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Identifying Career Offenders Using Self-Report Data
Abstract
Self-reported delinquency data from a national youth panel were used to develop a career offender typology. Seven birth cohorts aged 11-17 at the first of five annual interviews provided the data for the study. The assumption that a career in delinquency implies continuity of involvement across time as well as the frequency with which illegal acts are committed was taken into account in the identification of four classes of offenders. The typology was validated using official arrest histories, social psychological predictor measures known to be associated with delinquent behavior, self-reported delinquency scales, and demographic variables. Offender typologies based upon official arrest and self-reported delinquency data were then compared. The findings indicate that the number of career offenders identified using official arrest data is only a fraction of the number identified using self-reported data. The partitioning of subjects into career offenders, noncareer offenders, and nonoffenders is quite different when using a self-reported compared to an official arrest measure of criminal involvement.
... On the question of continuity, recent studies agreed with the Glueck's finding about a minimal proportion of females who were considered recidivists by the justice system (see Dunford and Elliott, 1984;Lewis, 1989;Ayers and al., 1995). For example, Lewis (1989) gathered official data for fifteen years following the first arrest of a sample of 17,842 females who had been arrested in 1973. ...
... Two studies took the route of the empirical ad hoc cross-classification of adolescent females' self-reported delinquency. First, the typology of career offenders of Dunford and Elliott (1984) was constructed with frequency of crimes, grouped according to three categories of seriousness (the crimes of the UCR Part 1) and with five waves of data from the National Youth Survey. Dunford and Elliott (1984) identified three trajectories. ...
... First, the typology of career offenders of Dunford and Elliott (1984) was constructed with frequency of crimes, grouped according to three categories of seriousness (the crimes of the UCR Part 1) and with five waves of data from the National Youth Survey. Dunford and Elliott (1984) identified three trajectories. In total, 5% of the adolescent females adopted the serious persistent career as compared to 14% of the males. ...
The gender gap in deviance is well known. Why women's offending levels are much lower than men's is less evident. Three theoretical perspectives are influential. The first perspective applies mainstream criminological theories, typically based on male offenders, to female-samples. The second perspective focuses on gender differences to explain differences in deviant behaviors of adolescent females and males. The third perspective emphasizes male-dominated constructions of knowledge. Each offers theoretical insights and generates numerous empirical studies. For better understanding of deviant behavior of adolescent females, constructs from all three theoretical perspectives should be integrated into comprehensive models.
... 2.2.4 | Approximating involvement in deviant behavior: number of arrests (time-varying: 13-34) The self-reported number of arrests the respondents experienced between 13 and 34 was used to approximate involvement in deviant activities during adolescence and adulthood (Dunford & Elliott, 1984). Self-reported number of arrests is highly correlated with official arrest records and self-reported involvement in deviant activities (Dunford & Elliott, 1984). ...
... 2.2.4 | Approximating involvement in deviant behavior: number of arrests (time-varying: 13-34) The self-reported number of arrests the respondents experienced between 13 and 34 was used to approximate involvement in deviant activities during adolescence and adulthood (Dunford & Elliott, 1984). Self-reported number of arrests is highly correlated with official arrest records and self-reported involvement in deviant activities (Dunford & Elliott, 1984). As such, the self-reported number of arrests provides the unique opportunity to examine the association between the number of months incarcerated in an adult correctional facility and having children in the subsequent year, while adjusting for involvement in minor and serious deviant behaviors (Maxfield et al., 2000). ...
Introduction
Recent trends in reproductive rights have contributed to lasting concerns about adolescent childrearing in American society. Beyond being generally unprepared when raising a child, having a child during adolescence is associated with a variety of environmental, social, and psychological consequences for both the parents and the child. It is important to understand the factors contributing to adolescent childrearing. Although research has identified many factors that contribute to adolescent childrearing, a notable gap remains when considering the role of the correctional system and, in particular, the age‐specific effects of confining adolescents in adult correctional facilities.
Methods
The current study examined the age‐specific effects of time spent in adult correctional facilities from 13 to 34 years of age on childrearing between 14 and 35 years of age using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth‐1997 (NLSY97). The NLSY97 is a nationally representative sample of Males (51%) and Females (49%) born in the United States. Respondents of the NLSY97 were interviewed about life events beginning at age 7 and continued to participate in the study as recently as 2021.
Results
The results of the lagged growth curve models suggest that the time spent incarcerated between 13 and 17 years of age heightens the risk of childrearing between 14 and 18 years of age, an effect that is not observed during adulthood.
Conclusion
Overall, the results suggest that the conditions adolescents are exposed to during incarceration in an adult correctional facility could contribute to a heightened likelihood of adolescent childrearing.
... Youth with police contacts from any data source had self-reported delinquent offending that was two to four times higher than youth who were never contacted by police. 2 Additional empirical studies using diverse data sources have produced variegated estimates of the size of the dark figure of offending among youth. For example, Dunford and Elliott (1984) leveraged data from the National Youth Survey to compare self-reported delinquency to arrest records and found substantial evidence for the dark figure of delinquency. Among 242 youth whose self-reports of delinquency qualified them as habitual or career offenders, 86% of them had never been arrested. ...
... Third, on average, youth reported 25 delinquent offenses for every one police contact, but the dark figure also has a distribution that reveals a significant amount of delinquent offending that never results in law enforcement or judicial intervention. In these respects, the distributional properties of the dark figure of delinquency are compatible with typological perspectives (Moffitt, 1993(Moffitt, , 2018) 5 on the adolescent population where normative youth, most without any police contacts, nevertheless dabble in delinquency and pathological youth, most with police contacts, commit scores more offenses than their records show (Dunford & Elliott, 1984;Elliott et al., 1986). Thus, the dark figure of delinquency is not simply a raw empirical datum about the proportion of offending that occurs relative to justice system intervention, but it itself reflective of the diverse ways that different types of delinquents behave. ...
Although research on the dark figure of delinquency has produced valuable quantitative estimates of its size, prior research is mechanistic and atheoretical about the conceptual underpinnings of the crimes that go undetected by the juvenile justice system. Drawing on data from 253 adju-dicated youth in residential placements in the Midwestern United States, the current study found that youth self-reported over 25 delinquent offenses for every one police contact. The dark figure of delinquency has a wide distribution with some youth reporting upwards of 290 delinquent offenses per police contact or arrest. Youth who exhibited more psychopathic features, who displayed temperamental profiles characterized by low effortful control and high negative emotionality, males, and those who were older had larger dark figures of delinquency. Findings provide support for general criminological theories that invoke psychopathy or temperament as important individual-level drivers of delinquent conduct, much of which never results in juvenile justice system intervention and thus never achieves legal resolution.
... The frequency dimension refers to the number of crimes an offender commits over a span of time. Since Wolfgang et al., (1972) reported that 6% of the adolescent study cohort accounted for over 50% of the crime committed by the cohort, other researchers investigating juvenile crime document similar findings (Blumstein & Moitra, 1980;Dunford & Elliott, 1984;Farrington, 1983;Hamparian et al., 1978;McCord, 1981;Shannon, 1978;Tracy et al., 1985;West & Farrington, 1977). Most studies estimate between 5% and 19% of the population accounts for over one-half of all crime (Elliott et al., 1982;Wolfgang, 1983). ...
... One regular empirical finding is that the age of on-set (first offense) is an important factor in explaining future offending. Many researchers agree that early on-set is the best predictor of long-term, high frequency, serious offending as a juvenile and adult (Blumstein et al., 1986;Dunford & Elliott, 1984;Farrington, 1986;Nagin & Farrington, 1992). While offenders who start their criminal careers at younger ages have higher frequency rates, early onset offenders also show more versatility in the offenses they commit while late onsets are more likely to specialize in their offenses (Blumstein et al., 1996). ...
This study describes the likelihood and extent to which juvenile offenders persist in illegal behavior and penetrate into Georgia’s adult criminal justice system. Electronic records linked from multiple agencies produced the first statewide longitudinal dataset of half a million justice-involved individuals spanning five decades (1970-2015). We merely scratch the surface of how linked administrative databases can be used to better understand juvenile and criminal careers and help us to craft policy to interrupt career trajectories.
We are hopeful that policy makers will continue to support the exploration of such data.
Desistance in Georgia
Georgia’s juvenile justice system referrals and served populations have declined, similar to national trends. The political focus on juvenile justice policy reform has resulted in closing both detention and secure facilities while increasing program availability.
12% of all juveniles had only one referral and then exited the justice system completely. Yet the concern over recidivism remains.
41% of the half-million juveniles examined went on to be arrested as adults (referred to as “adult persistence”). The best predictor of adult offending is gender.
Redefining the Link Between Age & Crime
Theorists and researchers agree that youth increases the likelihood of criminality. Examining the full juvenile-to-adult “criminal career,” and understanding the life events of young offenders as they age, is required to both fully understand the age-crime relationship and to craft effective intervention strategies.
Many hold an acceptance that the earlier a youth becomes involved in the justice system, the more likely they are to become adult offenders. We find age at first juvenile referral had no such impact. The youngest offenders were no more likely to become adult offenders than those entering the justice system at later ages. Irrespective of age at first referral, juveniles that commit felonies, have many referrals, and who are active in the juvenile justice system for long periods of time are the most likely to become adult offenders. In fact, offenders who entered the justice system as adults (not juveniles) had the longest criminal careers.
System Interventions Matter
Juvenile justice system interventions can affect a criminal career. The more deeply juveniles penetrate the system, the more likely they are to become adult offenders. This relationship holds true after statistically controlling for the influence of offense. Tailoring responses that are the most appropriate for a child’s needs with the least level of system penetration clearly has the potential to reduce adult offending.
... Although there have been several decades of research on criminal behavior, the debate about the relative advantages of self-report measures as compared to official records of criminal activity continues [Lab and Allen, 1984;Nagin et al., 1995]. Several studies have concluded that the congruence between official records and self-report measures is significantly better than chance [Convit et al., 1990;Hindelang et al., 1981;Dunford and Elliot, 1984]. However, the sources of error for these two methods of measuring criminal involvement are very different [Blumstein et al., 1986]. ...
... Official arrest records likewise have been cited for serious limitations in the accurate identification of individuals involved in crime. For example, it has been observed that crimes that occur more frequently or crimes that are more serious are more likely to involve police contact [Elliot and Ageton, 1980;Dunford and Elliot, 1984]. Furthermore, official records do not reflect undetected or unreported crime, raising the question of whether certain people may be more likely to get caught for their criminal involvement than others. ...
Self-reports of arrests and official arrest records were compared for 250 male and 80 female participants in the ongoing Hyperactivity Follow-Up Study of Young Adults at University of California at Berkeley, For males, kappa coefficients indicated good statistical agreement between arrest records and self-report measures for 7 of the 12 types of crimes. Statistical agreement, however, may not be the most meaningful yardstick to judge concordance. Additional analyses reveal that for almost all of the crimes examined, one third or more of those with an arrest record for the crime failed to reveal this information on the self-report measure. Arrests for both some high-frequency, less serious crimes and some low-frequency, more serious crimes were not revealed in the subjects' self-reports. An examination of the unique information gained from self-reports found that the subjects most often reported committing public disorder crimes for which they were not caught (over 30%) and were least likely to self-report crimes against people (less than 10%). Furthermore, subjects with more convictions were more likely to accurately self-report their criminal involvement. Since both self-report and official records each contribute unique information and reflect different sources of error, it is proposed that a combination of both types of records is the most inclusive indicator of criminal activity in adulthood. (C) 2001 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
... Overall, self-reports are accepted as reliable and valid indicators of substance use and delinquent behaviors (Akers, Krohn, Lanza-Kaduce, & Radosevich, 1979;Hindelang, Hirschi, & Weis, 1981) and have been successfully used in our previous work Otero, Miron, & Luengo, 1989. In addition, selfreports provide more direct and more complete measures of various forms of deviant behavior than do measures based on official law enforcement and institutional records (Dunford & Elliott, 1984;Elliott & Huizinga, 1984). As a control for possible social desirability effects, the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) Lie Scale (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1975) was included. ...
This study analyzes the relationships between impulsivity and antisocial behavior in a noninstitutionalized sample, taking into account the multidimensional nature of impulsivity and the diversity of types of antisocial behavior. Data were obtained in 1989 and 1990 from 1,226 adolescents aged 12–18 years (583 boys and 643 girls) as part of a longitudinal study of risk factors for drug abuse and delinquency. The patterns of stability or change of the various dimensions of antisocial behavior (rule breaking, vandalism, theft, aggression, and drug taking) in relation to impulsivity were investigated. The results support that self-report measures of impulsivity are closely correlated with antisocial behavior among adolescents. The longitudinally oriented analysis of this work also shows that impulsivity is associated with a future increase in antisocial behavior.
... The agecrime curve persists when offending is measured using official record or self-report data (Loeber and Farrington 2014) and supports prior studies that point to increased offending during adolescence relative to other points in the life course (Steffensmeier et al. 1989;Steffensmeier and Allan 2000). Most youth report engaging in illegal behaviors during adolescence (Dunford and Elliott 1984); indeed, deviance is largely viewed as a normal part of adolescent development in American culture (National Research Council 2001). However, few youth will continue to offend as they mature into adults (Robins 1978;Farrington 1986;Loeber and Farrington 2014). ...
Two features of adolescence have remained largely constant over time—(1) youth experience drastic physical changes during puberty, and (2) many youth engage in antisocial or delinquent behavior. Prior work has found a positive relation between off-time pubertal timing and a host of adverse behaviors including reduced academic performance and substance use (Simmons 2017; Westling et al. Journal of Adolescent Health, 42(6), 555−563, 2008). However, previous research is largely limited in its measurement of pubertal timing in that it does not account for youth perceptions of self, social comparisons, and peer influence—salient components of the developmental period. The present study addressed this limitation by testing the effect of self-perceived development on antisocial behavior. Among a nationally representative sample of 4803 youth, the present study examined the effect of a self-report, peer-relevant measure of physical development on antisocial behaviors, varying in severity. Results revealed a positive relation between youths’ perceived physical development relative to same-aged peers and five categories of behaviors: antisocial behaviors, non-violent offending, violent offending, substance use, and weapon use. Overall, when youth reported being more physically developed than their same-aged peers, they were more likely to engage in deviant behavior. The results provide evidence for including self-report, peer-relevant measures of physical maturity from the youth perspective when studying adolescence and undesirable youth behavior.
... Adolescents were asked to report the number of times (1 to 5 or more) in the past six months that they engaged in 36 illegal activities on the Self-Report of Delinquency (SRD: Elliott & Ageton, 1980). The SRD has adequate test-retest reliability and internal consistency (Dunford & Elliott, 1984). From the total number of delinquent acts (i.e., with a ceiling of 5 times 36 or 180), we created a binary variable indicating delinquency (top quartile of delinquent acts) versus lack thereof (bottom 3 quartiles). ...
Religiosity is understudied among child welfare-involved adolescents. This study examined the effects religiosity on seven outcomes [substance use disorder (SUD), positive future expectations, delinquency, depression, loneliness, school disengagement, and early sexual activity] in order to understand and support child welfare-involved youth and minimize the effects of trauma. Utilizing the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (Wave I & II), which uses a representative sample of children and adolescents with a child maltreatment report, we used logistic regression to predict each of the seven outcomes longitudinally. Youth (n = 474) who reported that religiosity was very important in Wave I were 53% less likely (OR .47, CI .24–.90, p < .05) to have SUD in Wave II than youth who reported that it was not important or only a little important. In addition, youth (n = 552) who reported that religiosity was very important in Wave I were 2.27 times as likely (CI 1.11–4.65, p < .05) to have positive future expectations in Wave II (e.g., graduate from high school; get a good job). Religiosity did not predict other outcomes nor did attendance to faith-based organizations. In order to help prevent SUD and promote positive future expectations, professionals or caregivers can: (1) assess levels of/religiosity and desire to grow accordingly; and (2) suggest use of resources in the community that foster religiosity.
... Scores on this scale range from 0 to 36. This measure has adequate testretest reliability and internal consistency (Dunford and Elliott (1984) in addition to adequate psychometric properties and validity within the NSCAW sample (α = 0.98; Dowd et al., 2004). ...
The high rate of adult criminal justice involvement in the United States has resulted in many unintended consequences for families of offenders. Families involved with the criminal justice system are disproportionately involved with the child welfare system, and adolescents involved in both systems (i.e., dual system involvement) exhibit higher levels of delinquency. Yet, a lack of research exists on dual system involvement and the effects on youth. The current study leveraged nationally representative and longitudinal data of families involved in the child welfare system to examine whether maternal criminal justice involvement predicted increases in youth delinquency. An ecological model tested the effects of maternal justice involvement beyond cumulative risks as well as the potential buffer of parental monitoring and non-violent discipline on system involvement. Results suggested child welfare-involved youth exhibited similar levels of delinquency over time, regardless of maternal justice involvement. Although youth with maternal justice involvement reported more parental monitoring, the level of monitoring mattered more for youth without maternal justice involvement who exhibited decreased delinquency in the presence of high parental monitoring compared to low monitoring. The differential pattern of association between parental monitoring and youth delinquency for dual-system involved families suggests they are distinct and may carry implications for treatment response aimed at delinquency reduction through parent training. These findings underscore the importance of interagency coordination around policy and interventions to identify these high risk families at risk of slipping through the cracks of multiple service involvement.
... Unfortunately, these data were not validated by official arrest records. This can be problematic especially for the most active, chronic criminal offenders who accumulate many arrests in a single year Dunford & Elliott, 1984). However, it is important to note there is moderate to high convergence between self-report and official records of arrest (Pollock, Menard, Elliott, & Huizinga, 2015) especially when the recall period is relatively discrete such as 1 year as opposed to lifetime recall. ...
Burglary is serious property crime with a relatively high incidence and has been shown to be variously associated with other forms of criminal behavior. Unfortunately, an epidemiological understanding of burglary and its correlates is largely missing from the literature. Using public-use data collected between 2002 and 2013 as part of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), the current study compared those who self-reported burglary arrest in the prior 12 months with and without criminal history. The unadjusted prevalence estimates of self-reported burglary arrest were statistically different for those with a prior arrest history (4.7%) compared with those without an arrest history (0.02%) which is a 235-fold difference. Those with an arrest history were more likely to report lower educational attainment, to have lower income, to have moved more than 3 times in the past 5 years, and to use alcohol, tobacco, illicit drugs, and engage in binge drinking. Moreover, those with prior arrest histories were younger and more likely to be male. There is considerable heterogeneity among burglars with criminal history indicating substantially greater behavioral risk.
... The emergence of the criminal careers concept also stimulated development in measurement and analytic methods. Blumstein's article in this issue points out that the desire to measure and understand key parameters of criminal careers, and a growing appreciation of the shortcomings of official record data, prompted the development of self-report studies of delinquent and criminal behavior (see also Dunford and Elliott 1984). As a result researchers began to develop estimates of offending behavior from each source and some major research efforts, like the Correlates and Causes studies and PHDCN, were able to incorporate both. ...
Since its introduction in the 1970s, the concept of the “criminal career” has had a substantial impact on the field of criminology. This special issue took a comprehensive look at the idea of criminal careers and the research that has emerged from it. In particular, it started with the origins and intellectual history of the 1986 “Criminal Careers and Career Criminals” report and its objectives and then considered the influence of that work on aspects of criminological theory, research methods and design, data analysis, and policy and practice. This concluding paper offers a brief summation of these essays and the scholarship on which they are based. In doing so, this forward-looking review offers a comment on the past, present, and future of research on criminal careers to underscore its contribution to the discipline, mark any areas where opportunities may have been missed, and present an agenda for the next generation of research.
... The same is true for finding other offending types (e.g. late onset, desisters, persisters, intermittent offenders). Dunford and Elliott (1984) provided perhaps the first comparison across data sources on the grouping of subjects into criminal career typologies, and found stark inconsistencies across data sources as to whether individuals were classified as career offenders, non-career offenders, or non-offenders. However, Dunford and Elliott's typology is somewhat crude, in that they defined career offenders as those youth who committed offenses for just two or more consecutive years. ...
Both self-report and official crime data have known limitations, leading to the critical question as to whether inferences about the adolescent life-course of crime are different across these data sources. Using both official and self-report arrest data on a sample of subjects drawn from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) longitudinal cohort study, this paper examines the extent to which individual age-arrest curves are comparable across these data sources. Particular attention is given to examining whether criminal career dimensions, namely participation, frequency of arrest, age of onset, and continuity in behavior, are similar across data sources. Additionally, this paper examines whether the key predictors of youth crime (e.g., family processes, peer influence, and neighborhood disadvantage) function similarly across measurement types. Findings reveal that a sizable number of youth self-report being arrested without having a corresponding official arrest record, and a sizable proportion of those youth with an official arrest record fail to self-report that they had been arrested. Despite significant differences across the two arrest measures on many criminal career dimensions, the effects of family supervision, parent-child conflict, and neighborhood disadvantage operate similarly across data types.
... Moreover, the most severe offenders tend to have more unreliable self-reports in part because there is significantly more criminal activity to recall (e.g. dozens or arrests spanning decades of offending), in part because their interpersonal and personality features are pervaded with deception, lying, and manipulation, and in part because their criminal careers are so severe they are usually in confinement and not available for self-report studies (Cernkovich et al., 1985;DeLisi, 2005;DeLisi et al., 2013;Dunford and Elliott, 1984;Farrington et al., 2003;Piquero et al., 2014). These issues are especially salient in the event of sexual offensesparticularly those perpetrated against childrenwhereby offenders with limited official criminal history nevertheless have extensive actual history of sexual abuse [1]. ...
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to examine the dark figure of crime among federal sex offenders from the USA to quantify crime victims and sex crime events among those with no official criminal record.
Design/methodology/approach
– Using data on 119 offenders selected from a five-year census of sex offenders selected from a federal probation jurisdiction in the Midwestern United States, descriptive, partial correlations, and ROC-AUC models were conducted.
Findings
– In total, 69 percent of offenders self-reported a contact sexual offense during polygraph examination. In total, 34 offenders had zero official record of sexual abuse but non-zero self-reported history of sexual abuse. These 34 clients offended against 148 victims that potentially denoted a minimum number of 148 sex crime events, a median number of 1,480 sex crime events, a mean number of 32,101 sex crime events, and a maximum number of 827,552 sex crime events. Total paraphilias were not predictive of self-reported sexual offending but were strongly associated with prolific self-reported sexual offending.
Originality/value
– The dark figure of sexual offending is enormous and the revelation of this information is facilitated by polygraph examination of federal sex offenders. Ostensibly non-contact sex offenders such as those convicted of possession of child pornography are very likely to have a history of contact sexual offending. Consistent with the containment model, polygraph examinations of the sexual history of offenders convicted of sexual offenses should be required to facilitate public safety.
... The exclusive use of self-reports increases the risk of shared-method or shared-reporter variance. In many cases it may be ideal to have a secondary reporter (or observation) of behavior, but in the case of official records of legal infractions, actual self-reports may be more sensitive because the majority of infractions go undetected and unprosecuted (Dunford & Elliott, 1984). Additionally, using self-reports allowed the investigation of a wider array of antisocial or risky behaviors not considered unlawful. ...
The present study investigated the relations between morally disengaged attitudes, psychopathic affective traits, and a variety of antisocial and risky behaviors in a sample of adults (N=181). A second aim of the study was to examine the unique contributions of moral disengagement and psychopathic traits in predicting problematic behavior while the other construct is statistically controlled. Results indicated that whereas psychopathic traits and moral disengagement were both uniquely predictive of non-violent antisocial behaviors, only remorselessness was uniquely predictive of violence and only morally disengaged attitudes were uniquely predictive of academic cheating. Differing relationships also emerged by gender.
... Third, data gleaned from court reports and rap sheets reflect only those crimes for which offenders are apprehended and, as a consequence, undercount crime [Dunford and Elliott, 1984;Elliott, 1994;Geerken, 1994]. Other evidence suggests, however, that official records may be particularly good indicators of serious violent crimes [Henggeler et al., 1993]. ...
... This finding is consistent with evidence indicating that Black marijuana users may be charged with more drug-related crimes than White users (Beckett et al. 2005;Ramchand, Pacula, and Iguchi 2006;Pardini et al. 5 Ream et al. 2010). Because these differences may be influenced by biases in policing practices and criminal justice processing (Dunford and Elliot 1984;Hindelang, Hirschi, and Weis 1981;Kazemian and Farrington 2005), it is important to further examine racial differences in the association between marijuana use and adult criminal offending using a combination of selfreported and official records. ...
Objectives:
Examine whether young men who chronically use marijuana are at risk for engaging in drug-related and non-drug-related criminal offending and exhibiting psychopathic personality features in their mid-30s.
Methods:
Patterns of marijuana use were delineated in a sample of predominately Black and White young men from adolescence to the mid-20s using latent class growth curve analysis. Self-report and official records of criminal offending and psychopathic personality features were assessed in the mid-30s. Analyses controlled for multiple factors indicative of a preexisting antisocial lifestyle and co-occurring use of other substances and tested for moderation by race.
Results:
Four latent marijuana trajectory groups were identified: chronic high, adolescence-limited, late increasing, and low/nonusers. Relative to low/nonusers, chronic high and late increasing marijuana users exhibited more adult psychopathic features and were more likely to engage in drug-related offending during their mid-30s. Adolescence-limited users were similar to low/nonusers in terms of psychopathic features but were more likely to be arrested for drug-related crimes. No trajectory group differences were found for violence or theft, and the group differences were not moderated by race.
Conclusions:
Young men who engage in chronic marijuana use from adolescence into their 20s are at increased risk for exhibiting psychopathic features, dealing drugs, and enduring drug-related legal problems in their mid-30s relative to men who remain abstinent or use infrequently.
... The 47-item SRD, used in the National \buth Survey, is probably the best validated of the self-report delinquency instruments (Henggeler, 1989). Its discriminant validity and predictive validity have been supported with chronic offenders (Dunford & Elliott, 1984) and serious offenders (Elliott et al, 1985), respectively. ...
Multisystemic therapy (MST) delivered through a community mental health center was compared with usual services delivered by a Department of Youth Services in the treatment of 84 serious juvenile offenders and their multiproblem families. Offenders were assigned randomly to treatment conditions. Pretreatment and posttreatment assessment batteries evaluating family relations, peer relations, symptomatology, social competence, and self-reported delinquency were completed by the youth and a parent, and archival records were searched at 59 weeks postreferral to obtain data on rearrest and incarceration. In comparison with youths who received usual services, youths who received MST had fewer arrests and self-reported offenses and spent an average of 10 fewer weeks incarcerated. In addition, families in the MST condition reported increased family cohesion and decreased youth aggression in peer relations. The relative effectiveness of MST was neither moderated by demographic characteristics nor mediated by psychosocial variables.
... Pourcentage de personnes interpellées par la police selon l'incidence de la délinquance autoreportée (N=457 ; période de référence : 6 mois avant l'admission dans le programme) 11. Cette hypothèse avait été postulée, avec de légères modifications de forme, par plusieurs chercheurs dont Erickson et Empey (1963) ; Dunford et Elliott (1984) ; Frechette et Le Blanc (1987 : 81) ; Farrington et ai (1996). En effet, s'agissant de toxicomanes ayant besoin de commettre un grand nombre de délits pour payer quotidiennement leurs doses de stupéfiants, on pourrait imaginer qu'ils donnent la préférence à certains délits qui leur assurent une entrée régulière d'argent. ...
Cet article se base sur une analyse comparative des interpellations enregistrées par la police et des délits admis par un échantillon de toxicomanes adultes dans le cadre d'un sondage de délinquance autoreportée. La moyenne d'âge des membres de l'échantillon (N=491 dont 135 femmes) est de 31 ans. Il s'agit de toxicomanes qui étaient très engagés dans la délinquance avant de participer aux essais suisses de prescription d'héroïne. Différents concepts de validité sont testés, à savoir La validité de contenu (qui comprend la validité apparente et la validité logique) et la validité concourante (qui comprend la validité pour groupes différents et la validité corrélationnelle). L'analyse montre que ce n'est pas tellement le nombre de délits commis qui détermine le risque de se faire interpeller par la police, mais plutôt la diversité et la gravité de ces délits. Elle montre également que, dans le contexte étudié, le sondage de délinquance autoreportée s'avère être un indicateur valide de La criminalité. En fait, le sondage offre plus d'information et permet de déceler un plus grand nombre de délin- quants et de délits que les données de police.
... [2] Screening Stage: Thomas et al. 18 , stated that despite some dissimulation, patient's self report of CD and substance use disorders correlated highly and superb discriminative validity, making them useful for treatment and research, which depend on a well supervised, trained lay staff. This supported by Dunford and Elliot 19 , who stated that adolescent's self-reports of illegal behavior are more accurate than official records if respondents are assured of confidentiality. ...
Conduct disorder has been considered to comprise the largest group of adolescent psychiatric disorder. This study was carried out to estimate the prevalence of conduct disorder (CD) in adolescent students in secondary schools in Assiut City. It was carried out on 2123 students, 1627 (76.64%) students representing the technical schools, and 496 (23.36%) students representing the general schools, 1137 (53.6%) were males, and 986 (46.4%) were females. They were subjected to the self-report screening scale (Adolescent Psychopathology Scale (APS) (William, 1998), and DSM-IV (APA, 1994) criteria for CD. 207 (19.5%) of students were positive for CD. 142 (25%) were males, while 65 (13.5%) were females. Male to female ratio was 1.9: 1. In technical schools, 157 (19.3%) students were positive for CD, 114 (25.8%) males, and 43 (11.6%) females. Male to female ratio was 2.7: 1. In general schools, 50(50.2%) students were positive for CD, 28(22.1%) males and 22(18.1%) females. Male to female ratio was 1.2: 1. Regarding the clinical types, 79 (78.2%) students of adolescent onset type, while 22 (21.8%) students of childhood onset type. Regarding severity, 57(56.4%) students of mild degree, 31 (30.7%) students of moderate degree, and 13 (12.9%) students of severe degree of CD. With increase age of onset, there is a decrease in the severity of CD. The age of onset of CD is higher in females than in males. So CD is a major problem, as it affects a higher percent of our students in the secondary schools.
Purpose-This study aims to use a novel data set of 636 murderers sentenced to death in California to investigate homicide offenses that are committed but not prosecuted or officially solved, a concept known as the dark figure of crime. Design/methodology/approach-Uaing appellate records from the Supreme Court of California, which contain extensive information about the offender's background, criminal offense history and mental health diagnoses, it was revealed that one-third of the offenders in the sample have additional homicide offenses for which they likely bear responsibility, but were not prosecuted. Findings-Most of these involve one or two additional homicides, though a wide range was observed spanning 0 to 93 additional victims. Those with a dark figure of murder and unsolved homicides had substantially more prior arrests, convictions and prison incarcerations and were higher in psychopathy, sexual sadism, homicidal ideation and gang involvement than offenders without a dark figure. Psychopathy and homicidal ideation were the most robust predictors of both the presence and magnitude of a dark figure of murder and unsolved homicides, whereas sexual sadism was inconsistently associated. Originality/value-A disproportionate amount of the unsolved murders in the USA are likely perpetrated by the most pathological types of offenders, those with extensive antisocial careers and severe externalizing psychopathology.
From a team of leading experts comes a comprehensive, multidisciplinary examination of the most current research including the complex issue of violence and violent behavior. The handbook examines a range of theoretical, policy, and research issues and provides a comprehensive overview of aggressive and violent behavior. The breadth of coverage is impressive, ranging from research on biological factors related to violence and behavior-genetics to research on terrrorism and the impact of violence in different cultures. The authors examine violence from international cross-cultural perspectives, with chapters that examine both quantitative and qualitative research. They also look at violence at multiple levels: individual, family, neighborhood, cultural, and across multiple perspectives and systems, including treatment, justice, education, and public health.
From a team of leading experts comes a comprehensive, multidisciplinary examination of the most current research including the complex issue of violence and violent behavior. The handbook examines a range of theoretical, policy, and research issues and provides a comprehensive overview of aggressive and violent behavior. The breadth of coverage is impressive, ranging from research on biological factors related to violence and behavior-genetics to research on terrrorism and the impact of violence in different cultures. The authors examine violence from international cross-cultural perspectives, with chapters that examine both quantitative and qualitative research. They also look at violence at multiple levels: individual, family, neighborhood, cultural, and across multiple perspectives and systems, including treatment, justice, education, and public health.
The UK National Centre for Policing Excellence (NCPE) Management of Police Information (MoPI) Guidance (NCPE, 2006) advises on temporal periods for the review, retention and disposal of police information that is about individuals. There is concern that these temporal periods are not supported by a scientific evidence-base that provides the justification for these periods, based on the necessary purposes of this information for policing. Alongside this necessity of purpose for policing is the need to balance legislation that applies in the UK, in particular the Human Rights Act 2000 and the Data Protection Act 1998. This research has explored the existing literature and consulted with a small but representative selection of key stakeholders on the rationale behind the lengths of the periods that should be applied to the review of police information to ensure they meet the principle condition of being ‘necessary’. This research has primarily drawn from the research on recidivism and desistance to identify the key factors that influence the future risk of offending. This research project has identified that age rather than offence type has a stronger and more consistent influence on when an offender may re-offend. It has also identified what is considered to be a useful methodology for determining when the risk posed by a person who has previously offended returns to a ‘normal’ level i.e. the same as for the general population, or more stringently the non-arrest population. This has shown the importance of age and recency of the last offence in influencing the risk of future offending, and that age appears to be a clear, more consistent and stronger influencing variable to recidivism (and desistance) than offence type. The age at which the offending population was considered to be statistically similar (in significance terms) showed variation in relation to the offence type, but that age was more consistent and clearer in determining the point at which the individual had become ‘redeemed’ and the length of ‘clear periods’ that should be set. This indicated that if reviews of information were to be purely based on recidivism and desistance research that has been published to date, then 3 – 8 year terms, depending on the age of the offender and offence type, may well be sufficient. However these need to be balanced with legislation, so the minimum retention period for all police information should be 6 years due to certain conditions in the Limitation Act that influence police information. It is shown that this balance between legislation and scientific evidence can be balanced, but that more scientific evidence needs to be developed in order to provide a good degree of justification and rationale behind the review periods that are applied and that inform the decision on whether to retain or dispose of information that can not be contested.
The NCPE MoPI Guidance (NCPE, 2006) advises on temporal periods for the review, retention and disposal of police information that is about individuals. There is concern that these temporal periods are not supported by a scientific evidence-base that provides the justification for these periods, based on the necessary purposes of this information for policing. Alongside this necessity of purpose for policing is the need to balance legislation that applies in the UK, in particular the Human Rights Act 2000 and the Data Protection Act 1998. This research has examined the existing literature and consulted with a small but representative selection of key stakeholders on the rationale behind the lengths of the periods that should be applied to the review of police information to ensure they meet the principle condition of being ‘necessary’. This research has primarily drawn from the research on recidivism and desistance to identify the key factors that influence the future risk of offending. This research project has identified that age rather than offence type has a stronger and more consistent influence on when an offender may re-offend. It has also identified what is considered to be a useful method for determining when the risk posed by a person who has previously offended returns to a ‘normal’ level i.e., the same as for the general population, or more stringently the non-arrest population. This has shown the importance of age and recency of the last offence in influencing the risk of future offending, and that age appears to be a clear, more consistent and stronger influencing variable to recidivism (and desistance) than offence type. The age at which the offending population was considered to be statistically similar (in significance terms) showed variation in relation to the offence type, but that age was more consistent and clearer in determining the point at which the individual had become ‘redeemed’ and the length of ‘clear periods’ that should be set. This indicated that if reviews of information were to be purely based on recidivism and desistance research that has been published, then 3 – 8 year terms, depending on the age of the offender and offence type, may well be sufficient. However, these need to be balanced with legislation, so the minimum retention period for all police information should be 6 years due to certain conditions in the Limitation Act that influence police information. It is shown that this balance between legislation and scientific evidence can be balanced, but that more scientific evidence needs to be developed in order to provide a good degree of justification and rationale behind the review periods that are applied and that inform the decision on whether to retain or dispose of information that can not be contested.
A brief autobiographical history is presented covering my 57-year career as a criminologist. I begin with my early childhood experiences, growing up during World War II, my undergraduate and graduate school experiences, and my early career years at San Diego State University and the University of Colorado, Boulder. I then discuss two of the major themes in my research developed during these early career years: self-report measures of delinquent behavior and the Integrated Theory of delinquency. My later career years are described, and the third major theme of my work, the identification and promotion of effective delinquency prevention programs, is discussed. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Criminology, Volume 5 is January 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
The criminal justice system is designed to detect, apprehend, punish, and rehabilitate criminal offenders. Precisely how effective the criminal justice system is at achieving these goals is not entirely known. The current study sought to add to this gap in the knowledge base by examining the connection between self-reported crime and delinquency and the probability of being arrested, convicted, sentenced to probation, and incarcerated. To do so, male and female respondents drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) were analyzed. The results revealed that respondents who were relatively more involved in acts of nonviolent crime and delinquency, as well as violent crime and delinquency, were significantly more likely to be processed through the criminal justice than were those who were less involved in such behaviors. These findings indicate that being processed through the criminal justice system is a function of criminal involvement. We conclude by calling for additional research to determine whether the effectiveness of the criminal justice system could be improved.
In this study, we examined whether and to what extent the effects on offending of marriage and different types of cohabitating partnerships depend on the romantic partner's socioeconomic status (SES). Such research addresses a key gap in knowledge regarding potential heterogeneity of effects on behavior of romantic partnerships. Drawing on the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, we examined the within‐individual effects of three romantic partner's socioeconomic characteristics–education, employment, and income–on offending from ages 18 to 34. Results revealed that marriage was related to reductions in arrest only for those whose spouse was employed (full or part time) and had income. In contrast to marriage, partner SES was not related to arrest among those who cohabited with a partner they never married. Additionally, partner SES was often associated with reductions in arrest among those who cohabited with a partner they later married, but the reductions were statistically indistinguishable across levels of partner SES. Lastly, these effects were experienced similarly for low‐ and high‐SES individuals alike, and no gender differences were detected in these effects. Our findings suggest that important life events such as marriage and cohabitation can be behavior‐altering transitions, but the effects of these events are variable.
Nonconfrontative stealing in childhood, theft which does not involve direct contact with the victim, has been recognized as predictive of social maladjustment in adolescence and adulthood. The newly revised Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III-R) ranks nonconfrontative stealing as the most discriminating diagnostic feature of childhood conduct disorders. This article provides a conceptual overview of issues which complicate the assessment of stealing and contribute to the maintenance of this behavior in children. Specific recommendations are given to overcome these obstacles and to improve the implementation of treatment and prevention strategies for this critical childhood behavior problem.
Background:
Bullying behavior is a concern among school-aged youth and anti-bullying programs have been implemented in schools throughout North America. Most anti-bullying programs are delivered to adolescent youth because antisocial-aggressive behaviors are typically associated with this developmental stage. This paper is a review of empirically evaluated school-based bullying prevention and intervention programs in North American elementary schools.
Methods:
We conducted a systematic, critical review of bullying prevention programming. Data were analyzed to determine the study method, intervention components, measurement of bullying, aggression, or peer victimization, outcomes measured, and results.
Results:
Our review resulted in the identification of 10 interventions aimed at youth in grades K-6 enrolled in North American elementary schools. Effective intervention strategies targeted a variety of bullying behaviors using diverse mechanisms and included a school-and community-wide approach. Direct outcomes of the reviewed evaluations were centered on bullying, aggression, and victimization. Indirect outcomes of review evaluations included strategies for bystanders, school achievement, perceived school safety, and knowledge or attitudes about bullying.
Conclusions:
Recommendations for promising practices in effective bullying intervention programming are offered. The review concludes with suggestions for supporting school health staff and in-service teachers drawn from the body of research, and offers direction for future study.
Using effect sizes from Erford, Paul, Oncken, Kress, & Erford (2014 Erford, B. T., Paul, L. E., Oncken, C., Kress, V. E., & Erford, M. R. (2014). Counseling outcomes for youth with oppositional behavior: A meta-analysis. Journal of Counseling & Development, 92, 13–24. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6676.2014.00125.x [Google Scholar]) meta-analysis for treatments of oppositional defiant disorder and Erford, Bardhoshi, Ross, Gunther, & Duncan (2017 Erford, B. T., Bardhoshi, G., Ross, M., Gunther, C., & Duncan, K. (2017). Meta-analysis of counseling outcomes for youth with conduct disorders. Journal of Counseling & Development, 95, 35–44. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcad.12115 [Google Scholar]) meta-analysis of conduct problems in school-aged youth, the 6 most commonly used disruptive behavior instruments were analyzed for practical and technical strengths and weaknesses, and best use recommendations for screening and counseling outcome research were provided. The instruments included the Achenbach System of Empirically-Based Assessment (ASEBA), Revised Behavior Problem Checklist, Self-Report Delinquency Checklist, Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory/Sutter-Eyberg School Behavior Inventory, Conners–3 Rating Scale, and Parent Daily Report.
The prevalence of juvenile delinquency has the capacity to not only garner public attention but mobile resources in the war on crime. Driven in part by a perennial fear of youth, successive generations seem to “rediscover” the delinquency problem, redefine it at epidemic levels, and invest significant resources to fix the problem. The challenge, however, is that conclusions about the prevalence of delinquency is hampered by limitations in available data. This chapter will describe the primary ways of measuring juvenile delinquency and address their limitations. The chapter will address how society's emotional and political responses to juvenile delinquency present challenges when interpreting data sources both between communities and across time. Special emphasis is given to the contemporary problem of bullying, a dimension of juvenile delinquency, which has been recognized as a contemporary problem among young people. Policymakers are encouraged to consider a broad cross-section of crime measures when drawing conclusions about trends in delinquency, and also to recognize that changes in laws and how laws are enforced can impact data in important ways.
In their 2012 article, Pollock, Oliver, and Menard found that race was not a significant predictor of being arrested or questioned by police. In light of recent events such as the death of Michael Brown Jr., Freddie Gray, and others, and the resulting media coverage and public protest, the current article sought to reexamine predictors of police contact in greater detail. For this examination, separate analyses were run on respondents with and without serious offending reported to determine whether predictors of police contact are different for individuals with whom the police presumably have more discretion (individuals who are not serious offenders). In addition, path models with logistic regression were created to examine potential indirect effects of all variables, including race. Results indicate that race does have an indirect effect on police contact, but it is White individuals who are more likely to be questioned and arrested. In addition, other factors including low parental socioeconomic status (which is associated with ethnicity), previous police contact, and gender are more likely, than even involvement in crime, to determine if a person will be questioned or arrested. Differences in predictors based on the seriousness of the offender and implications of the findings are discussed.
The focus of this chapter will be primarily on patterns of association (correlations)1 between arrest rates and other variables for which data were available: lifestyle variables, such as drug use, marital/family status, and employment; background variables; and variables related to the prison or probation sentences of the offenders in the sample. These analyses were intended primarily to explore the usefulness of these data for understanding differences in arrest rates among those offenders for whom this kind of information was available. Because of the nature of the sample, generalization of the present findings to other offenders is not warranted. Due to the nature of the data, their usefulness even for understanding relationships within this sample are somewhat limited. Before presenting the findings, some discussion of these limitations is in order.
There are various definitions of escalation and three measures have been used for its analysis: crime switching, dynamic classification and developmental progression. Numerous self and social control variables have been reported to be associated with the individual level of self-reported delinquency during adolescence and young adulthood. However, we do not know which of these variables are regularly associated with the aggravation of offending.
Following the perspective proposed by Pinatel (1963), and followed up by Selosse (1983) and, more recently, by Le Blanc and Fréchette (1987), we thought it was appropriate to distinguish between three levels of interpretation of delinquency: the delinquent act, the delinquent person, and the phenomenon of delinquency. We then have to study the relationships between these three levels.
Der Beitrag befasst sich mit wesentlichen Aspekten, die bei der wissenschaftlich orientierten Klassifikation von Kriminalitätsphänomenen vor der Durchführung bedacht werden sollten. Nach der allgemeinen Einführung einiger methodischer Begrifflichkeiten im Kontext der Klassifikation werden diese auf den konkreten inhaltlichen Anwendungsbereich bezogen. So wird neben der Umsetzung konzeptueller Typologien und empiriegeleiteter Taxonomien in der Forschung über Kriminalität die Unterscheidung zwischen der Klassifikation von Delikten und von Personen sowie deren Erscheinungsformen in der Forschungspraxis diskutiert. Zudem befasst sich der Beitrag mit der Differenzierung zwischen querschnittlichen und längsschnittlichen Klassifikationen und thematisiert die Implikationen der Datengrundlage für die Ergebnisse einer Klassifikation. Abschließend werden die (gesellschaftlich und kriminalpolitisch relevanten) Gefahren und Vorteile von Klassifikationen in der empirischen Forschung diskutiert.
Since the publication of Delinquency in a Birth Cohort in 1972 (Wolfgang, Figlio, and Sellin), longitudinal research has become a major focus in criminological research. The term “longitudinal” is used somewhat ambiguously and appears to have a number of meanings. Spector stated that the longitudinal design is essentially a variation of correlational study “which involves two or more measurements of variables in a study taken on the same group of subjects” (1981, 35). Longitudinal research is also referred to as studies with experimental intervention and might cover research strategies including birth cohort studies, panel surveys, and time series experiments. Some of the several subcategories among longitudinal research are prospective studies and retrospective studies, following a group of individuals or examining a group’s past experience by interviews, questionnaire or by existing records.
This study examined the rate of court contact and predictors of an early age for a first court contact for a sample of 203 youths who were seen at a children's mental health center, between the ages of 6 and 12 years, for conduct problem behaviours. Survival analyses revealed that the probabilities for a male and female to have court contact by age 18 were 65.9% and 32.9%, respectively. The clinician's rating of the child's likeability was a significant predictor of an early age for first court contact for males and a history of abuse was a significant predictor for females. The implications of these findings for early identification of high risk youth are discussed.
Introduction: Developmental criminology is concerned with the description and explanation of within-individual changes in deviant behavior along the life course. This chapter focuses on individual development in the context of a community environment. Earlier, we proposed an integrated multi-layered control theory of general deviance (Le Blanc, 1997a). This chapter expands this theory with propositions about the developmental interaction between self and social controls. This chapter is not directly concerned with the general deviance syndrome. Elsewhere, we have proposed an analytical paradigm to study its development (Le Blanc & Loeber, 1998), tested an operatationalization of this hierarchical construct (Le Blanc & Bouthillier, 2003), and formulated a theory of its growth and decline using the chaos–order paradigm (Le Blanc, 2005). In this chapter, we keep in mind these theoretical formulations and the empirical facts about within-individual changes in deviant behavior (Le Blanc & Loeber, 1998; Piquero, Farrington, & Blumstein, 2003), but we are particularly concerned with the development of self and social controls in an environmental context. We use the term control according to its third literal definition in Webster's Dictionary: “a mechanism used to regulate and guide the operation of a system.” This notion is compatible with Gibbs' (1989: 23) sociological definition of control: “control is overt behavior by humans in the belief that (1) the behavior increases the probability of some subsequent condition and (2) the increase or decrease is desirable.” This definition is central in psychology (Lytton, 1990) and in the social sciences since Comte (Le Blanc, 2004).
In the past, distinctions between subclasses of conduct problems and delinquency were a matter of dispute among scholars in juvenile delinquency and child psychology (American Psychiatric Association, 1987; Jessor, Donovan, & Widmer, 1980; Klein, 1971; Patterson, 1982; Reiss, 1951). Much progress has been made, however, in the conceptualization of developmental changes in behavior during childhood and adolescence. A key question that now must be asked is whether or not early distinctions in children’s conduct problems are maintained over time and whether or not some children eventually engage exclusively in specific forms of delinquency while others adopt a “cafeteria style” of criminal activities. A related question is whether or not youngsters develop antisocial behaviors along one path, as suggested by Robins and others (Jessor & Jessor, 1977; Robins, 1966; Snyder, Dishion, & Patterson, 1986), or whether several developmental paths exist.
The research reported in this chapter had three major objectives. The first was to study the prevalence of different types of offending, as measured by self-reports and official convictions, of the same sample at different ages from adolescence to adulthood. The second was to investigate the relationship between self-reported and official offending of the same sample at different ages, and hence to advance knowledge about the concurrent and predictive validity of self-reports in comparison with official records. The third was to study the relationship between offending at one age and offending at another, as measured by both self-reports and official convictions, and hence to advance knowledge about the issues of continuity or discontinuity and specialization or versatility in offending.
Recent studies continue to find an association between delinquency and substance use, though the strength and symmetry of the relationship vary according to sampling and measurement strategies. The behaviors often occur jointly, but there is little consensus on whether they are explained by unique factors or are the result of common correlates and social processes. General adolescent samples yield too few serious juvenile offenders for valid assessment of the drug-crime relationship. Moreover, these youths often are concentrated in urban social areas, possibly confounding influences from urbanism and urban socialization. This study examines the distributions of substance use and delinquency among inner-city youths and theoretical explanations of the separate and joint behaviors, controlling through sampling for social area influences. Survey data on 665 inner-city, high school students in four cities revealed that self-reports of delinquency and substance use among inner-city students were comparable with general adolescent populations, though drug use was more prevalent than alcohol for this sample. Serious substance use was more prevalent and frequent among serious delinquents, but substance use was frequent regardless of the severity of delinquent involvement. The type of drug was more strongly associated with delinquency than the frequency of substance use. An integration of social control and learning theories has weak explanatory power for the frequency of either behavior, but can differentiate serious delinquent involvement. The results suggest that drug use and delinquency are spuriously related, and possibly occur among parallel but independent social networks.
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.
RÉSUMÉ
Le présent article vise à décrire le processus par lequel se développe la conduite déviante et délinquante des adolescentes. Les analyses ont été effectuées auprès d'un échantillon de 123 adolescentes ayant fait l'objet d'une ordonnance à la Chambre de la jeunesse de Montréal entre 1992 et 1993. Les résultats démontrent que les activités déviantes et délinquantes des adolescentes s'intègrent davantage, de l'enfance au début de l'âge adulte, dans une séquence ordonnée et hiérarchique que dans un mode de développement aléatoire. Les analyses suggèrent également que le début de l'adolescence, spécialement entre 12 et 14 ans, représente une période particulièrement critique au cours de laquelle plusieurs formes d'activités déviantes et délinquantes risquent de se manifester.
The concept of a criminal «career» is being used more and more in the recent criminological literature. This article analyzes the pertinence of explaining this concept by its specific components. To do this, the criminal activities of a sample of adolescents and a group of wards of the Montreal Court between the ages of seven and twenty-five are described (precocity, frequency, variety, gravity, aggravation, violence, duration). Two stages were detected in the criminal career, their degree of stability and paths of development. The dynamics of the criminal activity are described. Finally, the predictability of an intensification of criminal activities is analyzed. Given the high degree of stability, predictability and mobility (marked by aggravation of the criminal activity), we conclude that recourse to the concept of a criminal career is essential to a better understanding and more accurate diagnosis of the process of acting out.
A great deal is known about the early precursors of offending in general, but much less is known about early factors which discriminate between high rate and low rate offenders. Childhood antisocial behaviour, criminal parents and siblings, indicators of social deprivation such as low income, and low intelligence and attainment predict both offending and high rate offending. Many of the future chronic offenders could have been predicted by these factors at the time of their first conviction. However, child rearing factors such as poor parental supervision, harsh or erratic parental discipline, and parental conflict are excellent predictors of offending in general but not of high rate as opposed to low rate offending. Little is known about protective factors which might prevent high risk children from becoming high rate offenders.
Résumé
Cette étude vise trois objectifs : 1) établir la prévalence des conduites déviantes manifestées au cours de l’adolescence et au début de l’âge adulte par les jeunes femmes ayant été prises en charge par la justice au cours de l’adolescence 2) déterminer les trajectoires de l’activité déviante de ces jeunes femmes, de l’adolescence au début de l’âge adulte 3) évaluer la proportion des adolescentes judiciarisées qui sont aux prises avec des difficultés personnelles et sociales au début de l’âge adulte. L’échantillon est composé de 97 jeunes femmes qui ont fait l’objet d’une ordonnance de la Chambre de la jeunesse de Montréal en 1992-1993. Les données proviennent de questionnaires autorévélés qui ont été complétés par les participantes à trois reprises : à 15 ans, à 17 ans et à 23 ans. Les résultats révèlent que, malgré le fait que certaines adolescentes aient été fortement impliquées dans la déviance à la mi-adolescence, aucune trajectoire ne se démarque par une participation persistante à des actes violents ou à des délits contre la propriété. D’autres difficultés compromettent toutefois le bien-être de ces jeunes femmes. Les adolescentes judiciarisées sont particulièrement à risque de se retrouver, au début de l’âge adulte, dans des situations où la monoparentalité, la pauvreté, la faible scolarisation, la violence conjugale et la détresse se juxtaposent.
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This paper addresses the general question of whether or not the satisfactory resolution of the methodological criticisms of self-report research will result in greater consistency between self-reported and official data with respect to the race and class distributions of delinquent behavior. We review the specific methodological criticisms of self-report delinquency (SRD) research; discuss the use of a new SRD measure in a national youth study; compare the race/class findings of this study with previous SRD research and with official arrest data; and examine the epidemiological and theoretical implications of these findings. Both class and race differentials are found in this study. It appears likely that the differences between these findings and those in earlier SRD studies are a result of differences in the specific SRD measures used. Additionally, these findings suggest a logical connection between SRD and official measures, and they provide some insight into the mechanism whereby official data produce more extreme race and class (as well as age and sex) differences than do self-report measures. The results of this study also have implications for previous tests of theoretical propositions which used self-report delinquency data. In short, prior self-report measures may not have been sensitive enough to capture the theoretically important differences in delinquency involvement.
A conceptual distinction is drawn between delinquent behavior and official delinquency (apprehended and recorded delinquent behavior). Data from a national sample of 13- to 16-year old boys and girls are examined for empirical evidence of this conceptual distinction. The frequency and seriousness of self-reported delinquent behavior are analyzed for sex, age, race, and socioeconomic status differences. These data are then compared with data on self-reported police contacts and with data found in police and court records. Our findings demonstrate that the distinction between delinquent behavior and official delinquency is indeed useful and necessary: the distribution of official delinquency among categories of sex, age, race, and socioeconomic status does not parallel the distribution of delinquent behavior. The data also help to identify the points at which various discrepancies develop in the process of turning delinquent behavior into official delinquency.
This paper presents an integrated theoretical model of the etiology of delin quent behavior. The proposed model expands and synthesizes strain, social- learning, and social control perspectives into a single explanatory paradigm which avoids the class bias inherent in traditional perspectives and takes into account multiple causal paths to sustained patterns of delinquent behavior. Major variables in the model include two types of social bonds (integration and commitment), attenuation experiences (such as failure in conventional social settings), and delinquent learning and performance structures. Two dominant etiological paths to delinquency are postulated by the paradigm. The first path is characterized by weak integration into and commitment to the social order and by involvement in delinquent peer groups. Characteristics of the second major path are initially strong bonds to the social order, subse quent attenuation, or weakening, of those bonds, and exposure and commit ment to delinquent peer groups.
Longitudinal sociometric data on adolescent friendship pairs, friends-to-be, and former friends are examined to assess levels of homophily on four attributes (frequency of current marijuana, use, level of educational aspirations, political orientation, and participation in minor delinquency) at various stages of friendship formation and dissolution. In addition, estimates are developed of the extent to which observed homophily in friendship dyads results from a process of selection (assortative pairing), in which similarity precedes association and the extent to which it results from a process of socialization in which association leads to similarity. The implications of the results for interpreting estimates of peer influence derived from cross-sectional data are discussed.
Focusing primarily on urban males, Hirschi (1969) presents research findings which are generally consistent with the propositions of his control theory. In an effort to examine the extent to which Hirschi's basic research results can be replicated, groups of rural male and female students in grades six through 12 of one school were asked to respond to a self-report delinquency questionnaire and a series of items which Hirschi used to test propositions of his control theory. Indicators of “attachment” to parents and the school; “commitment” to, and “involvement” in, conventional activities; and “belief,” were found to be related to reported delinquent involvement among these rural respondents to about the same extent as among Hirschi's urban males. However, his findings that attachment to peers and attachment to parents are positively related (to each other) and attachment to peers and reported delinquent involvement are negatively related, were not replicated; rather, the former relationship was found to be nearly orthogonal and the latter variables were found to be positively related.
The findings by Wolfgang et al. that 6.3% of their cohort had 52% of the recorded police contacts is well known. This retrospective analysis has been used to suggest that imprisoning these “chronic” offenders will avert a correspondingly disproportionate amount of crime. On prospective analysis of the arrest histories, however, the recidivism probability is found to be constant after the third contact, suggesting that prior record has little predictive value regarding future criminality. These observations raise important questions about the benefits of “career criminal” programs and their incapacitative effects.
In the last decade we have seen a dramatic shift away from sociological explanations of deviant behavior toward developing theoretical perspectives on societal reactions to and definitions of deviance and crime. Labeling and conflict formulations have become major foci of sociological theorizing as well as the sounding boards for most of the controversy and discourse in the field of deviance. This shift in focus was deemed necessary to redress the previous imbalance of attention to the deviant behavior itself (Akers, 1968), and it clearly has had that effect. Unfortunately, it also has led to the neglect of theoretical developments in the etiology of deviant behavior. Neither labeling nor conflict perspectives has offered a general explanation of deviant behavior, although some conflict theorists have offered preliminary but incomplete efforts in that direction (Taylor, et al., 1973; Spitzer, 1975). There have been other efforts directed toward explaining deviant behavior, but these have been fairly narrow in scope; they have usually been limited either to a specific type of deviant behavior or to a restricted range of substantive variables. For example, a good deal of attention has been paid to the modern resurrection of deterrence theory (Gibbs, 1975; 1977; Waldo and Chiricos, 1972, Tittle, 1975; Silberman, 1976; Erickson et al., 1977; Meier and Johnson, 1977; Geerken and Gove, 1977). The scope of deterrence theory has been changed little, however, since its statement by the classical criminologists two centuries ago and is limited to the actual or perceived certainty, severity, and celerity of formally administered legal sanctions for violations of the criminal law. Another example is Travis Hirschi’ s (1969) control (social bonding) theory which is a more general explanation of deviance than deterrence theory, but which is, in turn, primarily restricted to informal social control which comes from individuals being bonded to groups and institutions.
This study attempts to go beyond the well-documented relationship between delinquent associations and involvement in delinquency to a consideration of the independent consequences of delinquent peers, parents, and "delinquent" definitions for delinquent action. The data fail to support Sutherland and Cressey's argument that family life is relevant to delinquency only when "delinquent patterns" are available to copy. Using a variety of measures of availability of deviant patterns, paternal supervision and support were found to be negatively related to delinquency to approximately the same degree under almost all conditions. Moreover, delinquent peers and paternal supervision and support were both found to influence delinquency involvement regardless of definitions favorable and unfavorable to the violation of the law. The family, peers, and definitions relevant to law breaking appear to exert independent effects on delinquency which are not adequately encompassed by etiological perspectives that introduce ...
- Sutherland, E. H.