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Oxford Handbook Topics in Criminology and Criminal Justice
Abstract
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... En concreto, el modelo construccionista-estructuralista explicativo de la masculinidad desarrollado por Connell (2003),como crítica a la teoría del rol y/o papel sexual, dominante en las ciencias sociales del siglo XX. Dicho modelo, influenciado por los movimientos sociales (feminismo y activismo gay y lésbico), se aleja de posturas deterministas y estáticas y es considerado una de las perspectivas más influyentes para abordar la distribución desigual del poder entre los hombres, y entre hombres y mujeres (Messerschmidt, 2019;Messerschmidt & Tomsen, 2016). Ello atiende a dilucidar las diversas configuraciones de lo masculino en la realidad social y al hecho de que no existe sólo una forma de "ser hombre". ...
... Desde una visión constructivista-estructuralista, el crimen es, en sí mismo, un medio o recurso (práctica social) que construye identidad masculina en las diversas expresiones del delito y en los diversos ámbitos de acción de los sujetos. Así, los análisis deben considerar el equilibrio de fuerzas estructurales y la agencia humana (Messerschmidt & Tomsen, 2016), además de las dimensiones corporales, psíquicas, emocionales e históricas. ...
Resumen: Masculinidad y hombría, manera en que la sociedad configura un sistema sexo-genérico. Compren-den significados y creencias con efectos en los cuerpos, identidades, subjetividades, prácticas e interacciones, cuyas bases son las relaciones de poder. Tal visión representa uno de los sub-campos de estudio más recientes en la Criminología y en los estudios de género, donde se discierne una mul-tiplicidad de configuraciones de lo masculino, operantes en un contexto determinado. Concepción que surge del constructivismo-estructuralista en los noventa, misma que proporciona claridad para comprender el asunto del crimen y las conductas disruptivas-a razón de las discusiones que pro-pone y que habían permanecido ausentes en el pensamiento criminológico de buena parte del siglo XX-. El presente artículo examina la pertinencia que tiene el estudio de los hombres y la masculini-dad desde una perspectiva de género como articulación teórico-conceptual para el robustecimiento, actualización y análisis criminológico.
Abstract: Masculinity and manhood, the way in which a society configures a sex-gender system. Understands meanings and beliefs with effects on bodies, identities, subjectivities, practices and interactions, whose bases are power relationships. Such a vision represents one of the most recent sub-fields of study in criminology and gender studies where a multiplicity of configurations of the masculine, operating in a given context, are discerned. Conception that arises from constructivism-structuralist in the nineties, which provides clarity to understand the issue of crime and disruptive behavior-due to the discussions it proposes and that had remained absent in criminological thought for much of the century XX-. This article examines the relevance of the study of men and masculinity from a gender perspective as a theoretical-conceptual articulation for strengthening, updating and criminological analysis.
... Moreover, prospect theory posits that an individual places more weight on losses than on gains (Kahneman and Tversky 1979). As such, the loss of wealth is a strong motive for fraud (Efendi et al. 2007;Tomlinson and Pozzuto 2016). If executives feel entitled to the extra pay obtained from backdating (Hochstetler and Mackey 2016), stopping the practice may motivate more fraud by creating perceptions of unfairness and underpayment. ...
The 2002 enactment of Section 403(a) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX403) made option backdating less viable for firms. I examine whether the loss of the benefits obtained from option backdating is associated with more fraud after the enactment of SOX403. For firms suspected of backdating options (suspect firms), I find an increase in fraudulent financial reporting after the enactment of SOX403. The increase in fraud is more prominent for suspect firms more affected by SOX403. I also find an increase in insider trading profits from fraud for individuals who formerly benefited from option backdating. My study highlights an unintended consequence of SOX403. The opportunistic timing of executive option compensation appears to be replaced with fraudulent activities that are likely more value-destroying.
... It seems likely that the marked differences at age 7 derived from a developmental cascade of influences. Factors that promote gender differences in social behavior might include girls' maturational advantage in acquiring language skills sooner (Bornstein et al., 2004); boys' elevated risk for neurodevelopmental problems (Russell et al., 2014); gender role socialization at home and school (Martin et al., 2002); and children's own roles in the gender segregation of preschool peer groups, leading to what Maccoby (1999) characterized as two separate, gendered worlds of childhood. Cultural expectations for girls versus boys are influential. ...
Developmental theorists have made strong claims about the fundamental prosocial or aggressive nature of the human infant. However, only rarely have prosocial behavior and aggression been studied together in the same sample. We charted the parallel development of both behaviors from infancy to childhood in a British community sample, using a two‐construct, multimethod longitudinal design.
Data were drawn from the Cardiff Child Development Study (CCDS), a prospective longitudinal study of a volunteer sample of parents and their firstborn children. A sample of 332 mothers was recruited from National Health Service (NHS) prenatal clinics and general practice clinics in Wales, UK, between Fall of 2005 and Summer of 2007. Potential participants represented the full range of sociodemographic classifications of neighborhoods. Participating families were divided about equally between middle‐ and working‐class families, were somewhat more likely to have sons than daughters, and the majority (90%) were in a stable partnership. In response to standard categories recommended for use in Wales at the time, the majority (93%) of mothers reported themselves as Welsh, Scottish, English, or Irish; most others named a European or South Asian nationality.
Of the 332 families agreeing to participate, 321 mothers ( M age = 28 years) and 285 partners ( M age = 31 years) were interviewed during the pregnancy and 321 of the families contributed data at least once after the child's birth. After an initial home visit at 6 months, data collection occurred in four additional waves of testing when children's mean ages were approximately 1, 1.5, 2.5, and 7 years. Data collection alternated between family homes and Cardiff University. Of those families seen after the child's birth, 89% were assessed at the final wave of testing. Data collection ended in 2015.
Methods included direct observation, experimental tasks, and collection of reports from mothers, fathers, other relatives or family friends, and classroom teachers. Interactions with a familiar peer were observed at 1.5 years. Interactions with unfamiliar peers took place during experimental birthday parties at 1 and 2.5 years. At 7 years, parents were interviewed, parents and teachers completed questionnaires, and the children engaged in cognitive and social decision‐making tasks.
Based on reports from parents and other informants who knew the children well, individual differences in both prosocial behavior and aggression were evident in children. Both types of behavior showed stability across the second and third years. The association between prosocial behavior and aggression changed over time: at 1.5 years, they were not significantly related (the association approached zero), but they became negatively correlated by 3 years.
Different patterns were seen when children played with familiar versus unfamiliar peers. At 1.5 years, when children were observed at home with a familiar peer, prosocial behavior and aggression were unrelated, thus showing a pattern of results like that seen in the analysis of informants' reports. However, a different pattern emerged during the experimental birthday parties with unfamiliar peers: prosocial behavior and aggression were positively correlated at both 1 and 2.5 years, contributing to a general sociability factor at both ages.
Gender differences in prosocial behavior were evident in informants' reports and were also evident at the 1‐year (though not the 2.5‐year) birthday parties. In contrast, gender differences in both prosocial behavior and aggression were evident by 7 years, both in children's aggressive decision‐making and in their parents' and teachers' reports of children's aggressive behavior at home and school.
By age 7, children's aggressive decision‐making and behavior were inversely associated with their verbal skills, working memory, and emotional understanding. Some children had developed aggressive behavioral problems and callous‐unemotional traits. A few (12%) met diagnostic criteria for conduct disorder or oppositional‐defiant disorders, which had been predicted by early angry aggressiveness and lack of empathy for other people.
Taken together, the findings revealed a gradual disaggregation of two ways in which children interact with other people. Individual differences in both prosocial behavior and aggression revealed continuity over time, with gender differences emerging first in prosocial behavior, then in aggression.
Restrictions in the participant sample and the catchment area (e.g., all were first‐time parents; all were drawn from a single region in the United Kingdom) mean that it is not possible to generalize findings broadly. It will be important to expand the study of prosocial behavior and aggression in other family and environmental contexts in future work. Learning more about early appearing individual differences in children's approaches to the social world may be useful for both educational and clinical practice.
... The emphasis is placed on the expected reward for committing a crime, and other associated costs and benefits surrounding criminal activity (Akers & Sellers, 2013). This theory is at the heart of microeconomics and asserts when confronted with choices, individuals strive to achieve their goals in the most cost-effective way (Bernasco, 2014). ...
Crime is a serious concern from the very beginning of human civilization and several theoretical concepts are addressing the 'social crime' issue minimization crime without compromising harmonized economic activities and environmental safety. However, urbanization is very closely associated with social crime, for example, rapid urbanization which includes architectural planning accommodating housing and transportation, level of accessibility and other outdoor spaces can influence crime and fear of delinquency to the city dwellers. This review explored the relationship between crime and urbanization from the existing theoretical concepts of crime in urban planning, design and development viewpoints. We also discussed the applications of theoretical concepts in urban planning processes to minimize the crime and its possible prevention strategies. More precisely, place-based theoretical concepts of crime depict the urban socio-physical environment with socially disorganized locations of the city and the causes of social disorder and pave a way for the local government to take and implement strategic plans for ensuring good governance of the city. These concepts also demonstrate crime pattern, hotspots formation, causes-effects and how to prevent crime hotspots. Thus, taking these concepts into consideration, a significant portion of crime can be reduced in modern planned urbanization. Besides, continuous refinement of 1 st , 2 nd , and 3 rd generation concepts of crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) is worth considering in urban planning and design process preventing crime and safe urban environment initiative. Finally, further studies are needed to comprehend crime avoidance actions in urban planning and design process for safe urban life, particularly in developing countries.
... Accordingly, if judges systematically sentenced certain types of offenders to country jails rather than state prisons, the implementation of this law may have impacted the results of the current study. However, as only 4 percent of eligible offenders received sentences under this program by 2012, it is unlikely that the program substantially altered the results (Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing, 2013;Ulmer & Laskorunsky, 2016). ...
Former prisoners have a higher than expected risk of death following release from incarceration. However, little is known about the specific risk factors for post-release mortality among former prisoners. The current study uses a unique set of measures obtained from administrative records from Pennsylvania to examine demographic, custodial, behavioral, and criminal history factors that impact mortality risk following release from incarceration. Moreover, this study is the first to assess whether risk factors for post-release mortality are consistent or variable across race and ethnicity. Using data from the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections and mortality records from the Pennsylvania Department of Health we find several demographic, custodial, behavioral, and criminal history measures are related to post-release mortality risk. Moreover, while most risk factors for mortality are generally consistent across race and ethnicity, we find evidence that some custodial and criminal history factors vary by race and ethnicity.
The journey to drug crime literature has found that, in cities, Black people travel shorter distances from their homes before being arrested relative to White people. Per race and rationality theory, the racialization of space shapes the decision-making processes of people arrested for drug offenses. Because residential segregation patterns and racialized social structures differ across levels of urbanization, this study uses negative binomial regression models to evaluate Black-White differences in journeys to crime for drug possessions, and the study assesses socioeconomic and opportunity characteristics of offense locations at the micro-level using drug arrest reports across the State of Delaware. We find that travel distances and predictors of offense locations differ across geographic areas (i.e., small cities, suburban areas, small towns, rural areas, and touristic rural areas). A place’s racial composition, concentrated disadvantage, and opportunity characteristics differently impact offense locations across geographic areas. Accordingly, in studying journeys to crime, researchers should consider the various ways that race shapes constructions of crime and place across the rural–urban continuum.
The drug/violence relationship has been a recurrent topic of interest in criminology and sociology. This interest began with the crack epidemic in the 1980s and continues due to the consolidation and functioning of the cocaine markets of Latin American drug trafficking organizations. We approach the drug/violence relationship in Pereira (Colombia) which is strategic for the global cocaine market and for the Colombian domestic market. This city has an average homicide rate of 38.5 per 100,000 inhabitants (2010–2019). To test the drug/violence relationship, we used Goldstein’s systemic violence theory and Zimring and Hawkins’ contingent causality theory. We analyze the influence of socioeconomic and drug trafficking variables on homicides between the years 2010 and 2019. Our dataset comes from official Colombian government sources. We performed multivariate regression modeling through structural equation modeling with partial least squares (PLS-SEM). Our model was consistent and obtained statistical significance for all years, resulting in a good approximation to the study of the phenomenon. Based on the evidence, we can affirm that there is a relationship among violence/drug trafficking/socioeconomic disadvantages, thus confirming the contingent causation theory.
Two countries set their enforcement noncooperatively to deter native and foreign individuals from committing a crime in their territory. Crime is mobile, ex ante (migration) and ex post (fleeing), and criminals hiding abroad after committing a crime in a country must be extradited. When extradition is not too costly, countries overinvest in enforcement: insourcing foreign criminals is more costly than paying the extradition cost. When extradition is sufficiently costly, instead, significant enforcement may induce criminals to flee the country whose law they infringed on. The fear of paying the extradition cost enables the countries to coordinate on the efficient outcome.
Een recente rehabilitatietheorie, het 'Good Lives Model' (GLM), stelt dat interventies die gericht zijn op een hoger welzijn, het recidiverisico duurzamer kunnen verlagen door de belofte van een gelukkiger en prosociaal leven, in plaats van louter een minder risico-vol leven. Hoewel de GLM-theorie veelbelovend is, is er nog weinig empirisch onderzoek verricht naar de onderliggende assumpties, de toepasbaarheid en de mogelijke effecten van dit model. Specifiek onderzoek naar het GLM bij jongeren staat nog meer in de kin-derschoenen. Daarom onderzochten we de twee etiologische basisassumpties van het GLM in een grote groep adolescenten van 14 tot en met 18 jaar uit de algemene populatie (n=5.776), aan de hand van zelfrapportagevragenlijsten omtrent welzijn, primaire levensbehoeften en delinquentie. Uit de resultaten blijkt dat een verminderd subjectief ervaren globaal welzijn gerelateerd is aan delinquent gedrag. Vooral de primaire levens-behoeften aan verbondenheid en werken aan een financieel stabiele toekomst lijken belangrijk als doelen voor interventies gericht op rehabilitatie van jeugddelinquenten.
This article analyses the finances for and the finances from corporate bribery in international business transactions and how they are organized. Transnational corporate bribery involves non-criminal commercial enterprises that operate in licit markets but that use corrupt means to win or maintain business contracts in foreign jurisdictions. This article first considers what needs to be financed, how much finance is needed, and how the bribes can be generated and distributed. Second, the article considers the different forms of proceeds that emerge out of the bribery, how offenders must conceal the derivation of funds from these crimes while also retaining control over them, and how they must overcome particular obstacles. Finally, the article discusses responses to the proceeds of bribery and related anti-money laundering provisions, before analysing actual and potential mechanisms for intervening with the finances for and from transnational corporate corruption.
The laws on race in the United Kingdom are quite extensive and involve some legal complexities as well as raising issues of principle, policy and practice. In this chapter there is room only for an overview, but it may be worthwhile to consider how policy on race has been translated into law in the United Kingdom, some thirty years after specific legislation was first enacted.
This article analyses the finances for and the finances from corporate bribery in international business transactions and how they are organised. Transnational corporate bribery involves non-criminal commercial enterprises that operate in licit markets but that use corrupt means to win or maintain business contracts in foreign jurisdictions. This article first considers what needs to be financed, how much finance is needed, and how the bribes can be generated and distributed. Second, the article considers the different forms of proceeds that emerge out of the bribery, how offenders must conceal the derivation of funds from these crimes while also retaining control over them, and how they must overcome particular obstacles. Finally, the article discusses responses to the proceeds of bribery and related anti-money laundering provisions, before analysing actual and potential mechanisms for intervening with the finances for and from transnational corporate corruption.
Drug courts have been used in the criminal justice system to treat substance use disorders since 1989. This study evaluates a drug court in Indiana, focusing specifically on the most predictive variables for being terminated from the program and comparing recidivism patterns of drug court and probation participants. Participants were most likely to be terminated from drug court if they did not have a high school diploma or equivalent at admission, were not employed or a student at admission, identified cocaine as a drug of choice, had more positive drug tests, had a violation within the first 30 days of the program, and had a criminal history. Additional findings suggest that drug court is more effective than probation at reducing criminal recidivism rates for offenders with substance use disorders. Implications for drug court practice and future research are discussed.
In this review, we provide a descriptive and detailed review of intervention programs for intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrators and survivor-victims. Given the extensive personal, interpersonal, and societal costs associated with IPV, it is essential that services being offered
by the criminal justice, mental health, and medical communities have requisite empirical support to justify their implementation. The review involved a detailed summary of all studies published since 1990 using randomized or quasi-experimental designs that compared an active intervention program
to a relevant comparison condition. These studies included 20 studies investigating the effectiveness of “traditional” forms of batterer intervention programs (BIPs) aimed at perpetrators of IPV, 10 studies that investigated the effectiveness of alternative formats of BIPs, 16
studies of brief intervention programs for IPV victim-survivors, and 15 studies of more extended intervention programs for IPV victim-survivors. Interventions for perpetrators showed equivocal results regarding their ability to lower the risk of IPV, and available studies had many methodological
flaws. More recent investigations of novel programs with alternative content have shown promising results. Among interventions for victim-survivors of IPV, a range of therapeutic approaches have been shown to produce enhancements in emotional functioning, with the strongest support for cognitive-behavioral
therapy (CBT) approaches in reducing negative symptomatic effects of IPV. Supportive advocacy in community settings has been shown to reduce the frequency of revictimization relative to no-treatment controls, although rates of revictimization remain alarmingly high in these studies. Brief
interventions for victim-survivors have had more complex and less consistently positive effects. Several studies have found significant increases in safety behaviors, but enhanced use of community resources is often not found. It remains unclear whether brief safety interventions produce longer
term reduction in IPV revictimization. Discussion summarizes the general state of knowledge on interventions for IPV perpetrators and victim-survivors and important areas for future research.
Background:
Driving under the influence (DUI) is a major cause of death and disability. Although a broad array of programs designed to curb DUI incidents are currently offered to both first-time and recidivist DUI offenders, existing evaluations of the effectiveness of these programs have reported mixed results.
Objective:
To synthesize the results of DUI program evaluations and determine the strength of the available evidence for reducing recidivism for different types of programs.
Methods:
A systematic review of all EBSCO databases, EMBASE, PubMed, ProQuest, Sociological Abstracts and TRIS was conducted to identify evaluations of treatments/interventions to prevent DUI offenses. Additional articles were identified from reference lists of relevant articles.
Results:
A total of 42 relevant studies were identified by the search strategy. Of these, 33 utilized non-experimental evaluation designs or reported insufficient data to allow effect sizes to be calculated, making meta-analysis unfeasible. Evaluations of several different program types reported evidence of some level of effectiveness.
Conclusion:
Because of the general lack of high quality evidence assessing the effectiveness of DUI prevention programs, it is not possible to make conclusive statements about the types of programs that are likely to be most effective. Nonetheless, there was some evidence to support the effectiveness of programs that utilize intensive supervision and education. There is a need for future evaluations to adopt more scientifically rigorous research designs to establish the effects of these programs.
This study aimed to investigate the case linkage principles, behavioural consistency and distinctiveness, with a sample of serial car thieves. Target selection, acquisition, and disposal behaviours, as well as geographical and temporal behaviours, were examined. The effects of temporal proximity and offender expertise were also investigated as moderating factors of behavioural consistency. As in previous case linkage research, geographical and some target selection behaviours were able to predict whether crime pairs are linked or unlinked at a statistically significant level. Crucially, it was also found that temporal behaviours demonstrate a significant capability to predict linkage status, a variable which has never before been applied to the prediction of linkage in serial car theft. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that changing the operationalisation of the behavioural domains can affect the results obtained. No support was found for the moderation of behavioural consistency on the basis of temporal proximity or expertise. Overall, the results support previous case linkage studies, furthering their practical applicability within the criminal justice system. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
In prospective longitudinal studies of juvenile offenders, the presence of multiple developmental pathways of antisocial behaviors has consistently been identified. An "antisocial" type of juvenile sex offender (JSO) has also been identified; however, whether antisocial JSOs follow different antisocial pathways has not been examined. In the current study, differences in antisocial pathways within JSOs and between JSOs and juvenile non-sex offenders (JNSOs) were examined. Data on Canadian male incarcerated adolescent offenders were used to identify whether behavioral antecedents differed within JSOs and between JSOs (n = 51) and JNSOs (n = 94). Using latent class analysis (LCA), three behavioral groups were identified. For both JSOs and JNSOs, there was a Low Antisocial, Overt, and Covert group. Overall, there were important within-group differences in the behavioral patterns of JSOs, but these differences resembled differences in the behavioral patterns of their JNSO counterpart. Risk factors including offense history, abuse history, and family history were more strongly associated with the Overt and Covert groups compared with the Low Antisocial group. Implications for JSO assessment practices were discussed.
Using data from the Montreal Longitudinal Study, the current study investigates whether age of onset is informative about the dynamic aspects of violent behaviors in males over time, in terms of violent offending frequency, crime trajectory, and, most importantly, crime specialization in violence. Self-reported data at three time points were used. Group-based modeling showed much heterogeneity in the shape of violent trajectories, which were associated with various crime specialization patterns over time. Most importantly, the number and shape of these trajectories were not accounted for by overall age of onset. Study findings show that while age of onset, especially the age of onset of violence, might be informative of the likelihood of committing a violent crime in middle adolescence, it is not informative about the dynamic process of violent offending. Of importance, violent adult offenders specializing in such crimes in adulthood were not necessarily early starters.
A number of methodological techniques and theoretical propositions have been used in the extant literature on specialization/versatility. These various methodologies and theories have created an ongoing debate that has revealed several areas of focus that need to be addressed. The current study applies Moffitt’s (1993) taxonomy and uses a series of random effects logistic regression models to estimate the impact of a violent, property, drug, or other prior offense on the commission of a subsequent offense across different types of criminal careers. Specifically, we attempt to determine the odds a prior offense has on predicting a subsequent offense among four offender trajectories, controlling for various aspects of the criminal career and demographic characteristics. Findings suggest that the odds of committing any offense type over the life course are greater if the prior offense was of the same type. This relationship remains consistent across offender trajectories.
Little is known about the stability of modus operandi (MO) in sexual offending. The authors studied a cohort of all sexual offenders released from prison into the Swedish community during the years from 1993 to 1997 (N = 1,303) and analyzed sexual reoffenders’ MO in terms of victim choice, offense nature, and severity, comparing prior offenses with those registered during an average 6-year follow-up. Stability in MO, explored with Cohen’s Kappa and Odds Ratios (ORs) as measures of agreement across registered sexual offenses, was high, specifically with respect to victim choice. Results are discussed in relation to sexual deviance and opportunity structure. The authors argue that assessment and management of sexual recidivism risk might benefit from information on offense MO. Furthermore, the results could inform police investigative strategies, such as linking multiple offenses committed by an unidentified offender.
Much of the knowledge base on offense specialization indicates that, although there is some (short-term) specialization, it exists amidst much versatility in offending. Yet this general conclusion is drawn on studies using very different conceptualizations of specialization and emerges with data primarily through the first two to three decades of life. Using data on a sample of Dutch offenders through age 72 years, this article introduces and applies a new method for studying individual offender specialization over the life course. The results indicate that although, in general, individual offending patterns over the life course are diverse, there is also evidence of an age—diversity curve. Linking offense frequency trajectories to the estimated diversity index, the authors also examine distinct specialization patterns across unique trajectory groups. Implications for theory and research are outlined.
Burglary victimization is associated with a temporary elevated risk of future victimization for the same property and nearby properties. Previous research suggests that often the initial and subsequent burglaries involve the same offenders. This paper tests this assertion, using data on detected residential burglaries during the period 1996—2004 in The Hague and its environs, in the Netherlands. It demonstrates that pairs of detected burglaries occurring in close proximity in space and time are much more likely to involve the same offenders than pairs that are not so related. Topics for future research and implications for the detection of burglaries are addressed.
Developmental criminology quantifies dynamic concepts for capturing important ingredients of change and stability. It distinguishes between continuity and stability and thereby recognizes that manifestations of deviancy in the course of individuals' lives may change, while the underlying propensity for deviancy may remain stable. It considers the course of offending in other developmental contexts, such as life transitions and developmental covariates, which may mediate the developmental course of offending. It aims at generating new knowledge about the etiology and precursors of offending, which may be relevant for much-needed improvements in future prevention and intervention programs. Activation, aggravation, and desistance are the three primary developmental processes of offending. Developmental criminology poses new questions and therefore encourages innovation in analytic methods that may help to describe and explain longitudinal changes in individuals' offending. These processes do not occur merely as a function of individuals' chronological age. It is important to search for variables that determine or mediate the variation of behavior with age. It is possible to operationalize individuals' positions within a sequence, distinguishing between individuals' qualitative and quantitative changes in offending.
This study explored the role of age at release on the risk of reoffending using a sample of sex offenders. It examined whether the risk of reoffending, assessed using actuarial tools, should be adjusted according to the offender's age at the time of release. The sample comprised 553 offenders, all of whom were consecutive admissions to a Canadian federal penitentiary. Scores on the Static-99 as well as age at release were included in successive nested prediction models using Cox-regression. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and Allison's R2 were computed to assess the predictive accuracy of the models and the strength of the association between the covariate measures of general and violent/sexual reoffending. Results showed that overall predictive accuracy observed across models was fair at best. Generally, age of onset and age at release improved the prediction accuracy over and above the scores on the Static-99. In fact, by itself, age at release showed a predictive accuracy comparable to that of the actuarial tool. The results suggest that risk assessors should adjust the risk of reoffending based on the offender's age at release. The implications of this study are discussed in light of the age-crime curve literature and the risk management of sex offenders in the community.
Research has consistently indicated that most offenders demonstrate diversity over the life course. Even so, recent work suggests that offenders tend to illustrate specialization in the short-term, though this specialization diminishes as the “time window” for examining an offending career increases. To examine why this pattern emerges, the authors investigate the extent to which opportunity structures, as defined by local life circumstances, predict offense specialization/diversity relative to individuals' enduring propensities to offend. The results suggest that both individual-level propensity, as well as changes in local life circumstances (e.g., employment, marriage, drug and alcohol use), impact patterns of offense specialization/ versatility in the short term. The implications of these results for life-course theories of crime, with a particular focus on integrating opportunity and propensity models of criminal behavior, are discussed.
There is a belief that criminal profilers can predict a criminal's characteristics from crime scene evidence. In this article, the authors argue that this belief may be an illusion and explain how people may have been misled into believing that criminal profiling (CP) works despite no sound theoretical grounding and no strong empirical support for this possibility. Potentially responsible for this illusory belief is the information that people acquire about CP, which is heavily influenced by anecdotes, repetition of the message that profiling works, the expert profiler label, and a disproportionate emphasis on correct predictions. Also potentially responsible are aspects of information processing such as reasoning errors, creating meaning out of ambiguous information, imitating good ideas, and inferring fact from fiction. The authors conclude that CP should not be used as an investigative tool because it lacks scientific support.
The present study aimed to identify dimensions of variation in serial homicide and to use these dimensions to behaviourally link offences committed by the same offender with each other. The sample consisted of 116 Italian homicides committed by 23 individual offenders. Each offender had committed at least two homicides. As some offenders had worked together and some murders involved more than one victim, there were 155 unique pairings of offenders and victims. Dichotomous variables reflecting crime features and victim characteristics were coded for each case. Using Mokken scaling, a nonparametric alternative to factor analysis, seven dimensions of variation were identified. Five of the dimensions described variations in the motivation for the killings. Three of these were concerned with aspects of instrumental motivation whereas two of the motivational scales described variations in sexual motivation. The two remaining dimensions dealt with the level of planning evident in the crime scene behaviour of the offender. Two dimensions were identified: one consisting of behaviours suggesting a higher level of control and another describing impulsiveness. Using discriminant function analysis with the dimensions as independent variables and the series an offence belonged to as dependent variable, 62.9% of the cases could be correctly assigned to the right series (chance expectation was 6.2%). The implications of the results for serial homicide investigations are discussed.
Most approaches to offender profiling depend on a naïve trait perspective, in which the task of predicting personality characteristics from crime scene actions relies on a model that is nomothetic, deterministic, and nonsituationist. These approaches rest on two basic premises: behavioral consistency across offenses and stable relationships between configurations of offense behaviors and background characteristics. Research supports the former premise but not the latter. Contemporary trait psychology reveals that this is probably due to the fact that Person X Situation interactions have an effect on offense behavior. When profiling reports rely on a nalve trait approach, such reports should be used with caution in criminal investigations and not at all as evidence in court until research demonstrates its predictive validity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Purpose. The current study tests whether existing behavioural case linkage findings from the United Kingdom (UK) will replicate abroad with a sample of residential burglaries committed in Finland. In addition, a previously discussed methodological issue is empirically explored.
Methods. Seven measures of behavioural similarity, geographical proximity, and temporal proximity are calculated for pairs of burglary crimes committed by 117 serial burglars in Finland. The ability of these seven measures to distinguish between pairs of crimes committed by the same offender (linked pairs) and different offenders (unlinked pairs) is tested using logistic regression and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. Two methodologies for forming the unlinked pairs are compared; one representing the ‘traditional’ approach used by research and, the other, a new approach that represents a potentially more realistic and statistically sound approach to testing case linkage.
Results. A wider range of offender behaviours were able to distinguish between linked and unlinked crime pairs in the current Finnish sample than in previous UK-based research. The most successful features were the kilometre-distance between crimes (the intercrime distance), the number of days separating offences (temporal proximity), and a combination of target, entry, internal, and property behaviours (the combined domain). There were no statistically significant differences between the two methodological approaches.
Conclusions. The current findings demonstrate that a wider range of offender behaviours can be used to discriminate between linked and unlinked residential burglary crimes committed in Finland than in the UK. The use of a more realistic and statistically sound methodology does not lead to substantial changes in case linkage findings.
This paper considers a wide class of latent structure models. These models can serve as possible explanations of the observed relationships among a set of m manifest polytomous variables. The class of models considered here includes both models in which the parameters are identifiable and also models in which the parameters are not. For each of the models considered here, a relatively simple method is presented for calculating the maximum likelihood estimate of the frequencies in the m way contingency table expected under the model, and for determining whether the parameters in the estimated model are identifiable. In addition, methods are presented for testing whether the model fits the observed data, and for replacing unidentifiable models that fit by identifiable models that fit. Some illustrative applications to data are also included.
Crime and Everyday Life, Fourth Edition, provides an illuminating glimpse into roots of criminal behavior, explaining how crime can touch us all in both small and large ways. This innovative text shows how opportunity is a necessary condition for crime to occur, while exploring realistic ways to reduce or eliminate crime and criminal behavior by removing the opportunity to complete the act. Encouraging students to take a closer look at the true nature of crime and its effects on their lives, author Marcus Felson and new co-author Rachel L. Boba (an expert on crime prevention, crime analysis and mapping, and school safety) maintain the book's engaging, readable, and informative style, while incorporating the most current research on criminal behavior and routine activity theory. The authors emphasize that routine daily activities set the stage for illegal acts, thus challenging conventional wisdom and offering students a fresh perspective, novel solutions for reducing crime … and renewed hope. New and Proven Features Includes new coverage of gangs, bar problems, and barhopping; new discussion of the dynamic crime triangle; and expanded coverage of technology, Internet fraud, identity theft, and other Internet pitfalls; The now-famous “fallacies about crime” are reduced to nine and are organized and explained even more clearly than in past editions; Offers updated research on crime as well as new examples of practical application of theory, with the most current crime and victimization statistics throughout; Features POP (Problem-Oriented Policing) Center guidelines and citations, including Closing Streets and Alleys to Reduce Crime, Speeding in Residential Areas, Robbery of Convenience Stores, and use of the Situational Crime Prevention Evaluation Database; Updated “Projects and Challenges” at the end of each chapter Intended Audience This supplemental text adds a colorful perspective and enriches classroom discussion for courses in Criminological Theory, Introduction to Criminal Justice, and Introductory Criminology.
Over the last twenty years, numerous studies have proposed that various deviant behaviours are part of a latent construct labeled "general deviance". Two objectives are pursued in this study. The first objective was the cross-cultural replication of the presence oj the construct of general deviance for French-speaking adjudicated boys. The second objective was to explore the question of the stability of general deviance over two decades: the seventies and the nineties. The results of the confirmatory factor analysis for both age groups and for both decades support the presence of a construct of general deviance.
Criminal careers have long occupied the imaginations of criminologists. Since the 1986 publication of the National Academy of Sciences report on criminal careers and career criminals, a variety of theoretical, empirical, and policy issues have surfaced. Data on key criminal career dimensions of prevalence, frequency, specialization, and desistance have raised theoretical questions regarding the patterning of criminal activity over the life course. Recent research has identified important methodological issues, including the relationship between past and future criminal activity, and potential explanations for this relationship: state dependence and persistent heterogeneity. Advanced statistical techniques have been developed to address these challenges. Criminal career research has identified important policy issues such as individual prediction of offending frequency and career duration, and has shifted the focus toward the interplay between risk and protective factors.
The present study examines consistency of crime behaviour among 347 sexual assaults committed by 69 serial sex offenders. This individual behaviour approach—the so-called signature approach—reveals which features of crime behaviour are consistent across a series and which features are not. The consistency scores were calculated using the Jaccard's coefficient. The results of this study indicate that there are some crime features of a serial sexual assault that can be useful for the purpose of linkage. Another important finding is that consistency scores for different variables within the same category can differ substantially. Moreover, serial sex offenders are more likely to be consistent in their environmental crime features when they are also consistent in their behavioural features, and vice versa. Serial sex offenders are also more likely to be consistent in the behavioural features of their assaults as the crime series gets longer. The implications of the results are discussed in relation to both research and practise
A basic assumption underlying current public policy and crime-control efforts is that sex offenders are highly specialized and persistent. Using national data on about 10,000 sex offenders released from prison in 1994, this study explored this assumption by comparing the arrest patterns and cycles of sex offenders and other offenders. As a group and across various measures, sex offenders had low levels of specialization and persistence in offending in absolute and relative terms. Similar conclusions were reached when specific types of sex offenders (e.g., rapists, child molesters) were compared with other particular offenders (e.g., robbers, burglars, drug offenders), but the results were more measure dependent. Even among persistent serial sex offenders, rapists and child molesters were found to specialize only within a more predominant pattern of versatility across their criminal careers. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for future research and current public policy that are predicated on assumed specialization and persistence among sex offenders.
When relying on crime scene behaviours to link serial crimes, linking accuracy may be influenced by the measure used to assess across-crime similarity and the types of behaviours included in the analysis. To examine these issues, the present study compared the level of linking accuracy achieved by using the simple matching index (S) to that of the commonly used Jaccard's coefficient (J) across themes of arson behaviour. The data consisted of 42 crime scene behaviours, separated into three behavioural themes, which were exhibited by 37 offenders across 114 solved arsons. The results of logistic regression and receiver op-erating characteristic analysis indicate that, with the exception of one theme where S was more effective than J at discriminating between linked and unlinked crimes, no significant differences emerged between the two similarity measures. In addition, our results suggest that thematically unrelated behaviours can be used to link crimes with the same degree of accuracy as thematic-ally related behaviours, potentially calling into the question the importance of theme-based approaches to behavioural linkage analysis.
This study tackles one of the key aspects of the criminal career, the age of onset. In criminology and related disciplines, age of onset has become an important theoretical concept with growing policy and practical implications for criminal justice decision making. We claim here that the age of onset, as measured with criminal justice data, provides a distorted view on the actual onset of offending. We further argue that age of onset based on official data of offending does not take into consideration the offender's ability to avoid and/or delay detection. To illustrate this, we examine the onset of sex offending in adult male sex offenders. Official data, police data, and victim's account were analyzed to compare and contrast the official and actual age of onset. On average, it was found that there is a gap of about seven years between actual and official age of onset in sex offending. For the most part, while the actual age of onset does not vary across sex offender types, it does for the official age of onset, suggesting differential investment in detection avoidance across offenders. Further, the findings show that close to 20% of sex offenders have already desisted or are in the process of desisting by the time they are first charged for their sex crime.
We analyze month-to-month variations in offending and life circumstances of convicted felons to understand change in criminal behavior. We extend previous applications of social control theory by considering whether local life circumstances that strengthen or weaken social bonds influence offending over relatively short periods of time. We seek to determine whether formal and informal mechanisms of social control affect the likelihood of committing nine major felonies. We employ a hierarchical linear model that provides a within-individual analysis as we explore factors that determine the pattern of offending. The results suggest that meaningful short-term change in involvement in crime is strongly related to variation in local life circumstances.
Purpose: The current study examines significant variations in criminal achievement across sex offenders. To examine the "successful" sex offender, the study proposes a concept of achievement in sexual offending defined as the ability to maximise the payoffs of a crime opportunity while minimizing the costs. Methods: The study is based on a sample of convicted adult male sex offenders using retrospective longitudinal data. Results: The study findings show a wide variation in criminal achievement, a variation that is not correlated with the severity of sentences meted out or the actuarial risk scores obtained by these offenders. Those offenders who specialize in sex crimes were shown to be the most productive and least detected offenders. Two types of successful offenders emerge, the first relying on his conventional background in targeting a victim that can be repeatedly abused for a long period without detection. The second is a younger offender that is successful in the sense of being able to complete aggressions on multiple victims. Conclusions: Results suggest that the successful sex offender is not "detected" once he enters the criminal justice system, nor is he handled in a way that may deter him from sexually reoffending in the future.
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.
A criminal career may consist of a single, undiscovered, venial lapse or a high level of sustained involvement in serious crime. Modern criminal career research derives largely from policy concerns about the likely crime preventive effects of incapacitative sanctions. Consequently, criminal career research tends to be more concerned with sustained than with venial criminal careers. If a small number of individuals commits a disproportionate number of serious criminal acts and if they can be identified and confined early in their careers, the argument goes, significant numbers of serious criminal offenses could be prevented. The leading criminal career research, much of it unpublished, has produced useful results, but cannot give much guidance on sanctions use to policy makers. Less than 15 percent of the general population will be arrested for commission of a felony and about one-half of these will never be arrested for another. Very roughly, only 5 percent of the population will demonstrate the beginning...
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.
A major step forward in the statistical analysis of offense specialization was made by Wolfgang et al. through their use of
stochastic modeling. However, this paper proposes that the results that were obtained are not as clear as might be hoped because
they did not distinguish between offense dynamics that reflected the marginal distributions of the sample as a whole (and
thus may be considered random) and dynamics that significantly deviated from this distribution. An analysis of similar longitudinal
data for white and nonwhite delinquents shows statistically significant evidence of offense specialization and a random distribution
of offenses if no specialization occurs (with one major exception). The implications and problems of the model are discussed.
This paper outlines a brief history of the evolutionary trajectory of offender profiling and illustrates the three broad strands (investigative, clinical, and statistical) that emerged in the 1970s–1990s. We then indicate how a more pragmatic, interdisciplinary practitioner–academic model has emerged in recent years and go on to describe the range of contributions that are now made across the criminal justice field. More recently termed ‘behavioural investigative advice’ in the UK, the paper then argues that whilst a range of potential contributions exist (from linking crimes, risk assessment, provision of bad character evidence, investigative interviewing advice, to geoprofiling), the nature of the process by which that contribution occurs is not yet well understood. The review of these potential contributions concludes with several suggestions and recommendations for further research and relevant methodologies by which to conduct that research. This includes the requirement to combine conceptual and theory-driven models alongside empirically driven statistical approaches, as well as the requirement to more precisely delineate and describe how contributions are made by behavioural experts through cognitive task analyses and associated methods.
The data set employed in the present study came from interviews with arrestees conducted between 1999 and 2001 as well as from their official arrest records obtained from jail administrators. A total of 238 arrestees ages 18 to 25 constituted the final sample. Event history analysis examined each arrestee's movement from periods of no arrests to periods including arrests for any of four types of offense; background variables were controlled, and relevant time-varying factors became the explanatory factors. The results show a tendency among these arrestees to specialize, to varying degrees, in violent offenses, drug offenses, miscellaneous offenses, and property offenses. Evidence of versatility is presented. Anticrime measures are also discussed.
In the absence of physical evidence, investigators must often rely on offence behaviours when determining whether several crimes are linked to a common offender. A variety of factors can potentially influence the degree to which accurate linking is possible, including the similarity coefficient used to assess across-crime similarity. The current study examines the performance of two similarity coefficients that have recently been compared to one another, Jaccard's coefficient (J) and the taxonomic similarity index (Δs), using samples of two crime types, serial homicide (N=237) and serial burglary (N=210). In contrast to previous research, the results indicate that Δs does not significantly outperform J with respect to linking accuracy. In addition, both coefficients lead to higher levels of linking accuracy in cases of serial homicide compared to serial burglary. Potential explanations for these findings are presented and their implications are discussed.
"Male Criminal Activity from Childhood Through Youth" reports the results of a large longitudinal study between 1972 and 1985 on a sample of delinquents and a comparison sample of the male population in Montreal. What emerges from this extensive study is a clarification of the ways of describing criminal activity and a comprehensive theory of crime that integrates the offense, the offending, and the patterns of offending. Using a developmental approach, Drs. Le Blanc and Fréchette observed a gradation of crimes with subjects progressing through five distinct stages of offending. In all, the research investigates the factors that sustain the development of offending and the mechanisms that accelerate, stabilize, and decelerate the commission of crimes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This study examines the crime patterns of 76 New Zealand serial sexual offenders in order to determine the extent to which offenders display locational consistency in their choice of crime locations. More specifically, the hypothesis was that there would be intraseries consistency in the distances travelled (spatial consistency) and the characteristics of the crime sites selected (environmental consistency) by serial sexual offenders.
For spatial consistency to be tested, the distances travelled from home to offend and the criminal range for each offence series were analysed. Support was found for spatial consistency, and, in line with much overseas research, it was also found that the offenders typically did not travel very far from home to offend (median distance of 3 km).
The environmental consistency measure was made up of various physical, temporal, and contextual variables that described the environmental characteristics of an offence. As hypothesised, it was found that offenders displayed intraseries environmental consistency in offence site selection beyond the level of that expected by chance. The implications of this both for understanding offender spatial decision making and for geographical profiling are discussed. Copyright
This study examines the criminal arrest records of a Danish birth cohort of 28,884 men to test the hypothesis that specialization exists for violent offending. Property offending is included for comparison. Specialization in violence is found to exist for offenders with more than three arrests, and specialization in property offending, for offenders with fewer than four arrests. Knowledge of past violent offending is discussed as a potentially valuable part of the predictive equation of future violence.
The study of specialization in offending careers is relevant to the key theoretical issue of whether different types of offending reject only one underlying theoretical construct (such as delinquent tendency) or several different constructs. This research improves on previous studies of specialization in offending careers in three ways: (1) It is based on the complete juvenile court careers of a very large sample of offenders (nearly 70,000). (2) It uses a fine-grained classification of 21 offense types. (3) It uses a new measure of the strength of specialization, the Forward Specialization Coefficient (FSC). Both transition matrices and offending careers are studied.
The major findings from the transition matrices are (1) there was a small but significant degree of specialization in offending superimposed on a great deal of versatility: (2) the degree of specialization tended to increase with successive referrals, and this was not due to more versatile offenders dropping out: and (3) the relative extent to which offenders specialized in different offenses held for two jurisdictions (Maricopa County, Arizona, and Utah), both sexes, and all ages.
The analyses of offending careers showed that the most specialized offenses were runaway, burglary, motor vehicle theft, liquor violations, incorrigibility, curfew, truancy, and drugs. Nearly 20 percent of the offenders were identified as specialists. The conclusion is that, while offending was versatile to a first approximation, delinquency theories should attempt to explain specialization and specialists in order to yield more accurate quantitative predictions about offending careers.