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"I Suck at Everything": Crime, Arrest, and the Generality of Failure
Deviant Behavior
Abstract
In this paper we advance the idea that getting arrested amounts to “failing at crime.” And akin to the notion of the generality of deviance—where those who engage in any given form of criminal behavior are also likely to engage in a wide array of other problematic behaviors—we examine whether failing at crime (getting arrested) is associated with other forms of life failure. Using data from multiple waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, our results reveal that, independent of one’s level of self-reported criminal behavior and other key potential confounders (IQ and self-control), being arrested is a significant predictor of a host of life failures related to education, employment, relationships, and health. The key implication of our study is that it highlights the need to develop a theory of the “generality of failure.”
... Once individuals become involved with the criminal justice system, stigma can negatively impact their lives. For example, the individual may be given labels such as "criminal" or "troublesome" (Pratt, Barnes, Cullen, & Turanovic, 2016). These labels can lead to difficulties in an individual's life including: difficulty obtaining an education, difficulty finding employment, recidivism rates, marital status, and socioeconomic status (Pratt et al., 2016). ...
... For example, the individual may be given labels such as "criminal" or "troublesome" (Pratt, Barnes, Cullen, & Turanovic, 2016). These labels can lead to difficulties in an individual's life including: difficulty obtaining an education, difficulty finding employment, recidivism rates, marital status, and socioeconomic status (Pratt et al., 2016). Not only are there individual costs, but there are also consequences of arrest that also affect families and communities (Kamalu, Coulson-Clark, & Kamalu, 2010). ...
... Moving beyond examining likelihood for arrest, our study examined differences in frequency of arrest, and after controlling for factors implicating three different theories, we estimate this rate to be seven times greater for Black young adults. This concerning and harmful disparity causes greater systemic issues for the communities experiencing the effects of high arrest rates (Pratt et al., 2016). Those who are affected by this disparity including families, communities, jobs, and the education system, are being greatly impacted (Pratt et al., 2016). ...
Three theories attempt to explain the racial disparities in arrest
between White and Black Americans: Differential Involvement Hypothesis, Differential
Selection and Processing Hypothesis, and Social Disorganization Theory. We tested
these hypotheses simultaneously in a multiple-group longitudinal panel model with
the ADD Health dataset (Black n = 2459, Whiten = 7403). After controlling for contextual
and behavioral factors, we still found Black young adults were arrested seven times
more often than their White counterparts. To maintain cultural competence, it is
imperative for clinicians to be aware of these disparities when working with
families of different races in order to adjust treatment accordingly, but advocacy
for greater systemic change may be more important for some communities than therapy
alone.
... Applying this argument to versatility in offending, self-control theory would posit that low self-control -as the root cause of all deviant and antisocial behaviors -should be predictive of a significant degree of variation in offending. This is due in part to the fact that most crime is highly opportunistic and requires little in the way of planning (Pratt, Barnes, Cullen, & Turanovic, 2016). The result is that individuals with low self-control will engage in a variety of offending behaviors with little consistency or stability in the types of crimes they choose to commit. ...
... Despite this, research does demonstrate that individuals who choose to offend tend not to specialize (e.g., Brame, Bushway, Paternoster, & Apel, 2004;see also DeLisi, 2005). As Pratt et al. (2016) assert, "The reality is that offenders are not all that picky when it comes to their misbehavior" (p. 838). ...
... Supporting this notion, low selfcontrol is related to numerous, versatile antisocial outcomes and offenses (e.g., see Hirtenlehner & Kunz, 2017). In exploring the relationship between self-control and versatility in deviance, Pratt et al. (2016) found that individuals with low self-control are likely to experience instability in employment, be held back in school, and drop out of school. They also are much more likely than those with high self-control to report experiencing problems with alcohol dependency. ...
While it is generally understood that people tend not to specialize in specific types of deviance, less is understood about offending specialization and versatility in the context of friendships. Using a large sample of persons nested within friendship pairs, this study’s goal is to explore how self-control and social learning theories contribute to an explanation for specialization and versatility in offending among friends. We estimate a series of multilevel, dyadic, mixed-effects models which regress offending versatility onto measures of perceptual peer versatility, self-reported peer versatility, attitudinal self-control, behavioral self-control, and demographic controls. Results indicate that higher amounts of perceptual peer versatility and peer self-reported versatility are both related to increases in versatility among friends. Lower levels of the target respondent’s attitudinal and behavioral self-control are also related to higher amounts of offending versatility. However, the peer’s self-control shares no relationship with offending versatility – a point which both supports and fails to support self-control theory’s expectations about how peer effects should operate. Learning and self-control perspectives both appear to explain offending versatility among friends. However, self-control theory’s propositions about how peer effects should operate are contradictory. The concept of opportunity may help remediate this inconsistency in Gottfredson and Hirschi’s theory.
... I found an indictment of the " flimsy basis " for " soft determinism " and an insistence that we think more rigorously about the assumptions that underlie many of the core ideas in the field. And on a shamelessly autobiographical note, I found inspiration to think much more clearly about my own work— particularly that of the relationship between self-control and offending over the life course (Pratt, 2015a). ...
... The labeling theory tradition really took hold shortly after Delinquency and Drift, and at its core it held a remarkably similar view of youthful offending—hang the label of " juvenile delinquent " on a kid and you have artificially created a " difference " that was never there in the first place (Ageton and Elliott, 1974; Gibbs, 1974; Lofland, 1969). Around the same time came Chambliss " s (1973) work on the " Saints and the Roughnecks, " which was another effort to caution the field against completely abnormalizing delinquent behavior since kids from all walks of life seem to engage in at least some of it as they grow up (see also Pratt et al., 2015). But the strongest contemporary link to Matza is arguably Moffitt " s (1993) perspective on adolescence-limited offending, which holds that a certain amount of misbehavior among young people is normative.² ...
... So why do those things only happen to some people and not others? In part because of its positive criminological roots, routine activity theory really has no answer to that question (see the discussions by Pratt and Turanovic, 2015; Tittle, 1995). ...
... This observation is equally applicable to what happens upon release. As such, it is important to understand what incarceration does to released captives, particularly when they are not assisted in gaining employment, pursuing further education, developing pro-social relationships, and maintaining healthy lifestyles (Pratt et al. 2016). It is also important to understand the drivers of sustained failure which push people into prison initially and -as we explored in the last section -often push them back into a society of captives (Pratt et al. 2016). ...
... As such, it is important to understand what incarceration does to released captives, particularly when they are not assisted in gaining employment, pursuing further education, developing pro-social relationships, and maintaining healthy lifestyles (Pratt et al. 2016). It is also important to understand the drivers of sustained failure which push people into prison initially and -as we explored in the last section -often push them back into a society of captives (Pratt et al. 2016). As incarceration rates continue to grow in the United States, race remains a significant determinant as to a person's likelihood of initial incarceration (Nellis 2016). ...
... The downstream effects of juvenile arrest have received a considerable amount of attention. Research has linked juvenile arrests with numerous negative outcomes, including future offending behavior (Beardslee et al., 2019;Liberman et al., 2014;Mowen et al., 2018;Wiley & Esbensen, 2016; but see Huizinga et al., 2003), poor mental health (Sugie & Turney, 2017), and a wide variety of other deleterious downstream effects (e.g., Lopes et al., 2012;Makarios et al., 2017;Pratt et al., 2016). For example, Mowen et al. (2018) found that even after controlling for delinquency levels at baseline, juveniles who were arrested had a significant increase in offending behavior compared to juveniles who were never arrested. ...
... Moreover, Makarios et al. (2017) found that adolescents who were arrested were less likely to graduate high school, more likely to be on welfare, and more likely to engage in risky sexual behaviors. Relatedly, Pratt et al. (2016) found that arrest was associated with a number of "failures," including dropping out of high school, issues with alcoholism, contracting an STD, and being fired, relative to those who were never arrested. Notably, these results held even after controlling for important confounding variables such as IQ and low self-control. ...
In recent years, sleep duration has received increased scrutiny with respect to criminologically relevant outcomes. No attention, however, has been given to the possible relationship between sleep duration and the likelihood of arrest. Given the negative downstream effects that arrest may have on adolescents, this is an important relationship to investigate. To this end, the current study uses data from the 2018 Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey (N = 49,360), and the results indicate that severe sleep deficiencies are positively associated with self-reported arrest, whereas minor deficiencies and excess sleep are not. Discussion focuses on the implications and limitations of these findings as well as a call for better integration of health behaviors into criminological analyses.
... Symptoms related to inattention and hyperactivity lead to difficulty succeeding in an academic environment (Rodriguez et al., 2007), which contribute to academic marginalization, which in turn can have far-reaching consequences for later socioeconomic attainment (Rosler et al., 2004). Lower socioeconomic attainment increases chances of choosing a criminal career (Pratt, Barnes, Cullen, & Turanovic, 2016). Interestingly, a study by Defoe, Farrington, and Loeber (2013) investigated causal mechanisms between hyperactivity and offending and revealed that hyperactivity and low socioeconomic status (SES) caused low achievement, which in turn caused offending and in turn predisposed to depressive symptoms. ...
... Moreover, individuals with ADHD are more likely to quit their job due to boredom and are at increased risk for getting fired because of problems in the workplace, such as getting along with others and managing responsibilities (Murphy & Barkley, 2007). As with academic failure, job failure is likely to increase chances offending (Pratt et al., 2016). ...
Samenvatting
Een groot gedeelte van de daderpopulatie in de forensische psychiatrie betreft daders met ADHD, maar behandeling van dergelijke daders is een grote uitdaging vanwege hoge uitval en lage behandelmotivatie. Om meer inzicht te krijgen in het verbeteren van behandeling, is eerst nader onderzoek verricht naar de link tussen ADHD en delictgedrag. Hoewel ADHD vaak direct gerelateerd wordt aan delictgedrag, is er ook onderzoek dat laat zien dat dit verband grotendeels verklaard wordt door andere risicofactoren zoals co-morbide stoornissen (o.m. antisociale persoonlijkheidsstoornis, middelenafhankelijkheid) en sociale problemen. Om hier meer duidelijkheid over te scheppen is een systematische literatuurstudie uitgevoerd naar dynamische risicofactoren die de relatie tussen ADHD
en delictgedrag kunnen verklaren. Bevindingen lieten zien dat daders met ADHD worden gekenmerkt door vroege risicofactoren die gedurende het leven een negatieve wisselwerking met de sociale omgeving kennen. Hierdoor ontwikkelen individuen met ADHD op latere leeftijd vaak gebrekkige sociale relaties en staan ze onderaan de maatschappelijke ladder. Bovendien lieten studies zien dat het verband tussen ADHD en delictgedrag wordt verklaard door co-morbide stoornissen, risicogedrag, gebrekkige keuzes, lage zelfcontrole en impulsiviteit. Individuen met ADHD nemen doorgaans meer risico en reageren vaak impulsief waardoor de kans op delicten en gerelateerd
gedrag toeneemt. Vervolgens is gekeken naar factoren die samenhangen met responsiviteit in behandeling, oftewel afstemming van de behandeling op de specifieke behoeften van forensische patiënten met ADHD. Hiertoe zijn inzichten vanuit de wetenschappelijke literatuur, patiënten en behandelaars verzameld. Slechts enkele wetenschappelijke studies naar responsiviteit werden geïdentificeerd. Deze studies lieten zien dat farmacotherapie, cognitieve therapie en psychoeducatie effectief waren
in de behandeling van forensische patiënten met ADHD, onder meer door het terugdringen van noshows. Daarnaast lieten diepte-interviews met forensische patiënten met ADHD en hun behandelaars zien dat psychoeducatie en farmacotherapie bijdroegen aan de responsiviteit. Therapieën gekenmerkt door een sterke therapeutische alliantie, heldere structuur en korte termijn beloningen werden ook als effectief beschouwd omdat deze factoren aanhaken bij de specifieke problemen van ADHD (gebrek aan concentratie, vertrouwen en beloningsgerichtheid). Tot slot bleek dat het betrekken of versterken van steunnetwerken en het verhogen van sociale en financiële stabiliteit als belangrijke factoren werden gezien in het voorkomen van uitval en het verlagen van recidiverisico.
Samenvattend lieten de studies zien dat kennis van dynamische risicofactoren en
responsiviteit belangrijk is om behandeleffectiviteit te vergroten en recidive te verlagen. Behandeling kan inzetten op strategieën die helpen bij het monitoren en reguleren van gedrag en beslissingen. Bovendien kan het betrekken van het sociale netwerk van patiënten in de behandeling mogelijk bijdragen aan een verlaging van het recidiverisico
... Likewise, Bernburg & Krohn (2003) found that formal labeling increased subsequent delinquency and that the relationship is mediated by employment and educational success. A multitude of scholars have found that formal labeling negatively impacts subsequent education and employment outcomes (Bernburg & Krohn, 2003;Fields & Emshwiller, 2014;Ispa-Landa & Loeffler, 2016;Lopes, Krohn, Lizotte, Schmidt, Vasquez, & Bernburg, 2012;Pratt, Barnes, Cullen, & Turanovic, 2016;Raphael, 2014;Sweeten, 2006). Essentially, there is a substantial amount of empirical support for the proposition that various intervening mechanisms mediate the relationship between formal labeling and subsequent delinquency. ...
... Similarly, about half of those arrested for crimes as juveniles are convicted in adult criminal court, thus, arrests serve as a gateway to juvenile delinquent dispositions and adult criminal convictions. In fact, an arrest alone is enough to impact future educational and occupational success (Fields & Emshwiller, 2014;Krohn et al., 2014;Pratt et al., 2016). If conventional employment and educational opportunities are blocked, then deviant identities may be reinforced, and individuals may be more likely to recidivate. ...
Labeling theory is a criminological theory that contends that formal sanctions amplify, rather than deter, future delinquent and criminal behavior. This paper identifies and describes some of the policies and programs that labeling theorists suggest would be effective at reducing delinquency and crime, or at least mitigate the effects of negative labeling experiences. The findings of contemporary examinations of juvenile delinquency and crime are briefly reviewed to provide the context for a variety of proposed policy implications. Programs such as family counseling, the Inviting Convicts to College Program, and Multisystemic Therapy are highlighted, and the importance of promoting education and employment for labeled individuals is discussed.
... Notwithstanding this constraint, it is possible (and probable) that many of the individuals who met the criteria for the top 20% of rule violators are indeed at least versatilely violent, as research on the generality of offending indicates (Brame et al. 2014;A. Piquero 2000;Pratt et al. 2016;Pratt and Turanovic 2019). These are also the individuals who, irrespective of their type of preferred misconduct, command the most attention from prison staff. ...
The Pareto principle is based on the concept that roughly 80% of outcomes are generated by 20% of inputs, efforts, or contributors within a group. Using a national sample of U.S. prison inmates, we examined various percentile rankings of self‐reported institutional misconduct to determine how much disorder is created behind bars by the most prolific offenders. Findings revealed that, regardless of sex, the top 20% of inmates were responsible for approximately 90% of all rule violations and write‐ups received. These general patterns remained similar even after adjusting infractions for time served in prison. Further analyses indicated that membership within these high‐rate groups was often significantly predicted by those who were younger, black, had more extensive criminal histories, committed violent crimes, resided in state facilities, anticipated being released, used drugs prior to their arrest, were diagnosed with a personality disorder or ADHD, and exhibited worse negative affect. Some sex‐specific effects were also observed. The disproportionate impact these chronic offenders have on the prison environment is detrimental to all individuals who live and work around them. Future research should investigate specific types of misconduct, distinct time intervals of incarceration, and facility effects such as management style, security levels, or offender composition.
... Yet, some do get apprehended. Indeed, as Pratt et al. (2016) noted, individuals committing crimes are frequently caught, and being arrested and convicted can be viewed as a form of failure. Their research indicated that arrest was a significant predictor of numerous life failures, including those related to education, employment, relationships, and health. ...
We investigate the concept of "criminal failure" in sexual crimes and the relevance of various theoretical frameworks for its understanding: individual offender's rational choice, environmental influences and routine activities, victimological characteristics from lifestyle theory, and crime interaction factors. We examined a sample of 1121 "failed" cases (i.e., attempted but not completed) and 1500 "successful" cases (i.e., completed) of sexual assault that occurred in France between 1990 and 2018. We used 32 predictors that mapped on the four theoretical frameworks and conducted bivariate followed by multivariate analyses. Multiple theoretical frameworks are relevant to understand criminal failure, which is a product of perpetrator, environmental, victimo-logical, and interactional factors. Two distinct patterns are specifically associated with failure: lack of preparation and lack of social skills. In addition, failure was best understood not as a unitary concept, but as multifactorial by distinguishing between different types of failure, specifically: offender intentionally released the victim before completion, victim escaped or third party rescue. Finally, patterns of failure were different in sexual crimes against children compared to those against adults. Criminology should pay closer attention to failure in crime. This understudied area can yield important theoretical knowledge and practical implications regarding the prevention of sexual crimes.
... This raises questions about whether Black youth, particularly maltreated youth who may present with more behavioral problems associated with their maltreatment, are more likely to be 'pushed out" of school and into more restrictive systems (e.g., criminal legal system), instead of being provided resources and less restrictive responses (Skiba et al., 2011). Once individuals become involved with the juvenile or criminal justice system, stigma can negatively impact their lives, leading to difficulties in obtaining an education, finding employment, recidivism, and marital problems (Pratt et al., 2016). In addition to these individual costs, there are consequences of arrest that affect families and communities (Kamalu et al., 2010). ...
One overlooked result in a 1989 Science paper on the “cycle of violence” was a race-specific increase in risk for arrest for violence among Black maltreated children, but not White maltreated children. We examine whether race differences in the cycle of violence are explained by risk factors traditionally associated with violence. Using a prospective design, maltreated and non-maltreated children were matched on age, sex, race, and approximate family social class and interviewed at mean age 28.7 years ( N = 1196). Arrest histories were obtained through age 50.5. Regression analyses included maltreatment, race, self-reported violent behavior, and risk factors (e.g., family, school, neighborhood variables). For arrests for violent crime, race was a significant predictor, whereas childhood maltreatment was not significant. For violent arrests, there was a significant race × maltreatment interaction when the total number of risk factors were included controlling for self-reported violent behaviors. For self-reported violent behaviors, childhood maltreatment remained significant for some risk factors. However, race did not predict self-reported violent behaviors. Offending behavior and traditional risk factors did not explain the disproportionate arrests among Black maltreated children. This disparity in the cycle of violence may reflect complex processes influenced by racial bias or structural racism.
... 376). Citing the "generality of deviance" thesis (Hirschi & Gottfredson, 1994;Pratt et al., 2016), they point out that, "offenders do not specialize in any particular form of misbehavior," and they go on to argue that specialty courts are not designed to reduce recidivism; instead, they are, "largely intended to provide administrative benefits in terms of system efficiency and ease of case processing" (Pratt & Turanovic, 2019, p. 376). While they do make a valid point about organizing specialty courts around the latest conviction offense of an individual (e.g., substance use, domestic violence), this point does not -in our view -apply to veterans' courts, which focus on a specific subgroup of individuals rather than specific offense types. ...
... The labeling perspective's efforts to differentiate secondary deviance and secondary sanctioning effects are another area of criminological research vulnerable to collider bias. Labeling research has become increasingly interested in disentangling secondary sanctioning and secondary deviance as causal outcomes of labeling events (see Liberman et al., 2014;Novak, 2022;Pratt et al., 2016). Labeling events are considered causes of both secondary deviance and secondary sanctioning. ...
Objectives We provide a brief overview of collider bias and its implications for criminological research.
Methods Owing to the nature of the topics studied, as well as the common data sources used to carry out much of this research, work in the field may often become vulnerable to a specific methodological problem known as collider bias. Collider bias occurs when exposure variables and outcomes independently cause a third variable, and this variable is included in statistical models. Colliders represent somewhat of a paradox in that there is scholarship discussing the issue, yet it has managed to remain a relatively cryptic threat compared to other sources of bias.
Results We argue that, far from being an obscure concern, colliders almost certainly have pervasive impact in criminal justice and criminology.
Conclusion We close by offering a general set of strategies for addressing the challenges
posed by collider bias. While there is no panacea, there are better practices, many of which are underutilized in the disciplines that study crime and it's attendant topics.
... Unlike criminological approaches that frame persistent offending and collateral social dysfunction as byproducts of a general theoretical construct or processes (e.g., Agnew, 1992;DeLisi, 2016;Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990;Wilson & Herrnstein, 1985), the p Factor approach benefits from its psychiatric roots where global functioning is an inherent component of diagnostic conditions (now continua). In this regard, correctional clients with high p Factor scores are likely to not only recidivate, but also experience unemployment, family discord, and related problems (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990;Mowen, Kopf, & Schroeder, 2020;Pratt, Barnes, Cullen, & Turanovic, 2016). ...
The general psychopathology general theory or p Factor is an influential theoretical development in the social and behavioral sciences, but has yet to gain traction in criminology and criminal justice. Drawing on data from a sample of 1722 federal pretrial defendants, we created a 22-item composite indicator or additive index of the p Factor containing externalizing, internalizing, substance use, paraphilic, and forensic indicators. Negative binomial regression models found that age, sex, and diverse forms of trauma exposure are associated with higher p Factor scores. Higher p scores strongly predicted total, violent, sexual, property, weapon, and drug arrest charges net the effects of demographic features and adverse childhood experiences. There is broad heterogeneity in psychopathology within this sample with nearly 29% of clients exhibiting zero psychopathology, nearly 61% showing average psychopathology or less, and nearly 40% evincing average to exceedingly high psychopathology. As a general theory, the p Factor has considerable potential to inform the assorted morbidities that often accompany criminal activity, including self-harm, reduced global functioning, substance use, and social dysfunction and thus is a parsimonious conceptual framework to understand the overlapping and systemic personal problems that typify chronic and serious criminal offenders.
... The most employed predictors for explaining deviance include: family characteristics, family background, peer affiliation, school factors, school results, religion, risk attitude, religion, risk factors, victimization (Dukes and Lorch, 1989;Bahr et al., 1993;Aseltine, 1995;Benda and Corwyn, 1997;Amato and Fowler, 2002;Bjarnason et al., 2005;Haynie and Osgood, 2005;Chapple et al., 2014;Corkin et al., 2015;Buehler, 2020). At the same time, most of the longitudinal studies that we analyzed deal with the topic of delinquency follow a life-course perspective (Uggen and Kruttschnitt, 1998;Macmillan, 2001;Giordano et al., 2002;Kirk and Sampson, 2013;Salvatore and Markowitz, 2014;Pratt et al., 2016). As the papers analyzed show, online deviance has similar predictors with offline deviance, fact that suggests a continuity between the two. ...
Deviance is a complex phenomenon that influences aspects both at the macro and micro levels, extensively studied by social scientists The main objective of this article was to conduct a systematic literature review for clustering the topics on adolescent deviance and online deviance. Grounded in Pickering's and Byrne's guidelines and PRISMA protocol, we identified the most recurrent themes, theories and predictors in the 61 most-cited articles related to the concept of deviance from the database of Web of Science, as well as in 488 abstracts of representative papers. The results emphasized four main clusters of topics, namely, predictors of deviance, online deviance, socio-constructivist theories, and research based theories of deviant behavior. The findings highlighted that researchers frequently use strain theory, social learning, self-control, and social control theories in their studies. Our systematic literature review revealed also the most encountered predictors of deviance, which we have classified into five main categories: family patterns, socio-demographic aspects, socialization, victimization, and school and individual factors. For online deviance, family patterns, socio-demographic aspects, victimization, school and individual factors, and Internet and computer use have been determined to be the main groups of predictors. The present systematic literature review makes an important contribution to the understanding of deviance by presenting an overview of the phenomenon.
... Following the lead of prior Add Health scholars (Pratt et al., 2016), a measure of arrest was taken from the Wave 4 interviews. Specifically, respondents were asked if they had ever been arrested. ...
Although prior research has examined the link between having an absent biological father and self-reported delinquency, few studies have assessed the influence of the timing of paternal absence (i.e., the child’s age when father leaves) on delinquency and adult criminal behavior. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), the present study examines this relationship to determine whether the timing of biological father absence impacts delinquency, adult criminal behavior, and arrest across the life course. Results reveal that biological father absence before birth was related to criminal behavior in later adulthood. Having an absent father in early childhood (birth to age 5) was related to criminal behavior in early adulthood as well as arrest. An absent biological father in late adolescence (age 14 to 18) was associated with arrest. These findings suggest that: 1) the timing of father’s absence does not have a clear pattern of impact on delinquency and arrest and 2) the negative impact of having an absent biological father—at any time—may not appear until adulthood.
... In regard to the impact related to the existence of disproportionate minority youth arrests (DMYA), the majority of respondents were aware of the educational, psychological/emotional, and significant life changing difficulties associated with the arrest disparities. Such outcomes exist within the literature (Pratt et al., 2016). Chi-square analyses indicate that Nonwhites, compared to Whites, are more likely to recognize the impact of DMYA. ...
Disproportionate minority confinement (DMC) has been examined in juvenile justice research. However, studies associated with characteristics of criminal and juvenile justice personnel in relation to the high rate of minority youth arrest rates is deficient. Using nearly 100 surveys, the purpose of this study is to identify the opinions of law enforcement personnel in association with official data provided by the Uniform Crime Reports. Chi-square results reveal that race (as well as other characteristics) are significantly linked with opinions related to disproportionate minority youth arrest. This includes reported explanations, impact, and solutions (i.e., ideas related to nonarrest measures, etc.). Areas of further inquiry, limitations, and policy implications are provided.
... These arguments fall apart upon further scrutiny. For example, because most Americans commit crimes for which they have not been detected (e.g., illegal drug use, driving while intoxicated, domestic violence, tax fraud, and common crimes), it is an empirical question whether a criminal record reliably distinguishes who is morally appropriate for jury service (see Barnes, 2014;Pratt, Barnes, Cullen, & Turanovic, 2016). Similarly, research suggests that convicted felons tend to be pro-defense in their attitudes, but so do other groups (Binnall, 2014a). ...
In The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander drew national attention to the extensive imposition of collateral consequences on those convicted of a crime and to their racially disparate effects. These so-called invisible punishments are intended to restrict offender participation in civil, economic, and social institutions. At issue, however, is how the American public views collateral consequences and whether it would support a reduction in their usage. Based on a 2017 national- level YouGov survey (N = 1,000), supplemented by a second 2019 YouGov survey (N = 1,200), the current study finds that the public is split on allowing ex-offenders to sit on juries, but supportive of removing barriers to voting and employment (i.e., endorses ban-the-box reforms). The respondents also favored providing defendants with a list of restrictions linked to conviction as well as having lawmakers review and eliminate collateral consequences found to have no purpose and to not reduce crime. Belief in offender redeemability is a robust source of these policy preferences. Overall, the American public, including White adults, seems prepared to move beyond “the new Jim Crow” by reforming a legacy of the get-tough era—a byzantine system of collateral consequences that imposes disabilities without transparency and with no evidence of their efficacy.
... 630). El fracaso escolar, en todo caso, revela fallos en otras áreas de la vida de la persona con conducta antisocial y delictiva, ya sea en la familia, el trabajo, las relaciones interpersonales y la comunidad (Pratt, Barnes, Cullen & Turanovic, 2016). ...
Colombia is implementing the Adolescent Responsibility System educational service. In this context, this article describes the academic characteristics of adolescents with criminal conducts, determines the relationships between academic factors and analyzes which ones affect academic failure. A predictive, cross-sectional study was developed to do so, in which 248 adolescents from Bogotá and Cundinamarca participated. 85.5% were male and 14.5% were female, between 14 and 20 years of age (A=16.72, S.D.= 1,128). The results show high levels of academic failure and moderate relationships between academic factors and academic failure. The academic variables that best helped predict academic failure were low performance, deficiencies in school participation opportunities, rewards for school participation and social skills. These findings' implications was a topic of discussion.
... The problem, however, is that the criminological literature is pretty clear on one important point: With few and isolated exceptions, offenders do not specialize in any particular form of misbehavior (Piquero, Farrington, & Blumstein, 2003;Piquero, Jennings, & Barnes, 2012;Thomas, 2016). This idea-known as the "generality of deviance" thesis-is that people who are willing to abuse drugs and alcohol are probably also willing to steal things, beat people up, and destroy property as well (Hirschi & Gottfredson, 1994; see also Pratt, Barnes, Cullen, & Turanovic, 2016;Reisig & Pratt, 2011). Sure, some individuals might demonstrate short streaks of offending specialization-like for a few months or so at a time (McGloin, Sullivan, Piquero, & Pratt, 2007;Sullivan, McGloin, Pratt, & Piquero, 2006)-but overall, the pattern is one that illustrates offending specialization over the life course to be largely a myth. ...
Specialty courts—such as drug courts, mental health courts, or domestic violence courts—tend to assume, either implicitly or explicitly, that particular groups of offenders have unique problems that can be best met with specialized case processing. Put simply, specialty courts assume that offenders themselves are specialists when it comes to offending. There is, however, a criminological fly in the ointment. The problem is that criminological theory and research have long demonstrated that offenders tend to be generalists and that they rarely specialize in any given form of misbehavior. Accordingly, the authors argue here that the notion of the “generality of deviance” presents a problem for the potential effectiveness of specialty courts because they are likely operating on a faulty set of ideas about offending behavior. The authors offer strategies for moving forward to better integrate the notion of the generality of deviance into specialty courts: in particular, embracing a rehabilitative philosophy and adopting well-documented correctional treatment approaches such as cognitive-behavioral interventions and the risk-need-responsivity model. They conclude by highlighting the risks associated with granting system efficiency a position of privilege among the multiple goals of corrections.
... Second, there is a long-standing concept in criminology of the "generality of deviance"-that is, the tendency of those who engage in crime to also engage in several other forms of questionable behavior (even if such behavior does not have a legal rule against it; Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990;Hirschi & Gottfredson, 1994). For instance, those who engage in crime are also more likely to do poorly in school, to drink too much and do drugs, to mess up romantic relationships, to find themselves in financial trouble, to alienate their friends, and so on (Pratt, Barnes, Cullen, & Turanovic, 2016). In fact, the most serious of offenders, or what Moffitt (1993) has referred to as life-course-persistent offenders, tend to be involved in a wide range of antisocial, criminal, and analogous behaviors throughout their lives. ...
... The relationship we found might be spurious and caused by some underlying trait that encourages both poor health and misconduct. Research by Pratt, Barnes, Cullen, and Turanovic (2016) highlights the idea that some people, including inmates, fail at everything. They find that being arrested (i.e., failing at crime) significantly predicts other life failures such as unemployment, divorce, and dropping out of high school. ...
Research reveals inmate misconduct results from various factors including age, gang membership, program participation, and mental illness. However, no research has examined the influence of physical illness on misconduct. Per general strain theory,
we argue that poor physical health is a significant strain that may negatively affect behavior. Using data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ 2004 Survey of Inmates in State Correctional Facilities (SISCF), we investigate how acute illnesses, chronic conditions, and physical disabilities influence misconduct. Results suggest acute conditions increase the likelihood of general, serious, and nonserious misconduct in prison. Conversely, chronic ailments decrease the likelihood of all types of misconduct.
We find moderate effects for physical disability. Experiencing acute health conditions while incarcerated significantly increases the likelihood of misconduct, suggesting that by appropriately addressing inmates’ acute ailments, it may be possible to concurrently improve inmate health and decrease misconduct to enhance the lives of those in prison.
... The relationship we found might be spurious and caused by some underlying trait that encourages both poor health and misconduct. Research by Pratt, Barnes, Cullen, and Turanovic (2016) highlights the idea that some people, including inmates, fail at everything. They find that being arrested (i.e., failing at crime) significantly predicts other life failures such as unemployment, divorce, and dropping out of high school. ...
Mass incarceration, prison overcrowding, and inmate misconduct have long been major topics of interest for criminologists and the general public. A significant amount of research shows that inmate misconduct, or deviations from the formal rules of the prison, is caused by various factors such as, but not limited to, age, self-control, drug use, prior criminal justice involvement, gang membership, sentence length, and prison program involvement. While mental health has also been shown to have a significant effect on inmate misconduct, no research has examined the influence of physical health on prison rule-breaking. Following a General Strain theoretical framework and using data from the Bureau of Justice Statistic’s 2004 Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities, this study argues that poor physical health in prison represents a significant strain for inmates, which should increase the likelihood of misconduct. Results from this study build on prior inmate misconduct research and have significant implications for correctional healthcare.
... Similarly, about half of those arrested for crimes as adults are convicted in adult criminal court, thus, arrests serve as a gateway to juvenile delinquent dispositions and adult criminal convictions. In fact, an arrest alone is enough to impact future educational and occupational success (Fields & Emshwiller, 2014;Pratt et al., 2016). Also, the age at which individuals are processed as an adult is arbitrary and not based on any actual empirical evidence (Loeber & Farrington, 2012). ...
This dissertation critically reviews prior labeling theory research concerning juvenile delinquency and adult criminality, and presents a structural equation model utilizing the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). The labeling perspective is outlined as it was originally presented, and the theoretical elaborations that have taken place since are highlighted. Distinctions are made between formally applied criminal justice labels and the informal labels that are applied by significant others and parents. An interactionist labeling model that incorporates respondents’ levels of self-control is presented to explain formal labeling, levels of juvenile delinquency, and future criminality among a nationally representative sample of American adolescents: three waves of Add Health. The findings show that formal labeling was the strongest significant predictor of subsequent criminal involvement and that it mediated the effect of prior delinquency on subsequent criminal involvement.
Compliance has become key to our contemporary markets, societies, and modes of governance across a variety of public and private domains. While this has stimulated a rich body of empirical and practical expertise on compliance, thus far, there has been no comprehensive understanding of what compliance is or how it influences various fields and sectors. The academic knowledge of compliance has remained siloed along different disciplinary domains, regulatory and legal spheres, and mechanisms and interventions. This handbook bridges these divides to provide the first one-stop overview of what compliance is, how we can best study it, and the core mechanisms that shape it. Written by leading experts, chapters offer perspectives from across law, regulatory studies, management science, criminology, economics, sociology, and psychology. This volume is the definitive and comprehensive account of compliance.
Drawing on prior work that views criminal behavior as potentially stemming from factors similar to those that influence conventional behavior, we argue that extant theories may provide a foundation for conceptualizing and explaining different dimensions of offending and that, at the same time, new theories may be needed to do so. In particular, we highlight that criminal behavior may be motivated by a variety of performance criteria similar to those used to evaluate success in athletic, occupational, or vocational activities. This paper develops a conceptual framework that advances this argument. It then highlights how taking into account the possibility for offending to be motivated or influenced by performance-based considerations may lead to new hypotheses or theories and more effective policy.
Ripercorrendone in modo rigoroso le principali teorie e tematiche, il volume aggiorna il dibattito critico sul discorso socio-criminologico, colmando il vuoto esistente nel mercato editoriale italiano su prospettive e sviluppi contemporanei delle teorie sociologiche della devianza e del crimine e proponendosi come un utile strumento di formazione critica per gli studenti di scienze sociali, politiche e giuridiche. È articolato in due sezioni. La prima è dedicata alla ricognizione delle teorie e approfondisce le strategie di identificazione e di definizione della devianza e del crimine all’interno dei diversi ambiti storici e intellettuali, con attenzione agli aspetti metodologici e agli sviluppi delle singole prospettive nei contesti contemporanei. La seconda, invece, intercetta ambiti e tematiche di attualità, approfondendo aspetti esplicativi e applicativi delle diverse prospettive e individuandone la spendibilità in termini di interventi e politiche. Il suo approccio del tutto originale rispetto ai manuali esistenti fa del volume un importante riferimento per chi voglia accostarsi allo studio sociologico delle devianze e del crimine nel mondo contemporaneo.
Concern over substance use, including alcohol, marijuana, and amphetamines, among college students remains high. Substance use on campus is associated with a seemingly endless list of negative outcomes including decreased academic performance, inhibited cognitive functions, physical and sexual violence, and even death. Cast against a backdrop of increasing substance use rates over the past few decades, we argue that criminologists must turn towards examining novel—and perhaps unexpected—correlates of substance use to better address this issue. In light of this, the current study draws from labeling theory to explore the linkage between paranormal beliefs, stigma, and substance use among college students. Specifically, we examine how both internalized negative messages about paranormal beliefs and perceived external stigma about paranormal beliefs relate to substance use among college students. Analysis of an original dataset from a midsized university revealed that respondents who internalized a negative label about their paranormal beliefs reported elevated levels of substance use relative to those who did not internalize negative paranormal labels. Second, individuals who reported believing society assigns a negative stigma to paranormal beliefs reported lower levels of substance use. Finally, considering the importance of both internal and external stigma, examination of an interaction between these two constructs indicated that greater levels of external social stigma conditioned a negative relationship between label internalization and substance use. We examine the implications of these findings for substance use among college students.
We recently published an article in Victims & Offenders in which we argued that: (1) the generality of deviance is real (i.e., offenders rarely specialize in any form of criminal or deviant behavior), (2) specialty courts typically assume – either implicitly or explicitly – that offenders do, in fact, specialize primarily in a particular form of criminal behavior, and (3) that there is thus a mismatch between a well-documented criminological reality and the administrative reality of specialty courts. Lucas recently took issue with our arguments and claimed that specialty courts are well-run, evidence based, and sufficiently flexible to be consistently effective at reducing recidivism, and that our relative pessimism is rooted in our “misinterpretation” of the evidence we cite. We find no merit in either of his arguments and we present here a criminologically-informed and evidence-based discussion of the generality of deviance and specialty courts.
Despite a well-established body of research demonstrating that others’ evaluations of a person’s physical attractiveness carry significant meaning, researchers have largely ignored how self-perceptions of physical attractiveness relate to offending behaviors. Applying general strain theory and using eight waves of panel data from the Adolescent Academic Context Study, we explore how self-perceptions of attractiveness relate to offending as youth progress through school. Results demonstrate that youth who perceive themselves as more attractive engage in more—not less—offending. Depression, which is treated as a form of negative affect, does not appear to mediate this relationship. We conclude by raising attention to the possibility that being “good-looking” may actually be a key risk factor for crime.
Previous research indicates that individual-level factors, such as low self-control, are related to criminal involvement (Pratt & Cullen, 2000). Comparatively less research, however, has examined whether individual-level factors may also influence the likelihood of being apprehended for criminal behavior. This study addresses this gap in the literature by examining the influence of levels of self-control and thoughtfully reflective decision making (TRDM) on being processed by the criminal justice system. Our results reveal that low self-control, but not TRDM, is associated with number of arrests after controlling for criminal involvement. We discuss the implications of these findings for future research and the existing literature.
The bulk of the desistance literature has focused on social/contextual factors (marriage, employment, peers) and their criminogenic consequences. Less attention has been devoted to the role of criminal justice system involvement in the desistance process, and most of the existing research indicates that system involvement tends to inhibit or delay desistance from crime. One recent effort to combat that pattern was implemented with the Responsive Interventions for Change (RIC) Docket in Harris County, Texas, in 2016. The RIC Docket was intended to increase defendants’ access to a pretrial release bond and to reduce rates of felony convictions, thus lowering the risk of disrupting important prosocial ties and avoiding potentially stigmatizing labels. In the present study, we use case processing data on rates of pretrial release and felony convictions from one year prior to (N = 6,792) and three years following (N = 12,152) the implementation of the RIC Docket. Results show that those processed through the RIC Docket were 24% more likely to have access to pretrial release and 45% less likely to have their cases result in a conviction. We conclude by discussing the importance of policy changes intended to reduce barriers to the successful desistance process for individuals involved in the justice system.
The generality of failure theory links arrest – a “failure” at crime – to other failures later on in life such as getting a sexually transmitted disease or losing a job. Yet, this theoretical orientation also suggests the opposite may be true. Early life failures such as failing a class in school and becoming an underage parent may be a marker of an individual likely to fail at crime later in life. We test this theory using eleven waves of data from the Pathways to Desistance survey. Findings demonstrate that both personal failures (e.g., becoming an underage parent, failing a class) and public failures (e.g., being fired from a job, suspended from school) early in life are significantly associated with failing at crime later in life. Results persist even after accounting for a wide range of potential confounding factors such as criminal offending, illicit substance use, IQ, and self-control. Findings highlight the utility of the generality of failure theory in understanding deviant behavior.
It is a popular idea that younger people are more technology-savvy than their older counterparts. It is an equally popular idea that our oldest generation—senior citizens—is so clueless about new technological developments that they are the most vulnerable to technology-based forms of victimization. The present article, however, demonstrates that these ideas are myths and that it is the young—not the old—who are most at risk of victimization when technology is involved. This should come as no surprise since the age–victimization curve mirrors rather closely the age–crime curve, where the risk of victimization typically peaks in late adolescence and early adulthood and follows a steady decline thereafter. The risks associated with technologically based forms of victimization—at least in general—are no different. The implications of dispelling these myths for criminological research as we move forward are discussed in the context of the nature of “risky” behaviors at different stages of the life course.
Measures of proactive and reactive criminal thinking were evaluated as putative mediators of the past crime‒future crime relationship in a group of 1,354 adjudicated delinquents. Analyses performed on total offending variety scores and aggressive offending frequency scores revealed that reactive but not proactive criminal thinking mediated the past crime‒future crime relationship. As in previous studies, proactive criminal thinking failed to correlate with prior criminal offending. These results have theoretical implications for continued development of the criminal thinking-mediated moral and control models of criminal lifestyle development and practical implications for effective treatment, management, and prevention of serious criminality.
While some studies find that criminal justice contact may deter future offending, another body of research indicates that contact with the criminal justice system can increase delinquency among youth. Although research has examined the relationship between punishment and offending, from a life-course perspective, we know little about between-individual and within-individual effects of punishment across time. Using a cross-lagged dynamic panel model, results from an analysis of four waves of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 demonstrate that arrest contributes to within-individual increases in delinquency across time even after baseline levels of delinquency are controlled. Between-individual results show that youth who were arrested experience significant increases in offending compared to youth never arrested even after accounting for prior offending. Finally, this study uncovers a “cumulative effect” of arrest in that each subsequent year the youth is arrested relates to increased offending irrespective of prior offending. Overall, findings suggest that arrest contributes to significant increases in delinquency even after baseline levels of offending are directly modeled.
Participation in risky lifestyles is a well-established predictor of victimization. Several variables have been identified as key predictors of risky activities (e.g., low self-control) but there may be additional sources not considered in the literature to date. We argue that perceptions of procedural unfairness represent a break in social control, thereby opening the door for participation in risky lifestyles that are conducive to victimization. Using three waves of data from the Gang Resistance Education and Training (GREAT) program, we demonstrated that police procedural injustice was positively associated with risky lifestyles, which partially mediated the relationship between procedural injustice and violent victimization. This study advances the literature by demonstrating that our understanding of victimization is enhanced by including procedural injustice into its explanation.
The last two decades have witnessed a rapid growth in research and theorizing about the desistance process, namely the causal mechanisms behind the termination or slowing of offending that frequently accompany adulthood. This flurry of scholarly activity has been spurred by both the ascendance of the life course paradigm of criminology, which examines patterns of criminal offending over the life span, but also by the very real practical demands of supporting the transitions of over 700,000 former prisoners released to their communities each year.
The field of desistance theory has expanded upon its original formulations that were largely (although not exclusively) based on White males and has recently turned to examining (1) the potential invariance of desistance processes for members of other groups and (2) the unique experiences of reentry and pathways to desistance for sub‐groups. In this essay, we review these recent developments, particularly as they relate to women, persons of color, and incarcerated youth. Finally, we turn to the intersectionality framework, which examines the social location of individuals within interlocking systems of oppression (e.g., race, class, gender, age, sexual orientation, and ability, among others). We conclude with some suggestions for how intersectionality could be used to expand the conceptual and practical boundaries of research on desistance and reentry.
Objective:
To assess how prosocial attachments to school and family may diminish the effects of violent victimization during adolescence on adverse outcomes in adulthood.
Study design:
We analyzed secondary data on 13,555 participants from waves 1 (1994-1995) and 3 (2001-2002) of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a nationally representative sample of US high school and middle school students. Adverse outcomes in adulthood included offending, alcohol problems, drug use, risky sexual behavior, violent victimization, depression, low self-esteem, suicidality, hospitalizations, sexually transmitted infections, extreme weight control, and obesity. Analyses were conducted separately for males and females.
Results:
Our multivariate regression analyses demonstrated that adolescent victimization is a significant predictor of a host of problems in adulthood. Nevertheless, attachment to school and to family meaningfully reduced the effect of victimization on nearly every adult outcome we assessed.
Conclusions:
Strong attachments to school and family in adolescence can reduce the long-term harms of violence on the lives of young persons. Incorporating this insight into regular clinical assessment could yield significant behavioral, health, and psychoemotional benefits for victims of violence.
We analyzed the prevalence of arrest (ages ranged from 24 to 34) across sex and race/ethnicity by drawing on nationally representative data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Findings revealed 30 % of U.S. adults (aged 24–34) reported being arrested at least once in their lifetime. Prevalence of lifetime arrest for males (43 %) was more than two times that of females (17 %). Arrest risk was not homogenous across racial/ethnic groups with 19 % of Asian/Pacific Islander respondents reporting an arrest, 29 % of White respondents reporting an arrest, 38 % Black respondents reporting an arrest, and 40 % of American Indian/Native Americans reporting an arrest. The current results support recent evidence gleaned from alternative sources but suggest arrest risk is not homogenous across sex or racial/ethnic categories.
Objectives. This study aimed to test situational theories of victimization by answering three research questions, namely to what extent victims are actually victimized while being exposed to risky situations, whether the relation between victimization and situational elements is causal, and which elements of a situation are risky. We distinguished the type of activity, the company that individuals keep, the place of the activity, and the time of the activity.
Methods. Data were collected among adolescents in The Hague, the Netherlands, using space-time budgets. These provided detailed information on situational elements for each hour across a period of four days. Multivariate fixed effects logit analyses were used to ensure that the results were not due to stable differences between individuals.
Results. A total of 55 individuals reported 63 incidents of victimization. Results confirmed most hypotheses. Especially the relation between delinquency and victimization was extraordinarily strong. Alcohol consumption, presence of peers, absence of authority figures, and being in a public place also increased the risk of victimization.
Conclusions. Confirming major victimization theories, victimization was shown to occur during and because of exposure to risky situations. The hypothesized elements of risky situations were shown to have independent effects on victimization.
Scholars have criticized the use of homicide clearance rates to measure police performance, as many incident- and jurisdiction-level characteristics beyond police control influence these rates. The current study estimated adjusted measures and rates of homicide arrest clearance, accounting for jurisdictional and incident characteristics related to investigation difficulty, for 85 agencies. Comparing agencies’ raw and adjusted measures indicates that 16% would be miscategorized as being above or below average in performance if the assessment of performance used raw rates. Adjusted homicide clearance rates, while not a singular indicator of overall success, offer a better police agency performance measure than raw rates.
Although numerous studies have found a strong relationship between offending and victimization risk, the etiology of this relationship is not well understood. Largely absent from this research is an explicit focus on neighborhood processes. However, theoretical work found in the subculture of violence literature implies that neighborhood street culture may help to account for the etiology of this phenomenon. Specifically, we should expect the magnitude of the victim–offender overlap to vary closely with neighborhood‐based violent conduct norms. This research uses waves 1 and 2 of the Family and Community Health Study (FACHS) to test the empirical validity of these notions. Our results show that the victim–offender overlap is not generalizeable across neighborhood contexts; in fact, it is especially strong in neighborhoods where the street culture predominates, whereas it is significantly weaker in areas where this culture is less prominent. These results indicate that neighborhood‐level cultural processes help to explain the victim–offender overlap, and they may cause this phenomenon to be context specific.
Objectives
The present study addresses whether unique or general processes lead to victimization across gendered pathways to crime. Specifically, the effects of low self-control and risky lifestyles—specified as various forms of offending and substance abuse—on violent victimization across developmental typologies for both men and women are examined.
Methods
Using data from three waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a two-stage cluster analysis is used to identify taxonomic groups for males and females that represent different pathways to crime. Multivariate negative binomial regression models are estimated to assess whether both self-control and risky lifestyles (e.g., criminal offending) are significant predictors of general forms of violent victimization across each identified cluster.
Results
Low self-control and risky lifestyles significantly predict violent victimization across each of the taxonomic groups identified in the data, suggesting that these causal processes are universal rather than unique to any particular gendered pathway.
Conclusions
Although inferences cannot be made for types of victimization beyond those observed in the study (e.g., intimate partner violence and sexual assault), the findings lend credence to the notion that self-control and risky lifestyles are critical to the study of violent victimization among men and women following different gendered pathways.
This article examines the life-history narratives of 25 successful ex-offenders professing Christianity as the source of their desistance. Unstructured in-depth life-history interviews from adult male desisters affirm use of a "feared self" and "cognitive shifts" regarding perceptions of illegal behavior. "Condemnation scripts" and "redemption narratives," however, differ radically from those uncovered in previous research. Stories of behavior change and identity transformation achieved through private religious practice and energetic church membership dominate the narratives. Findings suggest there are diverse phenomenologies of desistance and that by more narrowly tailoring research to explore subjectivities in the desistance process, important discrepancies in perceptions of agency and structure are revealed. Three prominent desistance paradigms-Making Good, Cognitive Transformation, and Identity Theory-are used to examine the narratives.
Official sanctioning of students by the criminal justice system is a long-hypothesized source of educational disadvantage, but its explanatory status remains unresolved. Few studies of the educational consequences of a criminal record account for alternative explanations such as low self-control, lack of parental supervision, deviant peers, and neighborhood disadvantage. Moreover, virtually no research on the effect of a criminal record has examined the ‘‘black box’’ of mediating mechanisms or the consequence of arrest for postsecondary educational attainment. Analyzing longitudinal data with multiple and independent assessments of theoretically relevant domains, the authors estimate the direct effect of arrest on later high school dropout and college enrollment for adolescents with otherwise equivalent neighborhood, school, family, peer, and individual characteristics as well as similar frequency of criminal offending. The authors present evidence that arrest has a substantively large and robust impact on dropping out of high school among Chicago public school students. They also find a significant gap in four-year college enrollment between arrested and otherwise similar youth without a criminal record. The authors also assess intervening mechanisms hypothesized to explain the process by which arrest disrupts the schooling process and, in turn, produces collateral educational damage. The results imply that institutional responses and disruptions in students’ educational trajectories, rather than social-psychological factors, are responsible for the arrest–education link.
The current study investigates the offending trajectories of juvenile sex offenders (JSOs) across and beyond adolescence. In doing so, the study examines the number, the rate, and the shape of nonsexual and sexual offending trajectories in a sample of JSOs followed retrospectively and prospectively from late childhood to adulthood. Using semiparametric group-based modeling, the study reveals the presence of five distinctive nonsexual offending and two sexual offending trajectories: adolescent-limited and high-rate slow desisters. The study does not find strong evidence of synchronicity between nonsexual and sexual trajectories, suggesting that the current taxonomy of antisocial behaviors may offer a limited perspective on sex offender types. Furthermore, sexual trajectories do not differ much across sex offender types, suggesting that the findings might be generalized to child and peer abusers. The study findings offer supporting evidence for the presence of two distinct JSO types with important implications for theory, research, and interventions.
Objectives
Drawing from lifestyle-routine activity and self-control perspectives, the causal mechanisms responsible for repeat victimization are explored. Specifically, the present study investigates: (1) the extent to which self-control influences the changes victims make to their risky lifestyles following victimization, and (2) whether the failure to make such changes predicts repeat victimization.
Methods
Two waves of panel data from the Gang Resistance Education and Training program are used (N = 1,370) and direct measures of change to various risky lifestyles are included. Two-stage maximum likelihood models are estimated to explore the effects of self-control and changes in risky lifestyles on repeat victimization for a subsample of victims (n = 521).
Results
Self-control significantly influences whether victims make changes to their risky lifestyles post-victimization, and these changes in risky lifestyles determine whether victims are repeatedly victimized. These changes in risky lifestyles are also found to fully mediate the effects of self-control on repeat victimization.
Conclusions
Findings suggest that future research should continue to measure directly the intervening mechanisms between self-control and negative life outcomes, and to conceptualize lifestyles-routine activities as dynamic processes.
Objectives
Drawing from general strain and self-control perspectives, the role of maladaptive coping (i.e., substance use) in the causal pathway between victimization and offending is explored. Specifically, the present study investigates: (1) the extent to which self-control influences substance use in response to victimization, and (2) whether victims with low self-control and who engage in substance use are more likely to commit violent offenses in the future.
Methods
Three waves of panel data from the Gang Resistance Education and Training program are used (N = 1,463), and negative binomial regression models are estimated to explore the interactive effects of low self-control, victimization, and substance use on violent offending.
Results
Victims with low self-control are more likely to engage in substance use post-victimization, and low self-control and substance use are found to exert significant conditional effects on the pathway between victimization and offending. These results remained robust even after controlling for prior violent offending, peer influences, prior substance use, and other forms of offending.
Conclusions
The causal pathway between victimization and offending can be explained by drawing upon key concepts drawn from self-control (i.e., how self-control shapes coping responses) and general strain (i.e., how those responses influence offending above and beyond self-control) theories, indicating that these two perspectives can and should be integrated more explicitly to explain the dynamics of victimization and offending.
Moffitt's developmental taxonomy of adolescence-limited and life-course-persistent offenders has received much empirical attention, with researchers focusing on the etiology and trajectory of offending between the two groups. Recently, Moffitt articulated a new hypothesis that has yet to be empirically assessed—that life-course-persistent offenders will be at high risk in midlife for poor physical and mental health, cardiovascular disease, and early disease morbidity. Using data from the Baltimore portion of the National Collaborative Perinatal Project, a longitudinal study of several thousand individuals followed from birth to ages 27 to 33, the authors test this hypothesis. We find that, compared to adolescence-limited offenders, life-course-persistent offenders are more likely to experience adverse physical and mental health outcomes. We also find that life-course-persistent offenders are more likely than their counterparts to be involved in antisocial lifestyles, which in turn increase the chances of adverse health outcomes. Future theoretical and empirical research directions are identified.
Gottfredson and Hirschi's recently introduced general theory of crime has received considerable empirical support. Researchers have found that low self-control, the general theory's core concept, is related to lawbreaking and to deviant behaviors considered by Gottfredson and Hirschi to be “analogous” to crime. In this article, we extend this research by assessing the effects of low self-control on crime and analogous behaviors and by using two distinct measures of self-control, an attitudinal measure and the analogous/behavior scale. Thus, following Gottfredson and Hirschi, we use analogous imprudent behaviors as outcomes of low self-control and as indicators of low self-control's effects on crime. We also examine an important but thus far neglected part of the theory: the claim that low self-control has effects not only on crime but also on life chances, life quality, and other social consequences. Consistent with the general theory, we found that both measures of self-control, attitudinal and behavioral, have effects on crime, even when controlling for a range of social factors. Further, the analysis revealed general support for the theory's prediction of negative relationships between low self-control and social consequences other than crime—life outcomes and quality of life.
This book is an excellent resource in examining the influence that community control can have on crime.
A growing literature suggests that juvenile arrests perpetuate offending and increase the likelihood of future arrests. The effect on subsequent arrests is generally regarded as a product of the perpetuation of criminal offending. However, increased rearrest also may reflect differential law enforcement behavior. Using longitudinal data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) together with official arrest records, the current study estimates the effects of first arrests on both reoffending and rearrest. Propensity score methods were used to control differences between arrestees and nonarrestees and to minimize selection bias. Among 1,249 PHDCN youths, 58 individuals were first arrested during the study period; 43 of these arrestees were successfully matched to 126 control cases that were equivalent on a broad set of individual, family, peer, and neighborhood factors. We find that first arrests increased the likelihood of both subsequent offending and subsequent arrest, through separate processes. The effects on rearrest are substantially greater and are largely independent of the effects on reoffending, which suggests that labels trigger “secondary sanctioning” processes distinct from secondary deviance processes. Attempts to ameliorate deleterious labeling effects should include efforts to dampen their escalating punitive effects on societal responses.
Students in both social and natural sciences often seek regression methods to explain the frequency of events, such as visits to a doctor, auto accidents, or new patents awarded. This book, now in its second edition, provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date account of models and methods to interpret such data. The authors combine theory and practice to make sophisticated methods of analysis accessible to researchers and practitioners working with widely different types of data and software in areas such as applied statistics, econometrics, marketing, operations research, actuarial studies, demography, biostatistics and quantitative social sciences. The new material includes new theoretical topics, an updated and expanded treatment of cross-section models, coverage of bootstrap-based and simulation-based inference, expanded treatment of time series, multivariate and panel data, expanded treatment of endogenous regressors, coverage of quantile count regression, and a new chapter on Bayesian methods.
Legacies of Crime explores the lives of seriously delinquent girls and boys who were followed over a twenty-year period as they navigated the transition to adulthood. In-depth interviews with these women and men and their children - a majority now adolescents themselves - depict the adults' economic and social disadvantages and continued criminal involvement, and in turn the unique vulnerabilities of their children. Giordano identifies family dynamics that foster the intergenerational transmission of crime, violence, and drug abuse, rejecting the notion that such continuities are based solely on genetic similarities or even lax, inconsistent parenting. The author breaks new ground in directly exploring - and in the process revising - the basic tenets of classic social learning theories, and confronting the complications associated with the parent's gender. Legacies of Crime also identifies factors associated with resilience in the face of what is often a formidable package of risks favoring intergenerational continuity.
Self-control theory has been one of the most scrutinized general frameworks of crime for over 20 years. A majority of evidence pertaining to the theory, however, is derived from samples of teenagers and young adults. Relatively little information exists regarding whether self-control explains offending among people in late adulthood. As such, the generality of the framework has yet to be fully examined. This study uses a representative sample of people aged 60 years and older from interviews conducted in Arizona and Florida. The current study tests two key propositions regarding the generality of the theory: (1) the extent to which self-control accounts for the relationship between demographic variables and criminal offending, and (2) the invariance thesis which stipulates that self-control will have a uniform effect on offending across social groups. The analyses reveal two findings regarding theoretical generality: (1) low self-control explains late-life criminal behavior but does not account for the relationship between offending and gender, and (2) low self-control has an invariant effect on offending across gender and race when measured behaviorally. Taken together, the analyses address important elements of the supposed generality of self-control theory and extend the framework's scope to the explanation of offending in late life.
Developmentalists suggest that adolescent criminal involvement encourages later life failure in the social domains of education, welfare, and risky sexual activities. Although prior research supports a link between crime and later life failure, relatively little research has sought to explain why this relationship exists. This research attempts to understand why crime leads to negative social outcomes by testing hypotheses derived from the perspectives of population heterogeneity and cumulative disadvantage. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, the results reveal that net of control variables and measures of population heterogeneity, adolescent criminal behavior consistently predicts school failure, being on welfare, and risky sexual activities. The findings also suggest that after controlling for delinquency, adolescent arrest negatively affects these factors. Furthermore, stable criminal traits and adolescent delinquency interact when predicting measures of poor social adjustment in early adulthood.
Summary
The probability of arrest while driving at a blood alcohol level over 0.10% was 0.0058 (about one in 200).
There is considerable interest in defining the relationship between the probability of being arrested for driving under the influence of intoxicants (DUI) and blood alcohol concentration (BAC)*. Such information, if accurately known, could be put to a variety of uses, including public information, police patrol management information, DUI patrol evaluation, and estimation of the number of drunken drivers on the road.
In surveys associated with the Alcohol Safety Action Projects (ASAP), thousands of persons have been interviewed and asked, among other questions, what they thought their chances were of being stopped by the police after having had too much to drink. The object of such a question is to measure the level of public awareness of enforcement of the DUI laws. Even those who pose the question do not know the answer, however; and such a question has no single answer unless the level of intoxication, or BAC, is specified. There have been no detailed studies to establish such probabilities. Previous estimates suggest that the probability of being arrested while staking a 10 mile trip with a BAC above 0.10% is about 0.0015†.1 Accurate knowledge of the probabilities of being arrested for DUI is necessary if a public education campaign against drunken driving is to retain the trust and confidence of the public.
This kind of knowledge could also prove to be a valuable police patrol management tool. The officer in charge of DUI patrols would have a standard against which to measure the performance of his unit.
In addition, if the probability of arrest for DUI under specific patrol conditions can be established with confidence, it should be possible—by patrolling a particular area and obtaining …
Chapter 1 Table of Contents Chapter 2 Preface Chapter 3 1 Basic Issues Chapter 4 2 The Criminal Behavior of Neighborhood Residents Chapter 5 3 Neighborhood Opportunities for Criminal Behavior Chapter 6 4 Neighborhood Dynamics and the Fear of Crime Chapter 7 5 The Neighborhood Context of Gang Behavior Chapter 8 6 Neighborhood-Based Responses to Crime: Policy Issues Chapter 9 Epilogue Chapter 10 Notes Chapter 11 References Chapter 12 Acknowledgments Chapter 13 Index Chapter 14 About the Author
The low self-control/risky lifestyles perspective posits that people deficient in self-control engage in certain risky behaviors that increase their exposure to motivated offenders in the absence of capable guardianship, which in turn elevates their risk of victimization. Using survey data from telephone interviews conducted in Florida and Arizona with individuals aged 60 and over, the current study tests whether this theoretical framework partially explains risky remote purchasing and identity theft victimization among older Internet users. Results from the two-stage probit models conform to expectations: Individuals with lower levels of self-control have a significantly higher probability of making a purchase after receiving an unsolicited email from a vendor with whom they have not previously done business. What is more, making a risky remote purchase significantly increases the probability of identity theft victimization. The findings not only speak to the generality of the low self-control/risky lifestyles perspective, but also indicate that older Internet users can reduce their victimization risk by taking specific precautions.
KEYWORDS: biosocial, assumptions, twinsIn their initial article, Burt and Simons (2014) laid out a range of specific criticismsof twin-based research. They argued that violations of the statistical assumptions thatunderpin this line of work result in upwardly biased estimates of heritability and down-wardlybiasedestimatesofenvironmentaleffects.AccordingtoBurtandSimons,thefind-ingsgeneratedfrombehavioralgeneticapproachesare“biologicallynonsensical”andare“misguided.” Indeed, Burt and Simons stated, without qualification, that an entire classof statistical models used to analyze twin data are “seriously flawed.” Because behavioralgenetic designs suffer from “fatal flaws,” they argued, twin-based research designs andtheir associated statistical methods should be put to an “end in criminology.”We examined their assertions carefully. We found that Burt and Simons (2014) cherry-picked the studies they cited in support of their position regarding the biasing impact ofthe equal environments assumption (EEA), something they openly admit in the onlinesupporting information of their rejoinder (Burt and Simons, 2015, this issue). Specifically,theystate,“wefocusedonarticlesthatshowedthattheEEAisnotavalidassumption”tosupport their claim that heritability estimates from behavioral genetic studies are chron-ically overestimated as a result of violations of this assumption. In fact, they relied pri-marily on a single source (Joseph, 1998, 2004, 2006, 2010) for their critique. Notably, wefound that they failed to cite the vast majority of the more than 60 studies that tested forviolations of the EEA—a body of work that is inconsistent with their claims.
This explanation of crime and deviance over the life course is based on the re-analysis of a classic set of data: Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck's mid-century study of 500 delinquents and 500 non-delinquents from childhood to adulthood. More than five years ago, Robert Sampson and John Laub dusted off 60 cartons of the Gluecks' data that had been stored in the basement of the Harvard Law School and undertook a lengthy process of recoding, computerizing, and reanalyzing it. On the basis of their findings, Sampson and Laub developed a theory of informal social control over the life course which integrates three ideas. First, social bonds to family and school inhibit delinquency in childhood and adolescence. Second, there is continuity in antisocial and deviant behaviour from childhood through adulthood across various dimensions, such as crime, alcohol abuse, divorce and unemployment. And finally, despite these continuities, attachment to the labour force and cohesive marriage sharply mitigate criminal activities. Sampson and Laub thus acknowledge the importance of childhood behaviours and individual differences, but reject the implication that adult social factors have little relevance. They seek to account for both stability and change in crime and deviance throughout the life course. "Crime in the making" challenges several major ideas found in contemporary theory and aims to provide an important new foundation for rethinking criminal justice policy.
Ample experimental evidence shows that the stigma of a prison record reduces employment opportunities (Pager, 2007). Yet background checks today uncover a much broader range of impropriety, including arrests for minor crimes never resulting in formal charges. This article probes the lesser boundaries of stigma, asking whether and how employers consider low-level arrests in hiring decisions. Matched pairs of young African American and White men were sent to apply for 300 entry-level jobs, with one member of each pair reporting a disorderly conduct arrest that did not lead to conviction. We find a modest but nontrivial effect, with employer callback rates about 4 percentage points lower for the experimental group than for the matched control group. Interviews with the audited employers suggest three mechanisms to account for the lesser stigma of misdemeanor arrests relative to felony convictions: 1) greater employer discretion and authority in the former case; 2) calibration of the severity, nature, and timing of the offense; and 3) a deeply held presumption of innocence, which contrasts the uncertainty of arrest with the greater certainty represented by convictions. In addition, personal contact and workplace diversity play important roles in the hiring process.
Concern about the risk of consumer fraud victimization among the elderly has led to programs that disseminate fraud prevention information and provide services. However, little is known about how seniors access such information or learn about or contact these programs. Drawing on scholarship on fraud, media consumption, and the fear of crime, this study contributes to efforts to understand and reduce consumer fraud victimization. Analyses of data from adults age 60 and above demonstrate that certain segments of the elderly population access a greater variety of information sources to learn about fraud prevention. In turn, such access is associated with greater fraud prevention program awareness and contact.
Purpose
History shows that one of the most important institutions to a society is its criminal justice system. The current study offers an analysis of the criminal justice system’s effectiveness in identifying, apprehending, convicting, and punishing high-level/persistent offenders.
Methods
Data were drawn from all four waves of the Add Health study. Survey-corrected univariate statistics and logistic regression models were estimated to provide population parameter estimates of the frequency of arrest and punishment for a group of persistent offenders compared to non-persistent offenders.
Results
Findings indicated persistent offenders (as identified by self-reported crime) were much more likely to be arrested (63% vs. 26%), accounted for more arrests (x¯ = 1.71 vs. x¯ = .53), were more likely to be convicted (39% vs. 11%), were more likely to be placed on probation (38% vs. 12%), and were more likely to be sent to jail (43% vs. 13%) compared to non-persistent offenders. These differences remained when levels of psychopathy, age, race, and sex were controlled in the logistic regression models.
Conclusions
These findings suggest the criminal justice system does a good job of identifying and punishing offenders who break the law more frequently.
This book is about differences in intellectual capacity among people and groups and what those differences mean for America's future.(preface) The major purpose of this book] is to reveal the dramatic transformation that is currently in process in American society---a process that has created a new kind of class structure led by a "cognitive elite," itself a result of concentration and self-selection in those social pools well endowed with cognitive abilities. Herrnstein and Murray explore] the ways that low intelligence, independent of social, economic, or ethnic background, lies at the root of many of our social problems. The authors also demonstrate the truth of another taboo fact: that intelligence levels differ among ethnic groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)(jacket)
Objective:
Driving under the influence (DUI) enforcement practices and sanctions contribute differentially to the certainty, swiftness, and severity of punishment, which are the key components of general deterrence theory. This study used a conjoint experiment to understand the decision-making process of potential DUI offenders and tested how variation in enforcement and legal punishment affects drinking and driving decisions. It sought to verify and quantify the unique deterrent effects of certainty, severity, and swiftness and to predict the rates of drinking and driving in different legal environments.
Methods:
One hundred twenty-one college seniors and graduate students at the University of Maryland participated in the Web-based conjoint experiment. They were randomly assigned to 4 blocks, each of which included 9 hypothetical scenarios composed of different levels of DUI enforcement and penalties. Respondents were asked to state their likelihood of drinking and driving under each scenario, as well as their estimated chance of being caught by the police for DUI.
Results:
Intensified enforcement, harsh jail penalty, and immediate long license suspension were found to be the strongest deterrents to drinking and driving. Alternative ways to get home were also important in reducing people's willingness to drive. These factors accounted for most of the attribute effect on the DUI decision, whereas delayed punishment due to judicial processing, fine penalty, and legal blood alcohol concentration (BAC) limit had negligible effects. For the personal characteristics, college seniors and those who had previously driven after drinking were more likely to choose to drink and drive, whereas those who expect a jail penalty for a DUI offense were less likely to drive.
Conclusions:
Our research confirmed and quantified certainty of punishment as the greatest deterrent to DUI, but it also indicated the equally important effect of a severe jail penalty. It provides evidence on the feasibility of using a conjoint experiment in future studies to understand the general driver population and, with the help of a simulation tool, to predict DUI decisions in different legal environments. Such predictions can be used to better inform policy decisions on developing targeted general deterrence programs in different communities.
Purpose
To compare theoretical explanations of the age-versatility curve including the hypotheses of: self-control theory stating that versatility is followed by specialization; taxonomic theory stating that adolescent-limited offenders are specialists and life-course offenders are versatile and orthogenetic theory stating that specialization and versatility are present in a large number of offender groups.
Methods
These explanations were tested with Israeli national population-based data on all first and subsequent juvenile offenders (n = 17,176) with 248,114 registered police contacts from 1996 to 2008.
Results
Semi-parametric group-based modeling identified two trajectory-groups that characterized the age-versatility curve of police contacts before first conviction. The trajectory-groups were labeled as versatility (n = 2,447; 14.2%), and specialization (n = 14,729; 85.8%). After controlling for 19 documented demographic, familial, and criminogenic risk factors, Cox regression showed that juvenile offenders in the versatility group were at increased risk of recidivism compared to offenders in the specialization group.
Conclusions
These results partially adhere with taxonomic theory than the remaining theories and indicate that assuming a trajectory of elevated pre-conviction versatility increases the risk of recidivism.
Longitudinal offending research has grown substantially in the last two decades. Despite this increased scholarly attention, longitudinal investigations of the effects of offending on physical health have not kept pace. Acknowledging the intersections of criminology, criminal justice, and public health, this study examines the relationship between violent offending and chronic diseases among a nationally representative longitudinal sample of young adults. Results suggest that variation across offender typologies (i.e. adolescence-limited, adult-onset, and consistent violence during youth and young adulthood) significantly predicts experiencing chronic disease in early adulthood, with the risk being the most pronounced among those individuals, who demonstrate violence continuity. Study limitations and policy implications are discussed.
Traditionally, criminologists have sought to understand how unemployment can lead to crime. Recently, however, a group of criminologists have begun to consider ways in which crime itself might lead to employment problems. One idea, advanced by Hagan, is that youths involved in crime do not develop the necessary social and human capital necessary to succeed in the legal labor market. A second idea, advanced by Sampson and Laub, is that the formal sanctions of the criminal justice system lead employers to avoid individuals who might otherwise succeed in the labor market. This article tests the competing implications of these two theories by using the method of “differences in differences” on the National Youth Survey. The evidence from this article suggests that arrest can lead to minor problems in the labor market above and beyond the impact of current or past criminal activity.
In this article, the authors present a life-course perspective on crime and a critique of the developmental criminology paradigm. Their fundamental argument is that persistent offending and desistance—or trajectories of crime—can be meaningfully understood within the same theoretical framework, namely, a revised agegraded theory of informal social control. The authors examine three major issues. First, they analyze data that undermine the idea that developmentally distinct groups of offenders can be explained by unique causal processes. Second, they revisit the concept of turning points from a time-varying view of key life events. Third, they stress the overlooked importance of human agency in the development of crime. The authors' life-course theory envisions development as the constant interaction between individuals and their environment, coupled with random developmental noise and a purposeful human agency that they distinguish from rational choice. Contrary to influential developmental theories in criminology, the authors thus conceptualize crime as an emergent process reducible neither to the individual nor the environment.
The life-course approach to criminal career research has devoted a good deal of attention to the generality or specialization of offending behavior. Typically, extant research demonstrates versatility on the part of offenders, yet such findings could be attributable, at least in part, to time and measurement aggregation bias. This work uses a temporally disaggregated and individualized measure of diversity in offending to determine whether the previous findings of generality hold up to shifts in methodology. Using data from a sample of serious felons, results indicated that the magnitude of specialization is greater than in prior studies. Regression results indicated that certain demographic and local life-circumstance variables are related to the extent of diversity. Theoretical and methodological implications are identified and discussed.
Because a wide variety of deviant behaviors are positively correlated with one another, some researchers conclude that all are manifestations of a single general tendency. The present analysis incorporated three waves of self-reports about heavy alcohol use, marijuana use, use of other illicit drugs, dangerous driving, and other criminal behavior for a nationally representative sample of high school seniors. A relatively stable general involvement in deviance accounted for virtually all association between different types of deviance, but the stability of each behavior could only be explained by equally important and stable specific influences. Thus, theories that treat different deviant behaviors as alternative manifestations of a single general tendency can account for some, but far from all, of the meaningful variance in these behaviors. The only significant influence of one type of deviance on another was that of marijuana use on later use of other illicit drugs. The causal model also revealed interpretable shifts in the associations among these behaviors over the four years following high school.