SUPERMAX INCARCERATION AND RECIDIVISM*

Since the early 1980s, supermax incarceration has emerged as a common feature of the American corrections landscape. This special type of high‐cost housing, which involves extended isolation with little programming or contact with others, remains largely unevaluated and is of interest for three reasons. First, the study of supermax housing offers a unique opportunity to understand the factors related to the successful reentry of offenders back into society. Second, it affords an opportunity to test the claims, many of which are grounded in mainstream criminological theory, that have been made about the putative effects of supermax confinement. Third, it provides an empirical touchstone that can help inform policy debates about the merits of such confinement. Examining data from the Florida Department of Corrections, we test competing hypotheses about the effects of supermax housing on 3‐year recidivism outcomes. We find evidence that supermax incarceration may increase violent recidivism but find no evidence of an effect of the duration of supermax incarceration or the recency of such incarceration to the time of release into society. We discuss the findings and their implications for theory, research, and policy.     

AN EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF DETERRENCE: CHEATING,SELF‐SERVING BIAS,AND IMPULSIVITY*

This paper reports results from a randomized experiment in which 256 participants recruited to complete a survey could earn extra payment by cheating on a quiz. We report the first deterrence experiment that incorporates significant elements of situational and individual difference theories of crime into a single analytic framework. Consistent with extant deterrence research, the prevalence of cheating was lower when detection was more certain but not when the penalty was more severe. Further, cheating was more likely among participants with stronger present‐orientation, or who were prone to self‐serving bias.     

AGE,CRIMINAL CAREERS,AND POPULATION HETEROGENEITY: SPECIFICATION AND ESTIMATION OF A NONPARAMETRIC,MIXED POISSON MODEL*

This article addresses three issues that are central to the criminal career debate. First, is the life course of individual offending patterns marked by distinctive periods of quiescence? Second, at the level of the individual, do offending rates vary systematically with age? In particular, is the age-crime curve single peaked or flat? Third, are chronic offenders different from less active offenders? Do offenders themselves differ in systematic ways? Using a new approach to the analysis of individual criminal careers—based on nested, mixed Poisson models in which the mixing distribution is estimated nonparametrically—we analyze a panel data set that tracks a sample of males for more than 20 years. Our results provide empirical evidence in support of some features of criminal propensity theory and some in support of conventional criminal careers theory. In support of latent-trait criminal propensity theory, the individual-level average offense rate (per unit of time) varies as a function of observable individual-level characteristics and unobservable heterogeneity among individuals, and the age trajectory of the offense rate is generally single peaked rather than flat. On the other hand, in support of conventional criminal careers theory, models that incorporate a parameter that permits periods of active as well as inactive offending across age have greater explanatory power than those that do not. In addition, the nonparametric, discrete approximation to the population distribution of unobservable heterogeneity in the individual-level mean offense rate facilitates identification of four classes of offenders—nonoffenders as well as individual-level characteristics that are unique to each group. Problems of theoretical explanation and empirical generalizability of these results are described.     

Gabriel Barrios Cabrera: The anti-agrarian friend of the Campesino1

Abstract — This article considers the cacicazgo of Gabriel Barrios Cabrera in the Sierra de Puebla, Mexico during the 1920s. It analyses the ways in which he introduced social and economic development, and clarifies the apparent contradiction in his hostile response to agrarismo yet benevolence towards the region's campesinos. A picture emerges of a regional leader whose own philosophy and actions were fashioned by distinctly local views on land, autonomy and patronage. As such, his style of leadership defies neat categorisation and suggests that rural leaders could not help but reflect the characteristics and interests of the region in which they operated.