to two prisons and interviews with prison and law enforcement staff leads to the conclusion that for criminal leaders, whose most important tool for committing crimes is communication, there are a lot of possibilities, and little thresholds, for managing their criminal organisation from prison. The paradigms of reintegration of criminals and internal security in prison dominate the design of Dutch prison regimes. As a result, there are many opportunities for prisoners to communicate with the world outside. The findings of the case study are set against the theoretical background of the routine activity approach (R.A.T.). This theory provides a suitable conceptual framework to explain the forms of criminal behaviour found in the case study and it invites giving recommendations for situational crime prevention. An important notion for understanding the problem of crime that is organized from behind bars, that applying R.A.T. led to, is the physical distance between the ??motivated offender?? and his ??target??. In other words, the offender is imprisoned and his target is somewhere outside. This means that the guardians that keep an eye on the intellectual offender are others than the guardians that observe the actual offender and the target. For detecting crime organized from prison, a good monitoring of communication of the prisoner and his potential helpers and sufficient exchange of information between the different guardians is essential. Possible preventive measurements can be found in the reduction of communication channels.     

Self-serving aspects of social cognition among adult offenders

Abstract

The different cognitive beliefs about offending exhibited by offenders are discussed. The question addressed in this paper concerns the extent to which beliefs and social knowledge about offending differentiate between different characteristic types of offending (drug abuse, theft, sexual and violent). Two hundred and ninety adult male prisoners in four Taiwanese prisons provided self-reported criminal histories. From these a crime index indicative of the proportion of offences of each type (or specialism in offending) was calculated for each offender. Offenders legitimize their own offending while they tend to regard the offences of others negatively. In this way, cognitive representations may reinforce an offender's specific pattern of criminal acts while also insulating them from pressures towards other criminal activities. Evidence is presented that offenders' social knowledge development is consolidated around crime themes.     

Beyond the "science of sophomores": does the rational choice explanation of crime generalize from university students to an actual offender sample?

Much of the criminological literature testing rational choice theory has utilized hypothetical scenarios presented to university students. Although this research generally supports rational choice theory, a common criticism is that conclusions from these studies may not generalize to samples of actual offenders. This study proceeds to examine this issue in two steps. First, a traditional sample of university students is examined to determine how various costs and benefits relate to their hypothetical likelihood of offending. Then the same data collection procedures are employed with a somewhat different sample of younger, adjudicated, and institutionalized offenders to determine whether the conclusions drawn from the student sample generalize to this offender sample. Results generally suggest that the content and process of hypothetical criminal decision making differ in the sample of known offenders relative to the university students. Limitations of the current study, as well as suggestions for future research, are discussed.