New frontiers in criminal careers research, 2000-2011: A state-of-the-art review

Purpose

The criminal career paradigm is a major research focus in criminology, and the current state-of-the-art review explicates research published between 2000 and 2011.

Materials and methods

Keyword searches of Science Direct, Scopus, and the National Criminal Justice Research Service produced 364 studies on criminal careers.

Results

A narrative meta-review summarizes essential findings on the parameters of the criminal career, investigates emerging theoretical and disciplinary extensions that utilize the criminal career framework, and identifies 16 pressing research gaps.

Conclusions

Although the study of criminal careers has been a dominant research area in criminology, its presence is likely to expand as research becomes more interdisciplinary and a longitudinal, biosocial perspective takes hold in the criminological sciences.     

Characteristics of Abstainers from Substance Use and Antisocial in the United States

PURPOSE: Whether lifetime abstainer's antisocial behavior are 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%. 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.     

Is stalking a learned phenomenon? An empirical test of social learning theory

Purpose

We examine the extent to which components of social learning theory (i.e., definitions, differential reinforcement, and differential association/modeling) predict stalking victimization and perpetration using survey data from a large sample of college students.

Methods

Among a sample of 2,766 college students, logistic regression models were estimated to analyze the relationships between social learning theory and stalking perpetration and victimization.

Results

Results suggest that victimization and perpetration are functions of social learning. The findings also indicated that females were significantly more likely to be both stalking victims and perpetrators.

Conclusions

Regarding stalking perpetration and victimization, our results suggest that there may be responses, attitudes, and behaviors that are learned, modified, or reinforced primarily through interaction with peers. Overall, social learning theory concepts appear to be important predictors of stalking perpetration and victimization that help to develop theoretical explanations for stalking.     

Criminal Specialization Revisited: A Simultaneous Quantile Regression Approach

Whether criminals are specialized or versatile in their offending is a long-standing research area that has been recently revitalized by a paradigm that recognizes that both specialization and versatility characterize offending careers. Based on data from an enriched sample of 500 adult habitual criminals, the current study introduces a measure of relative specialization—the offense specialization coefficient—and a novel analytical technique called simultaneous quantile regression to further the study of specialization. Although offenders committed a mix of offenses, there was considerable and at times pronounced evidence of specialization. Age, sex, and arrest onset had differential predictive validity of specialization for eight crimes at the 75th and 95th quantiles. Implications and suggestions for future research are offered.     

Context effects and observer bias--implications for forensic odontology

Psychologists have long recognized the effects of contextual and extraneous information on decision making. Such information renders the subject susceptible to both motivational and cognitive bias; yet, it is difficult to assess the extent to which these influence forensic odontologists opinions as there have been no studies to date on this subject. This article explores the various types of contextual effects and biasing influences that potentially impact on the analysis of bitemarks in forensic odontology. It appears that the current practice of bitemark analysis is rich in sources of potentially biasing influences. In addition to the fundamental recognition that some form of bias is likely to exist, ways in which these should be minimized include: separation of the collection and analysis phases; limiting the amount of contextual information available to the odontologist responsible for the analysis; and ensuring that evidence that is ambiguous or of poor quality is identified as such prior to analysis.     

Sifting Through the Ashes: Processing Arsonists in Juvenile Justice

National estimates have suggested that less than one-in-five arsons are cleared by arrest. Interestingly, juveniles account for nearly 50% of arson arrests, a proportion greater than all other non-status offenses. While the criminological literature on juvenile arson has been fairly consistent, a dearth of applied criminological literature has observed how the juvenile justice system responds to arsonists. Drawing on data on more than 5,000 juveniles from a large southern state, this study was able to differentiate between the system responses for arsonists and other felons. The findings suggested that the juvenile justice system distinguished between arsonists and other felons in some respects, but these distinctions failed to align with the suggested approaches of the criminological literature.     

Human Rights Law: Australia and Slovenia

The human rights legal framework of Australia and Slovenia are vastly different. This article explores the evolution of human rights laws of Slovenia and Australia. While the study and comparison of Australia and Slovenia is uncommon, and not often used as an example to highlight aspects of human rights, both states have a long history of cooperation. The first Slovenian reportedly arrived in Australian in 1855. Since then, and particularly following World War Two, there has been a steady stream of Slovenian’s migrating to Australia. Slovenia upon independence prepared a new constitution that reflected the democratic human rights of the European Union, in 1991, and ratified the European Convention on Human rights in 1994. This article highlights how the opportunity Slovenia had to develop a new constitution, they were able to include many human rights that are often found in legislation. Australia’s constitution came into effect in 1901. Being more than 100 years old, there has been no attempts to revise the Australian constitution and expand the current express human rights. This article will determine whether the European Union’s human rights laws have not only influenced Slovenia’s human rights laws, but also Australia’s. This article suggests that Australia has much to learn from the Slovene experience, but is constrained by its constitution and region. This article highlights how a state formed in recent times, has had the opportunity to develop a constitution that reflects modern day human rights while an older state with longer established democracy has fallen behind in its protection of human rights.     

Validity and reliability of the Self-Report Delinquency among a sample of at-risk youths

Self-Report Delinquency scales have formed the basis of much understanding of juvenile delinquency today, but further improvement and extensive measurement research on self-report measures of crime are needed. The present study examined the psychometric properties of the shorter general delinquency scale version of the classic commonly used Self-Report of Delinquency (SRD) measure created for the original National Youth Survey (NYS) using a sample (N = 412) of male (n = 200) and female (n = 212) at-risk Portuguese youths. The shorter version of the SRD demonstrated satisfactory validity and reliability, namely in terms of its latent one-factor structure, internal consistency, convergent validity, divergent validity, concurrent criterion validity and discriminant groups validity that overall justifies its use among this population. The shorter general delinquency scale version of the SRD is a valid and reliable measure from a modern psychometric perspective that can be used with at-risk youths.     

Imperialism from Below: Informal Empire and the Private Sector in Nineteenth‐Century Germany

Far from being the product of atavistic feudal remnants within German society, nineteenth‐century German imperialism stemmed from precisely the liberal milieu that had come to prominence during 1848‐49. Through an analysis of imperialist texts dealing with Central and South America, and the social logic of these imperialist works, an understanding of the nature of private sector and civil society imperialistic projects emerges that sees liberal imperialists seeking out alternatives to statist solutions in the light of political blockages to their efforts.