Research on recidivism prediction has made important advances, but the same cannot be said of research assessing relationships between risk changes over time or after treatment and subsequent reoffending. In realistic criminal justice situations, data linking changes in risk to recidivism are often fraught with problems due to missing data, irregular intervals in repeat risk assessments, and individual differences such as age and risk levels. Traditional statistical methodologies such as ANCOVA for repeated measures are not suited for analyzing data with these features. We presented four types of statistical modeling techniques that can effectively accommodate these noisier data: conventional regression, conditional regression, two-stage, and joint models. The two-stage models consist of multilevel growth model and conventional regression. The joint models refer to structural equational models. Two example data sets were used to illustrate the application of these methodologies.
We provide a comparison of analyses used to estimate predictive validity, across fixed (logistic regression and area under the curve receiver operating characteristic [AUC-ROC]) and variable (Cox regression and Harrell’s C) lengths of follow-up. This study adds to research demonstrating a relationship between time at risk offense free and recidivism in two ways. First, reoffending hazard rates were calculated across levels of general offending risk to better understand how failure relates to time at risk. Second, this research compared validity estimates derived from Cox and logistic regression analyses to examine the importance of variable versus fixed follow-up periods. Results show that risk declines as a function of time offense free for all but low risk offenders. In addition, findings demonstrate remarkable stability in estimates of validity after just 7 months of follow-up. Finally, comparisons of Cox and logistic regression analyses, along with their related Harrell’s C and AUC-ROC validity estimates, revealed little substantive differences in prediction
Theory and research highlight the importance of procedural justice for inculcating people’s obligation to obey and willingness to cooperate with legal authorities, yet questions remain about the universality of these relationships across cultures and contexts. We examine the influence of procedural justice and other factors on Ghanaian immigrants’ obligation to obey and willingness to cooperate with police. The findings suggest that when police are perceived to behave in a procedurally just manner, people feel an increased obligation to obey their directives and willingness to cooperate with them. Perceived police effectiveness does not influence Ghanaian immigrants’ obligation to obey police, but is the most dominant factor in shaping their willingness to cooperate with police. Respondents’ views of police in Ghana did not influence obligation or cooperation. The implications of the results for theory development, empirical research, and policies intended to improve police–immigrant relations are discussed.
A sizable group of individuals in the United States cycle in and out of jails, prisons, mental health hospitals, homeless shelters, and other expensive public institutions over time. This little-studied population represents significant unmet need and the inadequacy of services for complex consumers. The current study examined a sample (N = 161) of chronically homeless frequent utilizers of jail and mental health systems in Chicago, Illinois. Cluster analysis was used to differentiate the sample into four reliable subgroups based on measures for prior homelessness, jail incarcerations, mental health hospitalizations, poor current mood, and limitations due to physical health. Logistic regression revealed that clusters differed significantly on reincarceration at 6 months postrelease. Implications for programming and policy for each cluster are discussed, including suggestions for targeting services to distinguishing characteristics for each subgroup. These findings argue for the importance of coordinating efforts across services systems to better identify and serve shared clients.
Forensic researchers often assume that the widely used area under the curve (AUC) predictive validity statistic can be readily compared across risk assessment instruments and between studies. From risk distributions for 224,771 convicted English and Welsh offenders, I quantify the extent to which the AUCs of two continuously scored actuarial instruments are dependent upon sample heterogeneity and risk categorization. Sample composition can cause predictive validity to vary by 10% to 20% over chance between subpopulations, with higher AUCs for female subgroups whose scores have high variability, and lower AUCs when sampling is restricted by index offense and/or sentence type. Risk categorization has a potentially large effect on AUCs, which fall when few categories are used, especially when those categories contain unequal numbers of offenders. An improved understanding of how these factors can affect AUCs will inform professionals using risk assessment instruments and researchers comparing the validity of multiple instruments.
The development of risk–needs assessments has substantially expanded assessment content, which is reflected in the now regular use of both static and dynamic items. However, while the risk–need–responsivity model differentiates between risks and needs theoretically, the scoring of risks and needs does not make for a clear demarcation. We argue that an assessment of an offender’s needs should be scored separately and solely on items that are changeable and predict recidivism. This article describes the conceptualization and development of Washington State’s offender needs assessment. Designed to complement an offender’s assessment of risk, we make use of key design elements to avoid many theoretical and methodological caveats. Using preexisting item selection, weighting, and validation methods, we present domain-based needs models that maximize item content and provide substantial performance in the prediction of recidivism.
Risk assessment is one of the most common tasks in the criminal justice system, yet most professionals in this field receive little to no formal training in statistical techniques for predicting dichotomous outcomes, such as recidivism. The purpose of this special issue was to help fill this gap in training and resources. We wanted to make some of the latest statistical issues and advances in predicting recidivism accessible to the readership of Criminal Justice and Behavior. In this introductory paper, we briefly describe the seven articles in this issue. The first three articles provide primers on topics (statistics to assess predictive accuracy, the E/O Index [Expected/Observed], and mediation analyses, respectively) in a way that is meant to be understandable to clinicians and researchers. The next two articles describe and compare different statistics for assessing change over time. The last two articles explore limitations of currently used recidivism analyses (Area Under the Curve [AUCs], Harrell’s C, Cox and logistic regression). We hope this issue will serve as a helpful resource for those who conduct or consume research on predicting recidivism.
Despite the importance of criminal thinking to the etiology of crime, studies disagree on whether there are gender differences in criminal thinking and whether females exhibit criminal thinking to the same degree as males. Part of the differences across studies may be due to gender differences in the measurement of criminal thinking, yet this question has not been systematically examined. The current study assesses whether the measurement of criminal thinking (via measurement invariance tests of the Criminogenic Cognition Scales and the Criminal Sentiments Scale–Modified) varies between male and female probationers. The results highlight both similarities and differences in the measurement of criminal thinking, with 26% of items significantly varying between genders. Once measurement differences and similarities were taken into account, male and female probationers were just as likely to exhibit antisocial attitudes. The implications highlight the notion that researchers cannot assume that criminal thinking assessments are gender-neutral.
In this article, I argue that for risk/recidivism research to achieve its full potential, it must continue to grow beyond its empirical roots, a process that began more than 20 years ago. The theoretical model highlighted in the current article can explain one of the brute facts of criminology: namely, that past offending is one of the best predictors of future offending. By understanding how cognitive variables mediate the past crime–future crime relationship, we improve our ability to more effectively manage recidivism risk. Toward this end, six considerations for mediation analysis are discussed: variable selection, model creation, research design, data analysis, effect size estimation, and sensitivity testing. An illustrative example using attitude toward fighting as a mediator of the past physical aggression -> future physical aggression relationship is presented.
Some actuarial and structured professional judgment (SPJ) risk-assessment instruments have already demonstrated their validity and predictive accuracy in expert criminal forensic evaluations. In contrast, little is known about the effectiveness of instruments identifying protective factors in risk of recidivism prediction. The present study was designed to evaluate the validity and predictive accuracy of the Structured Assessment of Protective Factors for Violence Risk (SAPROF) in 94 violent and sexual violent offenders assessed in a Swiss pretrial criminal forensic context. The SAPROF showed good interrater reliability, and was significantly correlated to predominately dynamic instruments but not to predominately actuarial instruments. However, in terms of predictive accuracy, the SAPROF did not perform as well as expected when compared with other instruments and with previous SAPROF accuracy validation studies. These results have implications for the use of the SAPROF in criminal forensic contexts risk assessment.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is one of the most promising and widely used therapeutic approaches to reducing recidivism among criminal populations. Although many studies have evaluated CBT for this express purpose, few have done so in a community correctional environment. This article reports findings from a randomized field trial evaluating, "Choosing to Think, Thinking to Choose," a CBT program designed specifically for a community correctional setting, and its impact on the recidivism of high-risk offenders. High-risk probationers were assigned to either standard, intensive probation (n = 447) or to the treatment condition (n = 457), where they received the same supervision intensity while also being directed to a classroom-based, 14-week CBT program. Twelve months after random assignment, intention-to-treat (ITT) analyses indicate that the overall CBT group was significantly less likely to reoffend, although this effect is concentrated in measures of nonviolent offending.
It is a criminological fact that females commit fewer delinquent acts than their male counterparts. This "gender gap" has long been recognized but specific questions concerning similarities or differences in the development, persistence, and desistence of antisocial behavior among females and males remain underinvestigated. Two prominent theoretical models, Moffitt’s developmental taxonomy and Silverthorn and Frick’s delayed-onset pathway, make distinct predictions about the composition of female offenders and the nature of their offending. The current study tests these explanations using longitudinal data from the Pathways to Desistance Study, a large sample of serious juvenile offenders followed for 7 years into early adulthood. Results from a series of negative binominal regressions reveal stronger support for Moffitt rather than Silverthorn and Frick in that findings showed two groups of female offenders. Directions for future research are highlighted.
Although the self-control–victimization link is now well established both theoretically and empirically within the North Atlantic circle, empirical testing of this linkage is lacking in the Far East where self-control has always been an intrinsic feature of its traditional culture. More recently, the coupling of lifestyle–routine activities theory with self-control has resulted in better understanding of both the individual and situational contexts associated with victimization experiences. This study examines the predictive power of low self-control on various forms of victimization and the mediating effects of risky lifestyles on such relationship in the Chinese setting. The data were collected from a sample of 2,961 high school students in a southern Chinese city. The results of logistic regression reveal that low self-control is positively associated with both violent and property victimizations, net of social attachment and demographic factors. In addition, risky lifestyle factors partially mediate the effects of low self-control on victimization.
Population heterogeneity and intra-individual change are often overlooked in recidivism research. This study employs latent transition analysis of psychological trauma from intake into a juvenile justice diversion program until termination, followed by modeling of recidivism. A comparison model of a logistic regression without latent variables is also presented, to answer whether the same results would have been achieved without using latent variable modeling. Results indicate that juvenile justice–involved (JJI) youth are assigned into four psychological trauma classes at intake, and three at termination. Latent status membership predicts 6-month recidivism (p = .03). Those who begin in classes that have Depression, Post-Traumatic Stress, and Anger have higher odds of recidivating than those who demonstrate generally high or low trauma symptoms at intake. The comparison regression model found no significant relationship between the five trauma symptom domains and recidivism. Implications for employing latent variable modeling and person-centered analyses for recidivism research are discussed.
We examined whether police officer self-legitimacy moderates the effect of supervisor procedural injustice on organizational trust. Data from a sample of sheriff’s deputies (N = 510) were used to test this question. Results from multivariate models showed that (a) supervisor procedural injustice was associated with less organizational trust among deputies, (b) self-legitimacy was positively associated with trust in the agency, and (c) self-legitimacy conditioned the effect of procedural injustice on organizational trust. These findings advance the literature in several ways. First, this study provides one of the first empirical examinations of organizational trust—a concept widely studied in the business-related literature—in a police agency context. The findings suggested that supervisor procedural injustice and officer self-legitimacy are key correlates of trust in a police agency. Second, the results further underscore the importance of self-legitimacy by revealing that it can serve as a protective factor against negative experiences within the organization.
Most sex offenders appear to desist from sexual and other violent offending; however, research on this population has historically focused more on the characteristics of individuals who persist offending versus those who desist from offending. The present study examined change patterns of 563 child sexual abusers’ scores on the Sex Offender Treatment Intervention and Progress Scale, a dynamic risk measure, at three points of time over 2 years. Individuals who did versus did not commit a new serious offense, defined as a new sexual or other violent offense, at 5-year follow-up were contrasted. Desisters demonstrated most changes during their first year in treatment, whereas change among persisters more often occurred during their second year in treatment. All classes of offenders made gains in addressing dynamic risk related to sexually specific needs, whereas desisters made significantly greater gains in social stability needs. Findings are discussed in light of treatment dose allocation and community reentry needs.
The use of body-worn cameras (BWCs) by the police is rising. One proposed effect of BWCs is reducing complaints against police, which assumes that BWCs reduce officer noncompliance with procedures, improve suspects’ demeanor, or both, leading to fewer complaints. We report results from a global, multisite randomized controlled trial on whether BWC use reduces citizens’ complaints. Seven discrete tests (N = 1,847 officers), with police shifts as the unit of analysis (N = 4,264), were randomly assigned into treatment and control conditions. Using a prospective meta-analytic approach, we found a 93% before–after reduction in complaint incidence (Z = –3.234; p < .001), but no significant differences between trial arms in the studies (d = .053, SE = .11; 95% confidence interval [CI] = [–.163, .269]), and little between-site variation (Q = 4.905; p = .428). We discuss these results in terms of an "observer effect" that influences both officers’ and citizens’ behavior and assess what we interpret as treatment diffusion between experimental and control conditions within the framework of "contagious accountability."
Reentry correctional facilities play a critical role in preparing inmates to successfully transition back to the community. Part of this role includes providing a structured program, which allows for gradual transition from prison life to the community through work, education, and counseling programs. Little research reveals how correctional officers (COs) maintain control and promote rule compliance within a reentry environment. Using administrative, survey, and ethnographic data, we examine how COs in a reentry-focused prison manage the inmate population. Correctional officers do not report using misconducts in surveys and observations, but administrative data reveal staff often use formal misconducts even for minor infractions. The number of accumulated misconducts an inmate received, seriousness of the current violation, and officer tenure significantly relate to the severity of present misconduct outcomes. Considering the mission and goals of reentry facilities, this study has significant implications for the reentry process and inmate experience.
We examined the use of graphs as an aid to communicating statistical risk among forensic clinicians. We first tested four graphs previously used or recommended for forensic risk assessment among 442 undergraduate students who made security recommendations about two offenders whose risk differed by one actuarial category of risk for violent recidivism (Study 1). Effective decision making was defined as actuarially higher risk offenders being assigned to greater security than lower risk offenders. The graph resulting in the largest distinction among less numerate students was a probability bar graph. We then tested this graph among 54 forensic clinicians (Study 2). The graph had no overall effect. Among more experienced staff, however, decisions were insensitive to actuarial risk in the absence of the graph and in the desirable direction with the addition of the graph. Further research into the benefit of graphs in violence risk communication appears viable.
Although the Risk–Needs–Responsivity framework has become the dominant paradigm in criminal and juvenile justice, little empirical attention has been given to the reassessment component of the model. Here, we examine dynamic risk and promotive factor trajectories of 6,442 residential commitment placements to assess differences in progression with respect to risk reduction and promotive enhancement through a buffer score rubric (buffer = promotive – risk). Results indicate that youth progress along different buffer trajectories throughout residential placement. Multinomial models also demonstrate that dynamic, changeable factors are more essential in distinguishing trajectory group membership than demographic or criminal history indicators. Finally, there were significant differences in recidivism rates across trajectories postcompletion, suggesting that improvement in (the rate of change in) buffer scores may account for some of the variation in offending behavior postrelease. Programmatic and policy implications are discussed.
One of the untested assumptions within the prison visitation literature is that inmates receive fewer visits when visitors must travel long distances to prisons. Measuring distance by comparing the addresses of the prisons where offenders were confined with the residential addresses of those who visited them, we tested this hypothesis by estimating the effects of distance on the number of times Minnesota prisoners were visited. We estimated the effects of distance by performing multilevel repeated measure analyses, measuring the frequency of visitation across the different facilities at which inmates were housed, the different neighborhoods from which they received visits, and between-inmate differences in visitation frequency. Besides distance, we also estimated the effects of social disorganization on the frequency of visitation. Finding that distance does indeed decrease the frequency of prison visitation, as does concentrated disadvantage in neighborhoods, we discuss the implications of this research for prison administrative policies.
This study examines the predictive accuracy of three risk assessment approaches for intimate partner violence (IPV) among a sample of 246 male perpetrators who were charged for offenses against their intimate partners. The sample was followed up for an average of 3.3 years, and any new general, violent, and IPV charges and convictions were recorded. The Ontario Domestic Assault Risk Assessment (ODARA) and a modified 14-item version of the Spousal Assault Risk Assessment Guide (SARA) demonstrated large effects in their ability to predict any reoffending or any violent reoffending and moderate predictive accuracy for IPV offending behaviors. The regionally used approach, Family Violence Investigative Report (FVIR), showed good predictive validity for any future offending but poorly predicted any of the violent-specific recidivism outcomes. Results of the study show that the ODARA was significantly better at predicting violence risk over the FVIR, but paired comparisons did not reveal statistical differences with the SARA.
The purpose of this article was to explore the association between demographic and background characteristics, as well as workplace perceptions that may predict burnout among two connected groups of community corrections officers. Using the Maslach Burnout Inventory, we assessed whether burnout differed between probation/parole and residential officers and analyzed whether predictors of burnout varied across these two groups. Our results indicated that while probation/parole officers were more likely to report Emotional Exhaustion, they were not any more or less likely to experience Depersonalization or Personal Accomplishment. In addition, educational training had a stronger impact for residential officers, while schedule fit was more important for probation/parole officers, when predicting Personal Accomplishment. These results not only extended the existing research on burnout but also helped inform key correctional stakeholders about what policies and practices were working well, as well as indicated potential areas of change to help minimize burnout among staff.
Although prison officers experience working conditions associated with work–life conflict, little research has explored this issue. This study draws upon the work–home resources model to investigate relationships between working conditions (demands and experiences of aggression) and time-based, strain-based, and behavior-based work–life conflict in U.K. prison officers (N = 1,682). Associations between working conditions, work–life conflict, and emotional exhaustion were also examined. Two recovery behaviors (affective rumination and detachment) were considered as potential moderators of associations between working conditions and emotional exhaustion. High levels of all work–life conflict dimensions were found, which were related to working conditions and emotional exhaustion. Some evidence was found that higher rumination and lower detachment exacerbated the positive association between both job demands and aggression and emotional exhaustion. The implications of the findings for the well-being and professional functioning of prison officers are discussed, together with key areas for future research.
Previous research has demonstrated a significant relationship between victimization and involvement in delinquency, but few studies have focused on exploring the effects of victimization on young offenders. This study analyzed the relationship between accumulated experiences of victimization, or polyvictimization, and the presence of psychopathology in 100 Spanish offenders (81% males) aged 14 to 17 years (M = 16.08, SD = 0.99). By means of cluster analysis, three groups of polyvictimized and two groups of less victimized offenders were identified. After controlling for demographic and criminal characteristics, polyvictims were more likely to reach a clinical level (T ≥ 65) of externalizing behavior (odds ratio [OR] = 3.136) and general impairment (OR = 2.878) than the remaining adolescents. These results showed that assessing multiple and less common forms of victimization is an important task when evaluating adolescent offenders, as polyvictimization is highly prevalent and places young people at a high risk of psychological impairment.
Exposure to violence is a widespread problem that affects the mental health of children and adolescents particularly in at-risk populations such as juvenile justice involved youth. While a number of studies have examined the cumulative impact of violence exposure, few studies have examined the importance of social context. The present study examined classifications of youth exposed to violence by contextual location (home, school, and neighborhood) in a sample of 2,124 juvenile justice involved youth. Latent class analysis revealed three classes of youth exposed to violence: (a) low violence exposure, (b) moderate and high home/school violence exposure, and (c) violence exposure in all three social contexts. Furthermore, distal outcomes analysis showed differences in internalizing and externalizing problems based on class membership. Findings from the current study underline the importance of understanding the role of social context in assessing violence exposure in juvenile justice involved youth.
Psychopathic offenders are at higher risk to violently reoffend than nonpsychopathic offenders; however, about one in four psychopathic offenders are not reconvicted for a violent offense even over extended follow-ups. The characteristics of nonrecidivating psychopathic offenders (NRPs) remain underexamined. In a sample of 123 offenders with a minimum Hare Psychopathy Checklist–Revised (PCL-R) score of 25, community follow-up of 5 years, and 4 months in a violence reduction program, 65 men receiving a violent conviction within 5 years (recidivating psychopathic offenders [RPs]) were compared with 58 who had not (NRPs). Comparatively, NRPs were older at release, had better community support, and were rated lower violence risk. NRPs also had significantly lower PCL-R Factor 2 scores, but higher Factor 1 scores. Post hoc analyses revealed prominent NRP characteristics included exploitative personality traits and a predilection for instrumentally violent crimes. Findings are discussed in terms of their implications for the risk assessment and treatment of psychopathic offenders.
We investigated the role of situational precipitators in sexual offenses in relation to the use of physical force by offenders, penetration of the victim, and physical injuries to the victim. We used self-report data obtained from a Canadian sample of 553 incarcerated adult male sexual offenders. All data used in this study were gathered through a semi-structured interview conducted with each participant. First, we found that 75.8% of sexual crime events were somehow precipitated, or characterized, by the presence of precipitators before crime. Second, the relationship between each precipitator and the type of offense was statistically significant except for one precipitator. Third, although a number of precipitators were associated with the dependent variables, we also found two interaction effects that illuminated the complexity of the role of precipitators in sexual offenses. Interaction analysis can increase our understanding of sexual crime events and better inform prevention practices, such as relapse prevention.
LGBT hate crimes are typically more violent and involve greater victim injury as compared to other victimizations, but they are substantially underreported. Victim reluctance to contact law enforcement may arise from perceptions of police bias. This study explores victim–police interactions, specifically reporting to the police, perceived police bias among victims who did not report, and differential police behavior among victims who reported. Using multiple years of National Crime Victimization Survey data, sexual orientation bias victimizations are compared with other forms of victimization. Logit regression models are examined before and after the Matthew Shepard Act. The pattern of results indicate that in the years following progressive policy reforms, LGBT bias victims continue to perceive the police as biased. Results do not significantly differ between sexual orientation bias victims and victims of other types of crime regarding police reporting and differential police response. Implications for policing efforts with the LGBT community are discussed.
Career stage theory suggested that workers progress through career stages, each marked by unique work attitudes. Little evidence exists, however, about the influence career stages have on the work activities of criminal justice agents. Using a sample of 401 police officers from 23 individual police departments, the present study examined the influence of employee career stage on three measures of work productivity, and the constructs of expectancy motivation theory. The results revealed curvilinear declines in productivity with progression through the career stages. The predictive values of opportunity, ability, and instrumentality on work activities varied with career stage and type of work output. Only performance-reward expectancy retained predictive value across all career stages and outputs. The findings emphasize the importance of intrinsic and informal extrinsic rewards for the management of experienced criminal justice agents.
This study examines the effects of juvenile transfer laws on youth charged with sex offenses and youth charged with robbery offenses. Using matched samples of youth charged in South Carolina between 1990 and 2001, we examined the effects of transfer on adjudication, incarceration, and recidivism. For youth charged with sex offenses, there were no significant effects of transfer on adjudication or incarceration. Transferred youth were more than 4 times as likely to be convicted of a new person offense as youth adjudicated in juvenile court. For youth charged with robbery offenses, transferred youth were less likely to be adjudicated, but when adjudicated, they were more likely to be incarcerated than those processed as juveniles. Transferred youth were also less likely to be arrested for or convicted of new nonperson offenses and less likely to be arrested for any new offenses. Implications for juvenile transfer policy and future research are discussed.
Women commit sexual offenses, but the proportion of sexual offenders who are female is subject to debates. Based on 17 samples from 12 countries, the current meta-analysis found that a small proportion of sexual offenses reported to police are committed by females (fixed-effect meta-analytical average = 2.2%). In contrast, victimization surveys indicated prevalence rates of female sexual offenders that were six times higher than official data (fixed-effect meta-analytical average = 11.6%). Female sexual offenders are more common among juvenile offenders than adult offenders, with approximately 2 percentage points more female juvenile sex offenders than female adult sex offenders. We also found that males were much more likely to self-report being victimized by female sex offenders compared with females (40% vs. 4%). The current study provides a robust estimate of the prevalence of female sexual offending, using a large sample of sexual offenses across diverse countries.
Juvenile offenders are treated harshly in that they receive adult-like punishment and are incarcerated when alternatives to incarceration are possible. Research on adolescent offenders suggests that they are less mature than their adult counterparts and that they suffer psychosocial setbacks as a result of incarceration. We examined the effect of psychosocial immaturity information on culpability judgments about juvenile offenders. In Study 1, we provided information about limitations in adolescents’ abilities to control their impulses, weigh risks and benefits, and consider the future consequences of their behavior. Compared with a control condition, those in the immaturity conditions attributed less responsibility to the offender. In Study 2, we manipulated both immaturity information and an actor’s mental state beliefs about the consequences of his action. We found that mental beliefs weighed more heavily in judgments about responsibility and guilt than information about immaturity. Discussion focuses on implications of this research for juvenile justice.
Little is known about the prevalence of sexual victimization (SV) in prisons located outside the United States or the relationship between SV and current substance use (SU) among incarcerated persons. This study explores the prevalence of SV inside Spanish prisons and the association between SV and SU experience based on data collected from a sample of inmates aged 18 or older (N = 2,709) located in eight prisons in the southeast of Spain. The estimated prevalence of SV over a 6-month period was 6.6%, with higher rates for females (12.0%) than men (6.1%). SU while incarcerated and history of childhood SV were significantly correlated with SV inside prison. This evidence suggests the need for integrated SU and trauma treatment, along with strong prevention interventions to reduce the risk of SV among inmates in Spanish prisons.
Ex-offenders face barriers to community reintegration including negative attitudes held by members of the public. This meta-analysis summarizes the extant research on the correlates of public attitudes toward ex-offenders—namely, public, ex-offender, and community characteristics—and the moderating effects of sexual offense history. A systematic search of four databases (PsycINFO, Web of Science, National Criminal Justice Reference Service [NCJRS], and ProQuest Dissertation & Theses) identified 19 records, consisting of 9,355 participants. Results revealed small associations between correlate variables and attitudes, suggesting that people are more similar than different in their attitudes toward ex-offenders. Indeed, only political ideology, interpersonal contact, and sexual offense history emerged as significant correlates. Moderation analyses revealed differences in public attitudes toward ex-offenders based upon the year a record was produced. Findings reveal the need for additional research examining moderators of public attitudes toward ex-offenders and suggest that interventions should explore ways to incorporate interpersonal contact and reduce stigma related to criminal histories.
Prison victimization research has mainly focused on direct experiences of victimization rather than on the vicarious victimization experiences of prisoners, despite the possibility of inmates being exposed to high levels of victimization. Using the Prison Experience and Reentry Study, a longitudinal study of 1,613 males residing in Ohio halfway houses, the study examined the extent of witnessing victimization in prison and its effects on individual post-release outcomes. The findings show that a large proportion of offenders witness victimization and that parolees who witnessed victimization faced greater odds of experiencing at least one negative criminal justice outcome, including a parole violation and an arrest. These findings suggest that it is not only direct victimization that plays a role in post-release adjustment.
Nominal risk categories for actuarial risk assessment information should be grounded in non-arbitrary, evidence-based criteria. The current study presents numeric indicators for interpreting one such tool, the Risk Matrix 2000, which is widely used to assess the recidivism risk of sexual offenders. Percentiles, risk ratios, and 5-year recidivism rates are presented based on an aggregated sample (N = 3,144) from four settings: England and Wales, Scotland, Germany, and Canada. The Risk Matrix 2000 Sex, Violence, and Combined scales showed moderate accuracy in assessing the risk of sexual, non-sexual violent, and violent recidivism, respectively. Although there were some differences across samples in the distributions of risk categories, relative increases in recidivism for ascending risk categories were remarkably consistent. Options for presenting percentiles, risk ratios, and absolute recidivism estimates in applied evaluations are offered, with discussion of the advantages, disadvantages, and limitations of these risk communication metrics.
Theories of desistance from crime have emphasized social processes like involvement in adult social bonds or prosocial social relationships to the deliberate neglect of individual subjective processes such as one’s identity. More recent theories, however, have stressed the role of identity and human agency in the desistance process. An important set of questions is whether identity theory adds anything to existing theories, and whether there is empirical evidence to suggest that such subjective processes are important. In this article, we provide an empirical assessment of individual subjective considerations in desistance by looking at the relationship between "good identities," intentional self-change, and desistance using survival time data from a sample of serious drug-troubled adult offenders released from prison whose arrest records are followed for almost a 20-year period. The implications of our findings for all brands of criminal desistance theory are discussed.
A long line of research has revealed that neuropsychological and familial factors are associated with crime and delinquency. Although some studies have also examined the relevance of neuropsychological–familial interplay in the prediction of adolescent misconduct, scholars have yet to explore whether this interplay is generalizable across groups stratified by race and socioeconomic status (SES). The current study employs data drawn from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999 (ECLS-K) to examine whether race and SES condition the interactive effects of neuropsychological deficits and adverse parenting on adolescent misconduct (N = 7,155). The results reveal that interactions between neuropsychological deficits and adverse parenting during childhood are especially predictive of adolescent misconduct among relatively privileged subsets of the sample (i.e., White, high SES). Limitations are noted, and future avenues for research are discussed.
Desistance from crime has been associated with numerous social influences. Although researchers have explored different theoretical rationales and underlying mechanisms between external social developments and individual changes in behavior, little focus has been given to the individual versus cumulative influences, and social complexities, of different informal controls influencing reduction in criminal behavior. The current study explores the individual and combined impact of marriage and employment on arrest using 17 years of monthly level data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1997). The results address isolated and cumulative influences of each social control on arrest and provide insight into the relevance of acknowledging the complexities of social events developing over time.
Access to transportation (i.e., walking, public transit, personal vehicles), or lack thereof, has not been extensively explored in criminal justice samples. Consequently, mixed-methods study of 366 women on probation and parole is the first to define transportation disadvantage, document its prevalence, and explore the problems related to it. Findings point to four themes, discovered in quantitative data analysis and buttressed by qualitative accounts, that illuminate the importance of transportation to justice-involved women. First, women have extensive transportation deficits at the individual level (e.g., they have poor physical health). Second, women rely heavily on social support. Third, women have deficits at the community level (e.g., they reside in inaccessible areas). Fourth, women have trouble identifying transportation-related problems directly, but through their narratives identify 10 distinct types. Further, transportation was a pressing concern for 42.6% of women that coincides with other needs such as health, safety, employment, neighborhood accessibility, and social support.
In the U.S. federal court system, the Probation and Pretrial Services Office (PPSO) uses a tool known as the Post-Conviction Risk Assessment (PCRA) to assess offender risk and identify challenges offenders face while under supervision. This article evaluates the PCRA and its components to determine its usefulness as a predictive tool for evaluating risk. Overall, we find that the PCRA is an effective tool for classifying offenders as it is currently designed, achieving a level of predictive validity comparable with its competitors. Notably, we also find that the PCRA effectively differentiates offenders early in supervision terms, and that its predictive power diminishes as time under supervision lengthens. Finally, the strength of PCRA classification appears to vary with offense type. The PCRA performs well for some offenses including drug, violent, and property offenses, but provides less utility in reliably predicting less common offenses.
Suicidal thoughts and behaviors are highly prevalent in prisoners. Nevertheless, there have been scant attempts to understand suicidality in prisoners from a psychological perspective. The goals of this study were to characterize a prison sample at high risk of suicide in terms of hopelessness, defeat, and entrapment, and to determine which of these variables predicted suicidality. A cross-sectional questionnaire design was used. Measures of hopelessness, defeat, entrapment, and suicide probability were administered to male prison inmates in the United Kingdom. Defeat and hopelessness, especially the affective component of hopelessness, predicted the probability of suicide in this sample, but entrapment was not a significant predictor. Suicide risk assessment procedures in prisons tend to be sparse. Such procedures would benefit from using measures of hopelessness and defeat. Future work should aim to understand how the impact of these psychological constructs on suicidality in prisoners can be attenuated.
Multisystemic Therapy (MST) is an evidence-based treatment for high-risk youth and their families shown to reduce subsequent delinquent activity. This study investigated (a) rearrest rates of a statewide MST dissemination and (b) the relation of child, family, and case characteristics to rearrest rates following receipt of MST. Analyses examined outcomes for 633 youth following referral to MST. Separate models examined predictors of general rearrest of any type and of more serious misdemeanor or felony arrests. Sixty-five percent of youth experienced a new arrest of any type within 12 months of MST initiation; fewer (53%) experienced a misdemeanor or felony charge in that time frame. Recipients who were younger, had an externalizing behavior disorder, and had a greater number and severity of pre-MST charges were more likely to recidivate. Findings highlight potential child and case factors that may account for variability in treatment effects when MST is implemented broadly within a system.
This study extended prior research on staff turnover in adult corrections to juvenile corrections by analyzing direct and indirect interrelationships among personal, work environment, job attitude, and turnover variables. Data came from a mail survey of youth worker staff as well as from agency archives. Race, age, tenure, input into decisions, and job stress had significant direct effects on job satisfaction, while organizational commitment was directly affected by gender, stress, and satisfaction. Tenure, satisfaction, and commitment directly affected intent, while only race and age directly affected actual turnover. Satisfaction and commitment performed significant mediating functions. Results suggest that staff turnover intent can be reduced by promoting job satisfaction and organizational commitment and, further, that these attitudes can be improved by providing staff greater input into decisions and reducing job stress. Future research must specify conditions under which intent predicts behavior, as the two were not significantly related in this study.
This project assessed the relationship between psychopathic traits, racial identity, and violent behavior in 257 delinquent boys. The Psychopathy Checklist–Youth Version (PCL:YV) was administered to youth across a 7-year window. The group was then followed for a mean of 14.7 years (range = 9.3 to 18.5 years), to determine if the presence of psychopathic features in adolescence predicted violent recidivism in adulthood. After controlling for race, Facet 3 was predictive of violent recidivism, whereas PCL:YV total score and all other Facets were not. Overall, African American youth obtained significantly higher PCL:YV scores and had higher rates of violent recidivism than did Caucasian youth, even when controlling for urban status. Implications for the use of the PCL:YV in clinical and legal settings will be discussed in light of the need for further research to be conducted on psychopathic traits in minority adolescents.
Scholars have hypothesized that victimization elicits distinctive effects on women’s pathways to prison and subsequent prison maladjustment, but few researchers have investigated gender differences in this relationship. Using nationally representative samples of men and women housed in state prisons, we examine gender differences in the effects of experiencing different types of nonstranger victimization prior to prison on inmate maladjustment. Results indicate that pre-prison nonstranger victimization affects men’s and women’s maladjustment similarly, with some gender differences—specifically, the effect of being physically assaulted by a nonstranger as an adult on violent misconduct was stronger among men, as was the effect of child abuse on men’s depressive symptoms. Our findings suggest the effects of experiencing nonstranger victimization prior to incarceration on prison maladjustment may be gender-neutral more so than gender-specific. Based on our findings, nonstranger victimization should be deemed important in theories of men’s maladjustment as well as in theories of women’s maladjustment.
The purpose of this study was to determine whether the Criminal Sentiments Scale (CSS), a putative measure of criminal thought content, was capable of predicting recidivism in adult and juvenile offenders. Thirteen nonoverlapping samples from 10 different studies (total N = 1,789) were included in a meta-analysis in which the total CSS scale and its three subscales—Attitudes Toward the Law, Courts, and Police (LCP); Tolerance for Law Violations (TLV); and Identification With Criminal Others (ICO)—were used to predict reoffending. The total score, LCP, and TLV achieved modest to low moderate effect sizes and the ICO achieved a weak, but significant effect size. There were no signs of significant scatter between studies and no evidence of publication bias. It is concluded that the CSS may have value in predicting recidivism, although additional research is required to determine whether it has incremental validity relative to measures of criminal though process.
Existing reviews of the impact of restorative justice programs on juvenile recidivism have reached mixed conclusions. The present meta-analysis identified relevant studies through a systematic search of 20 databases over a 25-year period as well as the ancestry method. Application of inclusion criteria resulted in a set of 21 studies contributing 21 independent effect sizes. Programs were found to be overall effective at reducing recidivism, with a pooled odds ratio of 1.28. Subgroup analyses indicate strong evidence that study and treatment characteristics play a role in evaluation results, such as strength of research design and racial/ethnic mix of program participants. Overall quality of the literature is relatively weak, with the large majority of studies derived from non-peer-reviewed sources and a lack of detail presented on treatment characteristics. Limitations with respect to exclusion criteria, sample sizes, and between-study heterogeneity are discussed.
The present study assessed factors affecting patterns of pre-incarceration medical service access and use among jail detainees with serious mental illnesses and co-occurring substance use disorders. Multivariable logistic and negative binomial models controlling for socio-demographic and psychodiagnostic factors assessed the extent to which insurance status and medical need significantly affected having a regular health care place/provider and number of emergency and non-emergency care visits in the year prior to detention. The results indicated having insurance was associated with decreased emergency care use and increased access to routine medical care. In comparison with insurance status, medical need was a more important determinant of the frequency of both routine and emergency medical care visits. We believe the results broadly support Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act, as well as its provisions for medical homes for offender populations.
This analysis compares the effects of maternal and paternal incarceration on adult daughters’ and sons’ criminal justice system (CJS) involvement. Data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) are used to examine differences by parent and offspring sex in the effect of parental incarceration on respondents’ self-reported arrest, conviction, and incarceration after age 18 (N = 15,587). Net of controls, both maternal and paternal incarceration significantly increase log odds of adult offspring CJS involvement. This effect is especially pronounced for same-sex parent–child dyads, suggesting that the salience of parental incarceration for adult offending outcomes is gendered. In addition, intimate partner abuse and running away are significant predictors of adult CJS involvement for women, but not for men. The results suggest the importance of examining parental incarceration using a gendered, developmental framework such as gendered pathways, as well as the need for gender-responsive correctional programming.
This study investigates changes in neurobiological characteristics after a cognitive skills program for prisoners. It was hypothesized that prisoners who completed a cognitive skills training program would show improved neurocognitive functioning and changes in heart rate (HR) activity. In addition, it was expected that neurobiological changes were related to behavioral improvement. Male adult prisoners were included in the study and divided into two groups: the "intervention group"—prisoners participating in a cognitive skills training program—and the "control group"—prisoners placed on a waitlist. Several neurocognitive skills and HR activity measures were assessed at pre- and posttest assessment. In addition, trainers, prison officers, and prisoners were requested to evaluate behavioral changes over time. Results did not confirm the hypotheses. The absence of both neurobiological and behavioral improvement is discussed in light of the measures used, the content and duration of the current intervention program, and the prison setting.
It is well established that victimization is associated with increased risk of future victimization. According to state dependence arguments, this occurs because the victimization event changes either the individual or the social environment in ways that elevate risk. In contrast, the population heterogeneity perspective argues that the association between victimization events is spurious. Empirical research finds that state dependence and population heterogeneity jointly contribute to risk of repeat victimization, but research has not been able to specify the nature of the relationship between state dependence, population heterogeneity, and repeat victimization risk. Here, we propose that state dependence processes vary across levels of underlying propensity for victimization. Using propensity score matching with longitudinal data from the National Crime Victimization Survey, we find that state dependence effects operate differently depending upon one’s underlying risk of victimization and that the pattern of these effects differ for property and violent victimization.
The Buss–Perry Aggression Questionnaire (BP-AQ) is a 29-item, four-factor instrument that measures physical aggression, verbal aggression, anger, and hostility. A large number of competing versions of the original BP-AQ have been proffered in the literature, but testing with aggressive offenders is limited. The present study used confirmatory factor analysis to compare the fit of seven models with a sample of 246 men and women who pled guilty to misdemeanor aggressive offenses. The study found two similar parsimonious 12-item versions of the four-factor BP-AQ that outperformed the other models and fit the data well while retaining acceptable reliability. Taken together, superior psychometric properties, acceptable reliability, and reduced item-burden are properties that clearly support the usage of either of these 12-item versions. The relative merits of these shorter versions of the BP-AQ are examined and implications for their use in applied contexts and further research are considered.
This study examines time-varying gender-responsive and gender-neutral predictors of recidivism over 3 years using baseline and quarterly follow-up interviews with 477 women released from a county jail. Of the 55 time-varying predictors tested in the longitudinal analysis, 39 were significant predictors of recidivism (new arrest or incarceration) even after controlling for baseline fixed predictors. Stepwise multivariate analysis simplified the model to 12 significant variables, including three time-varying variables associated with reduced risk of recidivism (custody of one’s children, self-help activity, environmental support), eight time-varying variables associated with increased risk of recidivism (illegal activity, type of crime, problems with probation/parole, days in jail/prison, number of sexual partners, past-year trauma, problem orientation, external pressure), and the composite measure of risk from baseline. These findings support the development of post-release re-entry services tailored for female offenders that address both gender-responsive and gender-neutral criminogenic risk factors.
The practice of motivational interviewing (MI) has gained acceptance as an effective approach to support behavior change in various therapeutic contexts. In recent years, MI has been extended to clients within less traditional therapeutic settings including prisons and probation departments. Despite the known strengths of MI for positively affecting behavioral change in therapeutic contexts, the extent to which probation officers are able to effectively utilize MI remains unknown. The current study utilizes self-report responses from 485 probationers to assess the internal consistency and factor structure of the Client Evaluation of Motivational Interviewing (CEMI) as a tool for gathering feedback on MI fidelity in probation. Confirmatory factor analysis found two distinct MI factors to exist among this client base—technical and relational aspects of MI. Results suggest the CEMI is an effective tool to determine community corrections clients’ self-perceptions of probation officer’s use of MI-consistent techniques.
Research shows that perceptions of procedural justice influence people’s trust, confidence, and obligation to obey law and legal authorities as well as their willingness to cooperate with and support legal authorities. Interpersonal interaction styles that are central to procedural justice theory also play a key role in communication accommodation theory (CAT). Based on video clips depicting a police traffic stop, we use a randomized experiment to test the effects of procedural justice and overaccommodation on trust in police, willingness to cooperate with police, and obligation to obey police and the law. The results demonstrate that procedural justice has more powerful effects than overaccommodation on reported trust and confidence in the officer, as well as respondents’ obligation to obey and willingness to cooperate with the officer. Moreover, although procedural justice generated strong effects on encounter-specific attitudes, it did not exert any effect on more general attitudes toward police.
The current study compared the psychometric properties and incremental validity of the callous-unemotional (CU) traits dimensions from four self-report measures of youth psychopathic traits, including the Antisocial Process Screening Device Self-Report version (APSD-SR), the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory (YPI), Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory–Short version (YPI-S), and the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits (ICU) among a sample of male youth incarcerated in Portuguese detention centers (N = 221). Across these measures, estimates of reliability and internal consistency were generally good; however, the correlations between measures ranged from very low to high suggesting moderate convergent validity. With regard to incremental validity, the Callousness dimension of the ICU was the best predictor of aggression, conduct disorder, and crime seriousness, whereas the Uncaring dimension of the ICU was the best predictor of age of crime onset. The current findings have important implications regarding the assessment of CU traits.
The experiences of juveniles in adult prisons have gained increased attention over the last several decades. This article adds to understandings of these experiences by examining the relationship between age and prison behavior among transferred juveniles (N = 763). Results reveal that juveniles committed to prisons at younger ages accumulate more misconducts than those committed at older ages. Results also indicate that African American youth, youth with mental health issues, youth with more extensive prior histories in the juvenile system, and youth committed for property and weapons offenses accumulated more prison misconducts. Policy and practice implications are discussed.
Job satisfaction is an important predictor of organizational efficiency and effectiveness; it can also predict attitudes and behaviors of staff. The field of organizational studies contains an ever-expanding quantity of empirical research on satisfaction, including research specifically focused on community corrections; however, no published research in the English language on satisfaction regarding community corrections in China currently exists. Using data from 225 community correctional officers from 15 counties (or equivalents) in Hubei, China in 2013, this study examined community correctional staff’s satisfaction and its predictors. The majority of Chinese community correctional officers were satisfied with their jobs. Role clarity, formalization, and perceived promotional opportunities were significant predictors of the satisfaction. Although distributive justice and procedural justice have often been found to be predictors of job satisfaction in the United States, particularly procedural justice, they were not predictors of job satisfaction among this group of Chinese community correctional staff.
Many men arrested for intimate partner violence (IPV) commit other types of criminal offenses as well. We examined 93 IPV offenders’ general offending and tested the ability of criminal career trajectory and an IPV-specific risk assessment (Ontario Domestic Assault Risk Assessment [ODARA]) to predict post-index recidivism 7.5 years later. Most (71%) had pre-index criminal charges, and most (62%) had post-index criminal recidivism, although fewer (24%) committed post-index IPV. Pre-index criminal career (defined as none, non-violent, violent, IPV) did not predict post-index IPV, whereas the ODARA predicted post-index IPV, area under the curve (AUC = .67), as well as other offenses with a moderate or large effect size, including stalking (AUC = .78), sexual assault (AUC = .67), and non-violent offenses (AUC = .74). In line with prior research findings, we conclude that many men arrested for IPV do not specialize in their criminal careers and that risk assessment in these cases could include risk of both IPV and other offenses. Furthermore, the ODARA holds promise for assessing general risk of recidivism among IPV offenders.
Using a panel of 6,001 males from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent and Adult Health, we examine potential moderation by paternal incarceration and parent–child closeness altering the relationship between the rare 2R MAOA genotype and delinquency. By jointly examining moderation patterns for both the mother and father with the transmission of the MAOA genotype from mother to son, we are able to make inferences about the specific genetic model that best explains these outcomes. In line with prior research, we find a direct relationship between the MAOA 2R genotype and delinquency, independent of parental incarceration and closeness. Examining moderation patterns, we find that delinquency risk for the 2R allele is buffered for males close to their biological or social father but not their biological mother. We conclude that the 2R-delinquency association is not due to passive gene–environment correlation but is best characterized as a social control Gene x Environment interaction.
Strengths-based, goal-focused approaches to working with at-risk youth have been successfully used by mentoring programs, therapeutic interventions, prevention programs, and self-help groups. However, few such approaches have been used to inform juvenile diversion programs. This is partially explained by limited empirical research on mechanisms of change used by goal-focused interventions in populations of young offenders. The authors use goal-setting theory to explore the effects of goal commitment and solution building on program completion, in a sample of violent first-time offenders (N = 159). Mediation effects of solution building in the relationship between goal commitment and program completion were tested using both Baron and Kenny’s and Preacher and Hayes’s approaches. Results showed that high goal commitment and solution building were significant predictors of program completion. In addition, solution building fully mediated the impact of goal commitment on program completion. Implications for research and practice are discussed.
The stability hypothesis of Gottfredson and Hirschi’s general theory of crime has received limited support in the literature. However, recent research on the dimensions of self-control suggests varied developmental trends that may conflate the idea of stability. Using a sample of more than 300 individuals from the northeastern United States, this study examines the stability hypothesis across early adulthood and expands the current literature by considering the early childhood risk factors that may distinguish between longitudinal trajectories of self-control. Finally, a reduced, multidimensional version of the behavior problem index for measuring self-control is introduced. Results show evidence of relative stability in three dimensions of self-control, and that sex predicts trajectory group membership. Theoretical implications are discussed.
Prior research has identified several individual, organizational, and community-level correlates of police misconduct, but studies based on theoretical explanations have only recently emerged in the literature. The purpose of the current study was to examine the potential relationship between self-control and police misconduct using both Gottfredson and Hirschi’s original version of self-control theory and Hirschi’s revised version of the theory. Data from a multi-agency sample of 101 first-line police supervisors demonstrated that self-control, as measured by both conceptualizations of the theory, was significantly related to self-reported prior engagement in police misconduct as well as the likelihood of future misconduct. The results are discussed in terms of theoretical and policy implications, as well as in terms of study limitations and directions for future research.
Dynamic risk and protective factors serve to assess the violence risk level of (forensic) psychiatric patients and offer guidance to clinical interventions. Risk assessment scores on Historical Clinical Risk Management–20 (HCR-20) risk factors and Structured Assessment of Protective Factors for violence risk (SAPROF) protective factors at different treatment stages were compared with violent incidents during treatment for 399 multidisciplinary coded assessments on 185 male and female forensic psychiatric patients. At later stages of treatment, less risk factors and more protective factors were observed, and predictive validities were higher. The HCR-20 and SAPROF scores showed good overall predictive validity for inpatient violence. The combination of risk factors and protective factors was a good predictor of incidents of aggressive behavior for different groups of patients, such as patients with violent or sexual offending histories, patients with major mental illnesses or personality disorders, and patients with a high score on psychopathy. Implications of these findings and recommendations for future research are discussed.
Research on the risk factors associated with gang joining suggests that the best predictor of gang membership is the accumulation of risk factors across a number of domains. These same risk factors are also associated with poor mental health and suicide, suggesting that gang members may be at risk for these outcomes. The current study utilized a nationally representative sample to examine two related issues. First, do youth who later become gang involved report levels of self-esteem, depression, suicidal thoughts, and attempted suicide that are substantively different than the general population? Second, how does gang membership affect these indicators of mental health? Results suggest that youth who become gang involved have significantly higher levels of depression and report a substantively higher rate of suicidal thoughts and behaviors than comparison youth. Furthermore, membership in gangs exacerbates these underlying problems, creating higher levels of depression and a higher prevalence of suicidal thoughts and actions.
This study of 179 recently incarcerated male adolescent offenders examined how leaders and followers in juvenile offending differed across offense, demographic, intraindividual, contextual, and social domains, and how leader/follower status affected the association between facility peer misbehavior and youth’s own institutional behavior over the first month of incarceration. Results indicated that leaders were older, more criminally experienced, reported higher levels of contextual risk, yet reported lower feelings of social isolation than followers. For followers, early exposure to facility peer drug sales was especially impactful on their subsequent institutional substance use, while facility peer antisocial behavior was related concurrently to all youth’s institutional antisocial behavior at each week of incarceration. Findings suggest that leaders and followers have distinct correlates and may require differential intervention, and heightened vigilance of facility peer relations is important throughout youth’s transition to juvenile incarceration.
The present study examined to what extent adolescent females in residential care with a substantiated history of sexual abuse can benefit from a cognitive behavioral treatment (CBT) targeting disruptive and delinquent behaviors. In total, 104 adolescent females in the treatment group and 78 adolescent females in the comparison group were included in the evaluative design. Latent growth models (LGM) were performed to model change in adolescent females’ conduct and anger problems. In the short term, 3 months after the treatment, adolescent females with sexual abuse experiences receiving CBT showed stronger declines in trait anger and anger expression compared with the other groups. Furthermore, in the long term, 18 months after admission, this group of females showed larger declines in proclivity for trading sex compared with the other groups. Results are discussed in the light of the "what works" literature for effective interventions.
This study sought to ascertain the prevalence of protective factors and association with client risk level and future offending in a sample of 177 Australian youth in detention. The Protective Domain on the Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth (SAVRY) instrument was utilized to identify protective items in the cohort. The mean number of protective factors for the entire sample was low (under two) with higher risk clients averaging less than one current protective item. Although the number of protective factors engendered criminal desistance, this effect did not extend to the highest risk young offenders. Clients who re-offended were significantly less likely to present with five out of the six SAVRY protective items. In addition, pro-social involvement and school engagement had the strongest associations with non re-offense. Clinical implications for client risk management are discussed.
Researchers have linked parental incarceration to a host of short-term, negative consequences for children and adolescents. However, it is unclear whether offspring experience some of these consequences, particularly depressive symptoms, as adults, especially racial/ethnic minorities who disproportionately experience parental incarceration. The present study uses data from Add Health to investigate whether parental incarceration during childhood or adolescence predicts depressive symptoms between ages 24 and 34 and whether race/ethnicity moderates this relationship. Results indicate that parental incarceration is associated with long-term consequences for some offspring, but not others. Specifically, respondents whose parent was first incarcerated before birth or age 1 appear to be at risk for adult depressive symptoms. Furthermore, the moderation analysis reveals similarities in the effects of parental incarceration across racial/ethnic groups. Findings from this study suggest that parental incarceration might be associated with long-term mental health consequences only for certain subgroups.
Unwarranted disparity taking place at the stage of prosecution has long been an interest for sentencing researchers. Research exploring the effect of offender race on prosecutorial decisions, however, has produced conflicting and inconclusive results. Some studies concluded that minority offenders faced more unfavorable outcomes than White offenders, whereas others found no significant impact of race/ethnicity in the prosecution process. Still others found a minority advantage. Given these inconsistencies, this research uses meta-analytic methodology to assess empirical findings from a body of scholarship that examined the relationship between race/ethnicity and prosecutorial outcomes. Analyses of homogeneity and moderator variables are also conducted to explore whether there are factors accounting for variability in effect sizes across studies. The result suggests that minority offenders face greater odds of being charged or fully prosecuted than White offenders. Moreover, several moderators, primarily methodologically relevant, account for variability across effect sizes.
Because women offenders often have limited social networks and unique needs, the actions of probation/parole officers providing community supervision may be particularly relevant to outcomes. The present study examined the effects of probation/parole officer relationship style, attention to criminogenic needs, and intensity of supervision on women offenders’ arrests and convictions within a 24-month period. Contrary to findings from other studies, the measured elements of officer actions had no direct effects on recidivism for a sample of 226 women. However, the analysis revealed an indirect effect in which a non-supportive, punitive relationship was related to reactance and anxiety, which in turn were related to high recidivism. The discussion focuses on theoretical and methodological explanations for the null findings regarding direct effects. Moreover, it draws on the literature in psychology and communication to suggest approaches to reducing the reactance that can promote recidivism and to suggest related future research directions.
This study examines the relationships between indicators of offender supervision outcomes and dimensions of positive psychological states (PPS). Results of a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) revealed that the first-order positive psychology constructs converge to form a higher order construct of PPS which was inversely associated with supervision outcomes. Furthermore, the mediating effect of PPS on the relationship between criminogenic risk factors and all offender supervision outcome variables was statistically significant, suggesting that offenders with heightened PPS are likely to have fewer criminogenic risk factors and are less likely to be reported for technical violation, charged, reconvicted, and imprisoned. The implications of these findings for correctional theory, practice, and policy conclude the article.
Using meta-analytic approaches, we examined whether interventions for women offenders are effective in reducing recidivism, as well as whether gender-informed and gender-neutral interventions differ in their effectiveness. Across 38 effect sizes reflecting 37 studies and nearly 22,000 women offenders, women who participated in correctional interventions had 22% to 35% greater odds of community success than non-participants. In other words, correctional interventions for women are at least as effective as the published rates for men. Across all 38 effect sizes, gender-informed and gender-neutral interventions were equally effective; however, when analyses were limited to 18 effect sizes associated with studies of higher methodological quality, gender-informed interventions were significantly more likely to be associated with reductions in recidivism. These findings support recent research indicating that women and girls are more likely to respond well to gender-informed approaches if their backgrounds and pathways to offending are associated with gendered issues.
The Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire (AQ) is often used with sexual offenders, but its factor structure has never been examined in this population. The primary aim of this study was to assess the fit of the proposed four-factor model of the AQ reported in previous studies on a sample of incarcerated sexual offenders (N = 293). Results of a series of confirmatory factor analyses did not clearly support the four-factor structure of the full or short version of the AQ. Specifically, very large latent factor correlations suggested that the AQ may not measure a four-dimensional construct in the current sample. Only the physical aggression subscale was independently associated with estimated risk of sexual recidivism. Our findings suggest that the AQ is relevant to risk of sexual recidivism but call into question the appropriateness of the established subscales and their interpretation for sexual offenders.
Callous-unemotional (CU) traits are associated with impaired distress recognition, possibly leading to suboptimal empathy development. Evidence stems from computerized task results, having little in common with day-to-day experiences. We assessed institutionalized adolescents’ empathic accuracy in their ability to infer staff members’ emotions, using Ecological Momentary Assessment. A sample of 55 adolescents reported perceived levels of distress and anger in staff, 4 times per day over the course of 8 days. CU traits were assessed with the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory, and data were submitted to multilevel regression analyses. All adolescents well identified anger and distress; high CU adolescents even overestimated both anger and distress intensities. Our ecological data suggest that in real-life situations, cognitive empathy skills may compensate for high CU adolescents’ distress recognition impairment. However, this compensatory process results in the perception of excessively negative emotions.
Empirical support for the usage of the SAVRY has been reported in studies conducted in many Western contexts, but not in a Singaporean context. This study compared the predictive validity of the SAVRY ratings for violent and general recidivism against the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (YLS/CMI) ratings within the Singaporean context. Using a sample of 165 male young offenders (Mfollow-up = 4.54 years), results showed that the SAVRY Total Score and Summary Risk Rating, as well as YLS/CMI Total Score and Overall Risk Rating, predicted violent and general recidivism. SAVRY Protective Total Score was only significantly predictive of desistance from general recidivism, and did not show incremental predictive validity for violent and general recidivism over the SAVRY Total Score. Overall, the results suggest that the SAVRY is suited (to varying degrees) for assessing the risk of violent and general recidivism in young offenders within the Singaporean context, but might not be better than the YLS/CMI.
Current efforts to identify the treatment needs of juveniles typically examine girls as a homogeneous group and recommendations for gender-responsive services tend to generalize needs to all girls. Research on within-girl heterogeneity suggests that this approach is shortsighted as treatment needs vary among justice-involved girls; however, little is known about how treatment needs cluster in this population. Consequently, we used latent class analysis to identify treatment needs within a sample of 1,731 female adolescents charged in juvenile court in Washington State. The analysis identified four classes of need representing High Family Conflict and Trauma (20%), Complex Treatment Needs With Antisocial Peers (30%), Low Adverse Experiences With Substance Abuse Needs (38%), and Mental Health Needs With Strong Social Assets (10%). The findings are consistent with other community-based analyses of female treatment needs and distinct from male-oriented treatment recommendations. Implications for policies regarding appropriate services and service capacity for justice-involved girls are discussed.
Recidivism risk assessment tools have been utilized for decades. Although their implementation and use have the potential to touch nearly every aspect of the correctional system, the creation and examination of optimal development methods have been restricted to a small group of instrument developers. Furthermore, the methodological variation among common instruments used nationally is substantial. The current study examines this variation by reviewing methodologies used to develop several existing assessments and then tests a variety of design variations in an attempt to isolate and select those which provide improved content and predictive performance using a large sample (N = 44,010) of reentering offenders in Washington State. Study efforts were completed in an attempt to isolate and identify potential incremental performance achievements. Findings identify a methodology for improved prediction model performance and, in turn, describe the development and introduction of the Washington State Department of Correction’s recidivism prediction instrument—the Static Risk Offender Need Guide for Recidivism (STRONG-R).
The present study investigated the predictive utility of violence severity ratings on recidivism based on behavior-based subtypes (family only [FO] violent and generally violent [GV]) of intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrators. Participants consisted of 328 men between the ages of 17 to 72 sentenced to probation in Lake County, Illinois between 2006 and 2008. The relationship between ratings of violence severity for the arresting event, based on victims’ and perpetrators’ accounts to responding police officers, and domestic violence recidivism for a 3-year postprobation completion/termination period was examined. Utilizing victims’ accounts, the Kaplan–Meier log rank test revealed a significant main effect for violence severity. In addition, perpetrator type moderated the relationship between violence severity and postprobation recidivism, such that a positive association was found for GV men but not for FO violent men. Results corroborate the predictive utility of assessing violence severity at the arresting event, particularly within GV men of IPV.
Risk and protective factors for antisocial behavior may operate differently for youth with versus without psychopathic traits. No prior studies address positive parenting in youth with a clinical measure of psychopathic traits. This study tested whether psychopathic traits reduce responsiveness to parental warmth in terms of conduct problems, substance use, and risky sexual behavior and the alternative perspective that psychopathic traits reduce responsiveness to harsh parenting, but not responsiveness to nurturance among 214 ethnically diverse male and female adolescent detainees. Multiple regression indicated that, for adolescents with low and medium levels of affective traits—but not adolescents with high levels of these traits—higher levels of warmth were associated with marginally fewer conduct disorder symptoms and with lower levels of substance use. Similarly, the association between warmth and substance use was stronger in youth with lower levels than for youth with high levels of overall psychopathy.
Research on autobiographical memory (AM) has identified problems with remembering specific events in clinical populations, which appear to be related to impaired executive functioning. This study explored whether offenders presented an overgeneral AM (OAM), as problems in executive functioning have been reported in offenders. We compared specificity, spontaneity, and phenomenological characteristics of AMs in offenders (46 men, 46 women) and in a control group (45 men, 47 women). This study also analyzed how depressive symptoms, verbal fluency, and problem-solving skills interacted with AM characteristics. Offenders recalled less specific positive, but not negative, memories compared with controls. Specificity for positive events was related to verbal fluency, but only for male offenders. Positive specificity was related to emotional aspects only for female offenders. The results are discussed in light of the cognitive mechanisms underlying OAM and possible implications for the study of criminal behavior.
As gatekeepers, caregivers play a pivotal role in the facilitation of parental prison contact, and some caregivers may be more likely to take children to visit than others. To advance prior work, I used data collected from structured interviews with prisoners in Arizona to test two hypotheses. Specifically, I expected that children with grandmothers (n = 684) and children with mothers (n = 300) would be more likely to visit mothers and fathers in prison relative to other child–caregiver dyads. Logistic regression analyses confirmed these hypotheses in both maternal and paternal models, independent of controls. Child situational factors, prisoner characteristics, stressors, and institutional barriers also predicted visits; although effects differed depending upon which parent was in prison. By providing insight into the maintenance of family ties during confinement, this study informs research and policy with respect to prison contact and reentry.
Due to stressors in the police profession, officers may be at risk for a variety of personal and mental health–related concerns. However, they have historically refrained from seeking professional mental health services. Several factors have been identified to explain their hesitance, including stigma regarding mental health issues. In this study, 248 police officers completed a 62-item online survey related to their attitudes toward seeking mental health services, mental health stigma, and perceptions of other officers’ willingness to seek services. The results indicate that public stigma and self-stigma were negatively correlated with attitudes toward seeking psychological help. Self-stigma fully mediated the relationship between public stigma and attitudes toward seeking help, and the model explained 56% of the variance in attitude scores. The results also suggest that police officers tended to believe that their peers were less willing to seek mental health services for several common presenting issues than they actually were.
Research shows that procedural justice can motivate compliance through the mediating influence of either legitimacy or social identity. Using three waves of longitudinal survey data collected from 359 tax offenders, we examine whether procedural justice is important to offenders’ decisions to comply with future tax obligations despite fear of sanctions, and whether legitimacy and social identity processes mediate the relationship between procedural justice and compliance. Our results reveal that (a) legitimacy mediates the effect of procedural justice on compliance, (b) social identity mediates the procedural justice/compliance relationship, (c) identity seems to matter slightly more than perceptions of legitimacy when predicting tax compliance, and (d) perceived risk of sanction plays a small, but counterproductive role in predicting tax compliance. We conclude that normative concerns dominate taxpayers’ compliance decisions. Implications are relevant for understanding behavioral compliance and how procedural justice can motivate such behavior.
This study examines the prevalence and clinical usefulness of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.; DSM-5) specifier "with Limited Prosocial Emotions" (LPE) in detained girls. Detained girls (N = 85; Mage = 16.24) and their parents were interviewed with a structured diagnostic interview to identify girls with conduct disorder (CD), and both informants completed the Antisocial Process Screening Device to assess the LPE specifier. Psychiatric disorders other than CD, aggression, and offending were assessed through standardized self-report tools. Different approaches were used to deal with diagnostic information from multiple informants. The prevalence of CD + LPE girls was lower when using self-report (12.9%) compared with parent-report (38.8%), suggesting that parents indeed are important to identify CD + LPE girls. However, including parental information did not result in a better differentiation between CD + LPE and CD-only girls. Specifically, the LPE specifier only enabled to identify a group of seriously antisocial girls with higher levels of proactive aggression, though solely when using self-report.
Because weak interagency coordination between community correctional agencies (e.g., probation and parole) and community-based treatment providers has been identified as a major barrier to the use of evidence-based practices (EBPs) for treating drug-involved offenders, this study sought to examine how key organizational (e.g., leadership, support, staffing) and individual (e.g., burnout, satisfaction) factors influence interagency relationships between these agencies. At each of 20 sites, probation/parole officials (n = 366) and community treatment providers (n = 204) were surveyed about characteristics of their agencies, themselves, and interorganizational relationships with each other. Key organizational and individual correlates of interagency relationships were examined using hierarchical linear models (HLM) analyses, supplemented by interview data. The strongest correlates included Adaptability, Efficacy, and Burnout. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.
Existing literature demonstrates a clear connection between perceptions of procedural injustice and offending behaviors. Despite this connection, the mechanisms through which procedural injustice influences offending remain theoretically underdeveloped. To address this gap, the current study proposes that techniques of neutralization can be used to further develop our understanding of the connection between procedural injustice and criminal behavior. Using longitudinal data from the Gang Resistance Education and Training (GREAT) program, the links between procedural injustice, techniques of neutralization, and offending are explored. Results show that the effect of procedural injustice on offending is partially mediated by individuals’ neutralization attitudes. This finding expands the scope of procedural justice theory by demonstrating that procedural injustice is associated with attitudes conducive to criminal behavior rather than only the behavior itself.
This study examined the internal validity and predictive accuracy of the Guidelines for Stalking Assessment and Management (SAM), a structured professional judgment risk assessment tool for stalking. Interviewers rated 89 stalking offenders on the Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL:SV) and SAM Nature (N) and Perpetrator (P) subscales. Researchers obtained stalking and violence outcomes prospectively from several sources, for an average follow-up period of 2.5 years. Cox Proportional Hazard analyses including SAM and PCL:SV scores demonstrated a significant positive relationship between SAM total and subscale scores in predicting stalking recidivism, whereas PCL:SV scores were negatively associated with recidivism. However, the SAM clinical risk ratings did not significantly predict stalking reoffending. There were also no significant associations between SAM scores and violent outcomes. These findings provide mixed support for the use of the SAM as a risk assessment tool for stalking offenders.
This study tests whether behavioral intentions to commit two forms of student academic dishonesty (i.e., cheating on exams and plagiarizing a paper) are related to perceived university legitimacy. Cross-sectional data from a university-based sample (N = 502) are used to construct a three-dimensional, second-order confirmatory model of university legitimacy. The results from the ordinal logistic models show that students who perceive university authority as legitimate are less likely to express intentions to cheat on an exam, net of other known correlates of deviance and demographic factors. This finding holds when the Legitimacy Scale is disaggregated. When it comes to plagiarism, the effect of university legitimacy is null. Overall, the findings indicate that the explanatory scope of the process-based model extends rule breaking beyond criminal justice settings and that university authorities can curb student cheating by ensuring that their processes and procedures used to manage students are evenhanded.
Procedural justice research generally indicates that legitimacy produces compliance when people perceive the law and legal actors to be fair. Drawing upon 140 in-depth interviews with gun offenders detained in Los Angeles County jails, this article examines legal and extra-legal factors that influence illegal gun possession. Although prior research studies on legal and illegal gun carrying have suggested a relationship between (a) safety perceptions and possession and (b) legal perceptions and possession, few have deeply interrogated how such perceptions develop and interact to inform ideas of legitimacy and compliance with gun laws. Our findings suggest that feelings of insecurity coupled with perceptions of, and experiences with, law enforcement interacted in complex ways to condition legitimacy-based beliefs, and ultimately, compliance. Although many of our respondents viewed the law as legitimate in the abstract, they believed it to be illegitimate in individual application, especially where rules and sanctions failed to account for personal experiences of insecurity.
Reoffending rates after release from prison are high in most Western countries. Knowledge on how certain aspects of prison life affect postrelease recidivism could be useful to effective crime-control. One aspect of prison life that may potentially affect prisoners’ reoffending behavior refers to the extent to which prisoners feel treated fairly and respectfully. This notion is central to procedural justice theories, which argue that people will be more likely to comply with the law when they feel treated in a just and decent way by actors who enforce the law. At present, it is unknown whether or not a procedurally just treatment during imprisonment can reduce postprison reoffending rates. This study examined (a) whether prisoners’ procedural justice perceptions influence their postrelease offending behavior, and (b) whether the relationship between procedural justice and reoffending was mediated by prisoners’ perceived legitimacy of the criminal justice system. Associations were explored with survey and registered conviction data of 1,241 Dutch prisoners from the Prison Project. Although the effect was small, prisoners who felt treated in a procedurally just manner during imprisonment were less likely to be reconvicted in the 18 months after release. No evidence was found for a mediating role of legitimacy.
Specialized court programs have expanded beyond drug treatment to address issues such as mental health, domestic violence, veterans, and reentry through evidenced-based treatment. Although these programs have been successful at reducing recidivism, their lack of an overarching theoretical framework has limited generalizability to other offender populations and contexts. The purpose of this article is to present an integrated model for specialized court programs that incorporates therapeutic jurisprudence and procedural justice concepts. We argue that although therapeutic jurisprudence offers guiding principles, it lacks the ability to explain how these programs work to change offender behavior and perceptions. Procedural justice can provide this missing piece of the puzzle in understanding the effectiveness of specialized courts. We conclude with a discussion of directions for future research and practice that is guided by this integrated perspective.
We examined the predictive and incremental validity of two self-report risk assessment measures—the Self-Appraisal Questionnaire (SAQ) and the Measure of Criminal Attitudes and Associates (MCAA)—in a sample of 121 adult male offenders, with mental health problems in a correctional treatment setting. Both the SAQ and MCAA were significantly and positively correlated with a standard risk/need assessment currently used in corrections, the Level of Service Inventory–Ontario Revision (LSI-OR). All three risk measures significantly predicted general recidivism within 1 year of follow-up. The SAQ and LSI-OR also significantly predicted institutional incidents (threat, verbal aggression, or assault). In addition, the MCAA significantly added to the prediction of general recidivism provided by the LSI-OR, whereas the SAQ did not, likely reflecting the relatively high content overlap of the SAQ and LSI-OR. Neither self-report measure added to the ability of the LSI-OR to predict institutional incidents involving aggression.
Research finds mentally ill persons have higher rates of police contacts, arrests, and criminal charges for minor offenses and noncriminal behavior. It remains unclear whether the decision-making process and factors affecting discretion reflect a procedural bias that criminalizes the mentally ill. Using observational data from a Canadian police service, the findings suggest higher odds for criminal charges with serious offenses, males, older citizens, a prior criminal record, being under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and being uncooperative with requests for information and compliance. The odds of a citation are higher for proactive calls, more serious offenses, older citizens, mentally ill persons, those under the influence, or with a disrespectful demeanor. The overall findings suggest an indirect procedural bias exists due to situational constraints, a disjuncture between policy and police culture, and limited mental health resources that lead to response strategies that contribute to criminalization of the mentally ill.
The construct of perpetration-induced trauma (PT) proposes that inflicting harm on others may constitute a traumatic event, a phenomenon which might be relevant to youth in gangs. This study investigated PT, trauma exposure, posttraumatic stress symptoms, and gang membership in a sample of 660 youth (484 boys, 176 girls) recruited from a detention center. When compared with their non-gang-member peers, youth in gangs endorsed higher levels of exposure to violence and PT, as well as higher symptoms of dissociation and emotional numbing. Girls who endorsed gang membership were those most likely to meet full or partial criteria for a posttraumatic stress disorder diagnosis. Results of regression analyses showed that PT predicted unique variance in posttraumatic stress above and beyond other variables and results of tests for bootstrapped indirect effects were consistent with the hypothesis that PT acts as a mediator of the association between gang membership and posttraumatic stress.
Researchers have documented the negative consequences of police-initiated contact for youth including increased delinquency. The procedural justice framework suggests this delinquency amplification is due, in part, to the negative consequences of police contact on evaluations of the police. Using four waves of data, we explore the multiple ways in which being stopped or arrested and procedural injustice act in concert to affect later delinquency. We also assess how these effects differ based on youth’s evaluations of their police encounters. Our findings indicate that the total effect of being stopped or arrested on delinquency depends on the youth’s level of satisfaction with the encounter. In addition, procedural injustice mediates some of the effect of contact on delinquency, but its relationship with delinquency is not direct. We conclude that the negative consequences of being stopped or arrested are mitigated, but not eliminated, when contact is perceived favorably.
This study uses National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) data to explore the co-evolution of friendship networks and delinquent behaviors. Using a stochastic actor–based (SAB) model, we simultaneously estimate the network structure, influence process, and selection process on adolescents in 12 small schools (N = 1,284) and 1 large school (N = 976) over three time periods. Our results indicate the presence of both selection and influence processes. Moderating effects were tested for density, centrality, and popularity, with only a weak interaction effect for density and influence in the small schools (p < .10). Contexts outside the school affected school networks: adolescents in the large school were particularly likely to form ties to others from equally disadvantaged neighborhoods, and adolescents in the small schools with more outside of school ties increased their delinquency over time. These findings support the importance of delinquency in peer selection and influence processes.
This study examined responses to a self-report questionnaire on interviewing techniques administered to 291 incoming adult male prison inmates across Japan who were convicted of murder, robbery, arson, rape, forcible indecency, or kidnapping. The questionnaire focused on interrogations that led to confessions. Four interview styles (Evidence-confrontational, Relationship-focused, Undifferentiated-high, and Undifferentiated-low) were identified. For prisoners who had already decided to confess before their interrogation, interview styles had no effect on the tendency to confess. However, when prisoners were undecided about confessing or had previously decided to deny allegations, the Relationship-focused and Undifferentiated-high interview styles were associated with confessions. Furthermore, prisoners who experienced Relationship-focused interviews were more likely to provide previously undisclosed information to the police.
Scholars have long noted the importance of the media in shaping citizens’ attitudes about crime and justice. Most studies have focused on the impact of news and particularly local TV news, yet Americans spend far more time watching entertainment media. We examine the portrayal of police misconduct in crime dramas, and how exposure to these portrayals affects perceptions of the police. We find that viewers of crime dramas are more likely to believe the police are successful at lowering crime, use force only when necessary, and that misconduct does not typically lead to false confessions. In contrast, perceptions regarding the frequency of force are unaffected. Our results add to a growing literature demonstrating the importance of entertainment media for attitudes toward crime and the criminal justice system.
The ability to predict confessions and cooperation from the elements of an interrogation was examined. Incarcerated men (N = 100) completed a 50-item questionnaire about their most recent police interrogation, and regression analyses were performed on self-reported decisions to confess and cooperate. Results showed that the likelihood of an interrogation resulting in a confession was greatest when evidence strength and score on a humanitarian interviewing scale were high, and when the detainee had few previous convictions or did not seek legal advice. We also found that the level of cooperation was greatest when the humanitarian interviewing score was high, and when previous convictions were low. The implications of the findings for interrogation practices are discussed.
This study takes stock of empirical research examining the relationship between gang membership and offending by subjecting this large body of work to a meta-analysis. Multilevel modeling is used to determine the overall mean effect size of this relationship based on 1,649 effect size estimates drawn from 179 empirical studies and 107 independent data sets. The findings indicate that there is a fairly strong relationship between gang membership and offending (Mz = .227, confidence interval [CI] = [.198, .253]). Bivariate and multivariate moderator analyses not only reveal that this relationship is robust across the vast majority of methodological variations but also show that the gang membership–offending link is stronger when studying active gang members, and weaker in prospective research designs, non-U.S. samples, and when controlling for theoretical confounders and mediators. These results affirm the efforts of researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to understand and respond to gang behaviors, and are used to identify aspects of this literature that are most worthy of continued attention.
This study compares differences between community-based psychopathic-like adolescents (n = 78, 72% males) and referred psychopathic-like adolescents (n = 67, 70% males) in means, variances, and covariation between problem behaviors, adverse childhood experiences, parental conflict, physical and sexual victimization, and perceived parent–adolescent attachment quality. The psychopathic-like adolescents were identified among a larger pool of 1,346 community-based adolescents and 381 adolescents referred to institutional correctional treatment. Relative to the community group, referred adolescents presented with a distinct profile exhibiting higher levels of impulsive and irresponsible behavioral style, higher rates of problem behaviors and childhood victimization, and lower perceived parent–adolescent attachment quality. However, striking similarities in variances, and, in particular, of the covariation between problem behaviors, victimization, and attachment suggest that comparable processes link familial factors to problem behavior in psychopathic-like adolescents who have avoided contact with juvenile justice system and referred psychopathic-like adolescents.
Among U.S. offenders, both ethnic minorities and persons with mental illness are overrepresented. In communities, ethnic minorities are less likely than European Americans to receive mental health treatment, despite having similar need. Many barriers to treatment (e.g., financial and transportation) are removed in prisons; therefore, we sought to understand whether and how ethnicity relates to identification of mental illness (a proxy for treatment receipt) among prisoners. Due to the growth of the Latino population, we focused on Latino offenders. We examined records from two states with high proportions of Latino offenders to determine whether the likelihood of being identified with a mental illness differed by ethnicity. Offenders who had a mental disorder were disproportionately likely to be European American or African American and less likely to be Latino. We offer suggestions for future research on ethnic disparities in correctional mental health to promote best practices with vulnerable offenders.
This study examines the influence of gender and history of trauma exposure on the length of time juvenile offenders served in post-adjudicatory placements. Data were drawn from a database that included information on all juvenile referrals from three large urban counties in Texas during a 2-year period. The study sample included all juveniles (N = 5,019) placed in local non-secure and county-operated secure facilities. Findings indicate that female juveniles served significantly longer periods of confinement in local facilities than boys, even when controlling for other influential variables such as offense severity, prior record, age at referral, and facility type. Findings also indicate that girls with histories of trauma served longer periods in confinement than boys for violating their court-ordered conditions of probation.
Major commonalities among sexual homicide models include the presence of deviant sexual interests and low self-esteem. Using a sample of violent sexual offenders who have either physically injured or killed their victim (n = 229), the current study investigates the impact of persistent deviant sexual interest(s) and persistent low self-esteem on sexual homicide. Findings suggest that both persistent deviant sexual interests and persistent low self-esteem are important predictors of sexual homicide. These findings suggest that there is a group of sexual murderers with low self-esteem who are driven by deviant sexual interests and may kill to satisfy their deviant sexual interests.
This study provides both a structural analysis of the Historical-Clinical-Risk Management–20 (HCR-20) Version 3 and an examination of the correspondence between the HCR-20 Versions 2 and 3. HCR-20 Versions 2 and 3 risk ratings were completed for 64 psychiatric inpatients. Moderate to good interrater reliability was observed for the Version 3 subscales and summary risk ratings. Subscale scores and summary risk ratings on the Version 2 were significantly correlated with the corresponding scales and indices on the Version 3, although correlations were stronger when ratings were completed by the same rater as opposed to different raters. Version 3 items corresponding to Violence, Violent Attitudes, Violent Ideation or Intent, and Insight were the strongest predictors of the summary risk ratings, although some differences emerged when risk factor presence ratings were weighted by relevance ratings. The implications of these findings for risk assessment practice are discussed.
This study presents an evaluation of Operation RESET, a community engagement intervention designed to help remote Indigenous communities and human service agencies to uncover, respond to, and prevent child sexual abuse. The primary aim of this evaluation was to determine whether the intervention was associated with increased reporting. Data were obtained for six Western Australian regions between 2007 and 2012. Number of reports and arrests significantly increased in the intervention areas during the intervention compared with the pre-intervention time period but not in the control areas. Arrest rates significantly increased during the intervention and increased further following the intervention. There were no changes in arrest rates in regions that did not participate in the operation. This evidence suggests that the reforms led to a marked improvement in some key outcomes for Indigenous victims of child sexual abuse and supports the adoption of this collaborative approach by other jurisdictions.
Using a mixed-race sample of male and female drug-involved offenders who were released from prison in the early 1990s and re-interviewed in 2009 through 2011, this article represents perhaps the first attempt to determine the utility of the identity theory of desistance (ITD) in explaining desistance in a contemporary cohort of adult drug-involved offenders. Supporting the ITD, interview narratives revealed that the vast majority of offenders who successfully desisted from crime and substance misuse had first transformed their offender identity into a non-offender identity. Although partnership and employment did not appear to be significant turning points per se for the majority of our respondents, rekindling relationships with extended family and finding living-wage employment did serve to solidify new prosocial identities once the transformation had occurred.
Effective intervention with offenders requires accurate identification of their risk-relevant propensities. In this prospective study, 139 Canadian community supervision officers were trained to assess the risk factors and criminogenic needs of adult male sexual offenders using structured risk tools. Recidivism outcomes were recorded for 768 offenders (average age of 41 years, approximately half had child victims, 14% Aboriginal) during an average 7-year follow-up period. All forms of recidivism (sexual, violent, any) were predicted by sex crime specific risk tools based on static, historical factors (Static-99R; Static-2002R) and by tools designed to assess psychologically meaningful risk factors of sexual offenders (STABLE-2000; STABLE-2007). Professional overrides of the Static-99 scores did not improve predictive accuracy. STABLE-2007 scores added incrementally over STATIC scores for all recidivism outcomes, but only for complete cases, suggesting meaningful variation in the extent to which community supervision officers can assess psychologically meaningful risk factors for sexual offenders.
Only a handful of studies have sought to explore the robustness of the relationship between procedural justice, police legitimacy, and willingness to cooperate with police among adults who have recently been arrested. The findings from those studies have raised questions about the durability of the framework for offenders, as well as whether there may be variation in perceptions of police across offender types. The current study explores these issues using data from interviews with a large, criminally diverse sample of recently booked arrestees in Maricopa County, AZ, from 2010 to 2012 (N = 2,262). Findings indicate that procedural justice is strongly associated with views of police legitimacy, and perceptions of police legitimacy do not vary by offender type. Procedural justice and legitimacy perceptions are powerful predictors of willingness to cooperate with the police. Results provide strong support for the extension of the normative, process-based framework to the arrestee population.
This study was conducted to assess the value of administering a risk/need assessment instrument to low-risk offenders in Pakistan. The Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (LS/CMI) and a measure of religiosity, the Muslim Religiosity-Personality Inventory (MRPI): Abridged Scale, were administered to probationers in this highly devout Muslim country that has little experience with risk/need assessment. In spite of the low recidivism rate, predictive validities based on correlation and receiver operating characteristic analyses were comparable with those of Western cultures overall, and for samples based on gender, geographic location, and type of crime. Although religiosity was negatively correlated with recidivism, it offered no incremental validity to the LS/CMI to predict recidivism because it was also correlated negatively with the LS/CMI. The findings have theoretical implications for the risk assessment of low-risk offenders and for the contribution of religiosity to offender risk and practical implications for the Pakistani justice system.
Campus police agencies are often the first, if not only, responders to sexual assault incidents occurring on college campuses. Little is known, however, regarding the attitudinal dispositions of these officers, specifically their acceptance of rape myths and the effect this has on case processing. The current study addresses this gap in the literature by examining attitudes toward and perceptions of sexual assault among a sample of campus law enforcement officers in Texas. This was done through the administration of a short survey to a sample of campus law enforcement officers prior to their attendance at a sexual assault-focused training, as well as all campus police chiefs via the Internet. Survey items inquired about officers’ careers in law enforcement, contact with victims, and perceptions of sexual assault. Results suggest that officers’ adherence to rape myths is strongly related to their perceptions of campus sexual assault incidents and their attitudes toward victims. Suggestions for future research and policy are offered.
Exposure to negative pre-trial publicity (PTP) can bias jurors, but the role of PTP in capital sentencing remains unclear. The goal of this study was to examine how variations in PTP concerning a defendant’s emotions prior to sentencing and variations in the defendant’s emotions during sentencing influenced sentencing decisions. One hundred death-qualified community members served as mock jurors in a 2 (pre-sentencing publicity [PSP]: emotional vs. unemotional) x 2 (defendant’s behavior at sentencing: emotional vs. unemotional) between groups factorial design. Participants were exposed to PSP approximately 1 week before viewing a DVD of a simulated sentencing hearing in which we manipulated the defendant’s behavior. Appearing emotional during sentencing decreased the likelihood of a death sentence and improved evaluations of the defendant, but PSP exerted no effect on decision making. Attitudes toward the death penalty directly affected sentencing decisions and moderated the effects of both publicity and sentencing behavior.
The predictive validity of the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (YLS/CMI) and the use of professional override were examined in a matched sample of youth who committed sexual (n = 204) and non-sexual (n = 185) offenses. Based on the actuarial score, the YLS/CMI obtained moderate to strong levels of predictive validity for non-violent, violent, sexual, and technical recidivism in both samples of youth. Probation officers always used override to increase risk level classification and did so at a high level for both sexual (n = 151; 74.0%) and non-sexual (n = 77; 41.6%) offending youth. There was a detrimental impact on the predictive validity of the YLS/CMI for youth who received an override adjustment, regardless of offending category. These preliminary findings suggest that the application of override should be carefully considered on instruments such as the YLS/CMI.
Using a 2 (incarceration length) x 2 (custody type) between-groups design, the present study assessed whether inmates’ perceptions of the prison social climate were influenced by their security classification and length of time they had been incarcerated. Analyses of data collected from 76 male prisoners who completed a 15-item measure of prison social climate revealed an interaction effect between length of incarceration and protective prisoner status. Those housed in protective custody who had been incarcerated for longer than 6 months rated the social climate significantly more positively than both protective custody prisoners incarcerated for less than 6 months and those not in protective custody. This interaction was strongest on those social climate dimensions relating to therapeutic hold and social cohesion. A univariate effect was also observed whereby protective custody prisoners, irrespective of incarceration length, reported that they experienced the environment as less safe than their mainstream (non-protective custody) counterparts.
How defendants are selected into mental health courts (MHC) is central to issues of fairness, efficacy, and successful program replication. Only recently has empirical research started to examine MHC selection, revealing a multi-stage process with multiple decision makers and multiple variables. In this study, we use classification and regression tree analysis (CART) to examine the variables suggested in recent research to predict selection into MHC. The analysis includes legal and diagnostic variables, treatment history, measures of treatability, motivation to change, violence risk, and symptom severity. We find that the MHC is more likely to accept defendants who did not have warrants issued for their arrest, who had diagnoses other than depression, and who did not report using illegal drugs around the time of their admission. Symptom severity and motivation to treatment also predict MHC admission, with their effects contingent on defendants’ statuses on other variables.
This study extends Hipple and colleagues’ variation analysis by examining how varying degrees of restorative justice, procedural justice, and defiance in family group conference (FGC) processes and outcomes affect long-term juvenile recidivism measures in one large Midwestern U.S. city. The current study uses two data sets from the Indianapolis Juvenile Restorative Justice Experiment that include conference observations, juvenile histories, and adult criminal histories to examine how variations in FGC elements shape juvenile recidivism outcomes in a long-term follow-up period. Findings reveal that the greater fidelity of FGCs to the theoretical foundations of restorativeness and procedural justice, the better outcomes in the long term as measured by future offending. Specifically, offense type and conference restorativeness influenced the probability of recidivism in the long term. Results are consistent with the theoretical predictions of reintegrative shaming and procedural justice theories, providing further support that FGCs are a viable youth justice program option.
The concurrent impact of individual and neighborhood effects on defendant pretrial performance has not been studied. This study asks whether there is neighborhood-level variation in defendants’ failure to appear and pretrial crime and explores the impact of three neighborhood structural conditions (socioeconomic status, stability, and racial composition). The study was conducted in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on a 2005 sample of defendants (N = 800), followed for a year to record bail outcomes. Defendants’ residences were geocoded within 45 neighborhoods. Census data were used for neighborhood structural characteristics. Multilevel analyses (hierarchical linear modeling) found no neighborhood variation. However, individual-level results indicate that a defendant’s neighborhood status and stability are negatively related to rearrest. Defendants from more affluent and stable neighborhoods are less likely to be rearrested for new crime. Although reliance on individual-level prediction at bail seems warranted, the study underscores the need to further explore the linkage between neighborhood conditions and pretrial outcomes.
The purpose of the study is to examine the impact of childhood maltreatment on youth offender recidivism in Singapore. The study used case file coding on a sample of 3,744 youth offenders, among whom about 6% had a childhood maltreatment history. The results showed that the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory 2.0 (YLS/CMI 2.0) ratings significantly predicted recidivism for nonmaltreated youth offenders, but not for maltreated youth offenders. Using propensity score matching, the result from a Cox regression analysis showed that maltreated youth offenders were 1.38 times as likely as their nonmaltreated counterparts to reoffend with a follow-up period of up to 7.4 years. The results implied that the YLS/CMI 2.0 measures were insufficient for assessing the risk for recidivism for the maltreated youth offenders, and that other information is needed to help assessors use the professional override when making the overall risk ratings.
Risk assessment inventories play a significant role in predicting recidivism risk and informing parole and community supervision orders. This article examines the effectiveness of the Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (LS/CMI) in a study of Australian offenders completing community-based sentences. The study aimed to identify the internal reliability and the factor structure of the LS/CMI. The results indicated that the LS/CMI total score achieved excellent internal reliability. There is concern regarding the capacity for the subscales to function independently. A factor analysis determined a two-factor solution at a subscale level, whereas a more diverse factor solution was obtained at an item level. The LS/CMI was determined to be predictive of recidivism, but this was a weak effect. The results indicate that the LS/CMI as it is currently used in this population may not be an appropriate assessment tool, requiring further research before an international risk assessment is adopted in Australian jurisdictions.
Significant attention has been directed at evaluating Gottfredson and Hirschi’s claim that parental socialization has a direct influence on self-control and an indirect influence on criminal behavior. Yet, only recently have researchers investigated the role parental self-control occupies in shaping these processes. To advance research in this area, the current study utilizes data collected on a sample of young adults (n = 420) to examine how parental low self-control is related to parental socialization, young adult low self-control, and young adult offending. In support of the hypothesized model, the results of a structural equation model indicate the effect of parental low self-control on young adult low self-control is indirect through parental socialization, the effect of parental socialization on young adult offending is indirect through young adult low self-control, and the effect of parental low self-control on young adult offending is indirect through both parental socialization and young adult low self-control.
The development and implementation of training programs aimed at increasing community supervision officers’ use of core correctional practices served as the focus of this review. Studies that evaluated the effect that officer training had on offender outcome were included in the review. Based on 10 studies (N = 8,335), this meta-analysis found that when offenders were supervised by officers who received training in core correctional practices, they demonstrated reductions in recidivism (odds ratio [OR] = 1.48) compared with those offenders supervised by the status quo. The results support further use of such training programs and emphasize the benefit to public safety as well as the fiscal savings that can result from sound implementation. However, this was an initial review, and further research is needed to confirm and extend these findings.
This study is a randomized effectiveness trial of the use of incentives to improve treatment utilization among parolees in community treatment. In prison, Admission Phase parolees were randomized to either Admission Incentive (n = 31) or Education (n = 29). Attendance Phase parolees entering community treatment were randomized to Attendance Incentive (n = 104) or Education (n = 98). In the Attendance Phase, study participants received a monetary incentive for each day that they remained in treatment (up to 22 weeks). There was no main effect for incentives in either phase of the study (Admission to community treatment, Incentive 60% and Education 64%, p = .74; Intervention completion, Incentive 22% and Education 27%, p = .46). Using Cox regression, age, first arrest age, and type of parole status predicted time-in-treatment (p < .05), but treatment group did not. Providing incentives did not increase the likelihood that parolees enrolled in or stayed in community treatment. In light of other studies with similar outcomes, criminal justice practitioners who are considering the use of incentives should be aware that they may not produce the desired outcomes.
In "Looking Beyond Risk in Paroling Denying Prisoners," Dr. Dagan provided a refreshing critical analysis of the role of retributive considerations in parole proceedings. Its main argument is that if we are to make sense of the insistence on an admission of guilt, we cannot discuss parole proceedings merely in terms of prevention and risk. What is actually in play, at least in part, is retribution and moral evaluation. Taking retributive considerations into account enables a better understanding of the importance that admissions assume in parole proceedings and their role as a means of moral repentance and catharsis. In this brief commentary, we discuss Dagan’s thesis, offering a few remarks on the relationship between retribution and prevention. We provide some details on the nature of parole proceedings and on the practices that may increase the likelihood of moral and retributive considerations being taken into account contrary to the will of parliament and to the stated principles of parole.
This paper offers an additional theoretical perspective to the "Catch-22" problem as discussed in Assy and Menashe’s article, which appeared in the December 2014 issue of Criminal Justice and Behavior. It offers to look beyond risk in the discussion about parole of denying prisoners. By focusing on the retributive meaning of the problem, the paper offers an additional framework to discuss the magnitude of the problem (via proportionality analysis), and the overt and covert forces that influence a parole board’s discretion in action (via character retributivism analysis).
Balancing demands between work and family domains can strain even the most resourceful employee. When the tipping point of conflict between the two is reached, a negative impact on employee well-being can result. Within correctional environments, the psychosocial well-being of officers is critical given the potentially significant impact of having a "bad day on the job." This study examines work–family conflict as it relates to job stress and job satisfaction within a diverse sample of correctional officers (N = 441) employed at 13 public, adult correctional facilities in a Southern state. Findings indicate strain and behavior-based work–family conflict and family–work conflict were significantly related to both job stress and job satisfaction. Family and supervisory support were uniquely related to job stress, whereas supervisory support, education, and ethnicity were uniquely related to job satisfaction. Implications for correctional organizations are discussed.
The purpose of this study was to determine whether proactive criminal thinking mediated the relationship between peer delinquency and future serious offending better than peer delinquency mediated the relationship between proactive criminal thinking and future serious offending. Participants in this study were 1,027 ten- to eighteen-year-old British youth (458 boys, 569 girls) from the four-wave Offending, Crime and Justice Survey (OCJS). Prior delinquency was controlled by confining the sample to individuals who denied pre-existing delinquency involvement. In line with the main hypothesis, the peer delinquency -> proactive criminal thinking -> serious offending path achieved a significantly stronger effect than the proactive criminal thinking -> peer delinquency -> serious offending path. These findings provide support for a synthesis of social learning and criminal thinking theories in which peer delinquency helps shape proactive criminal thinking, and proactive criminal thinking effectively mediates the relationship between peer delinquency and serious offending.
This research examined whether levels of criminal thinking are fixed or fluid across situational contexts. Specifically, we tested the hypothesis that criminal thinking and antisocial attitudes would increase with greater proximity to a criminal act. Results of Study 1 revealed no significant group differences on measures of criminal thinking and attitudes between college students who were asked to plan what they believed to be a criminal act and those who viewed a movie clip depicting a criminal act. Inmates in Study 2 completed the same outcome measures as participants in Study 1; however, prior to post-assessment, those in the experimental group were instructed to recall a prior crime, whereas the control group completed post-assessments under normal testing conditions. Results of Study 2 were generally consistent with Study 1. Additional research is needed to understand the nature of criminal cognitions over time and their susceptibility to various environmental factors.
Past research has revealed a relationship between sexual offending and psychopathy. Notably, offenders who sexually assault a minor as well as an adult (mixed offenders) score higher on the Psychopathy Checklist–Revised (PCL-R) than child sex offenders, rapists, and nonsex offenders. Moreover, both PCL-R Factor 1 (interpersonal-affective traits) and PCL-R Factor 2 (impulsive-antisocial traits) scores have been implicated in explaining these higher psychopathy scores. Using data from 2,514 male prisoners, focusing on a subset of 40 mixed offenders, we attempted to replicate and clarify these findings. As predicted, mixed offenders scored higher on PCL-R total and Factor 1 than other offender groups. Given this distinctive profile, greater understanding of the association between these psychopathic traits and mixed sexual offending may be crucial for evaluating and treating sex offenders as well as for reducing victimization.
We used archival data to examine the predictive validity of a prerelease violence risk assessment battery over 6 years at a forensic hospital (N = 230, 100% male, 63.0% African American, 34.3% Caucasian). Examining "real-world" forensic decision making is important for illuminating potential areas for improvement. The battery included the Historical-Clinical-Risk Management–20, Psychopathy Checklist–Revised, Schedule of Imagined Violence, and Novaco Anger Scale and Provocation Inventory. Three outcome "recidivism" variables included contact violence, contact and threatened violence, and any reason for hospital return. Results indicated measures of general violence risk and psychopathy were highly correlated but weakly associated with reports of imagined violence and a measure of anger. Measures of imagined violence and anger were correlated with one another. Unexpectedly, Receiver Operating Characteristic curve analyses revealed that none of the scales or subscales predicted recidivism better than chance. Multiple regression indicated the battery failed to account for recidivism outcomes. We conclude by discussing three possible explanations, including timing of assessments, controlled versus field studies, and recidivism base rates.
Missing from the considerable body of literature on disproportionate minority contact is an examination of the factors that influence risk of juvenile arrest. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, the author examines racial/ethnic disparities in youth arrest, net of self-reported delinquency. Drawing from research using a minority threat perspective, this study examines whether disparities are exacerbated by macro levels of the relative size of the minority population and minority economic inequality. The results indicate Black youth have a higher risk of arrest than White youth in all contextual climates, but this disparity is magnified in predominantly non-Black communities. Differences between Hispanic and White youths’ risk of arrest did not reach statistical significance or vary across communities. The findings failed to yield support for the threat perspective but strongly supported the benign neglect thesis. Implications for theory and future research are discussed.
Kitty Genovese’s murder in New York City fueled widespread perceptions about the dangers of urban life and contributed to the stereotype of the apathetic American. Gross inaccuracies in the reporting of the story, and a short but sensationalist book written by the editor who commissioned the story, spun an enduring tale of witness indifference and spawned research on the bystander intervention effect. This essay focuses on two books that commemorate the 50th anniversary (2014) of the Genovese case. Written in the true-crime genre, the books are replete with detailed portrayals of the victim and her murderer, as well as his trial and conviction and the impact of the case on American culture. The essay also explores the emerging revisionist perspective on the Genovese incident, which illustrates how the dramatized reportage of the case iconized Kitty and reserved a permanent place for her in crime victim narratives and psychology textbooks.
Researchers have devoted significant attention to the measurement of peer delinquency, with recent work indicating that perceptual measures are plagued by various biases. Absent from this research is an inquiry into whether the manner in which perceptions are typically operationalized potentially contributes to these limitations. In this study, we report on a methodological quasi-experiment where the operationalization of perceptual peer delinquency was manipulated across two different versions of a survey questionnaire completed by a sample of young adults. Results indicated no significant difference in the strength of the association between perceptual peer delinquency items and self-reported delinquency items across the two survey conditions. As such, this study provides preliminary evidence that existing limitations of perceptual measures of peer delinquency cannot be overcome by altering the manner in which such items are operationalized within survey questionnaires.
This study examined differences between comorbid internalizing and disruptive behavior disorder (DBD), and those with either internalizing disorder or DBD. We focused on differences with regard to trauma exposure and offending characteristics in 8,431 juvenile justice youths. Self-reported, structured interview and official record data were used. Multinomial logistic regression analysis predicted disorder profile from traumatic exposure, suicide attempt, and offending characteristics, adjusting for background variables. Victimization by non-sexual violence was significantly higher in comorbid than in internalizing youth. Also, the number of DBDs, as well as rates of victimization via sexual and non-sexual assault, was significantly higher in the comorbid than in the DBD group. We conclude that a history of victimization, but not an early onset of criminal behavior, was associated with comorbid internalizing disorder and DBD. Findings emphasize the need for improving identification of this comorbid condition and referral for effective treatment.
Research has yet to discount all sources of confounding in the relationship between an individual’s delinquent behavior and that of his or her peers. One approach is to control for an active gene–environment correlation (rGE). Active rGE occurs when one selects into an environment based on genetic propensities. The current study utilizes twin data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to examine the impact of a direct measure of peer delinquency on self-reported delinquency while controlling for active rGE. The final analytic sample ranged between 456 and 524 dizygotic and 286 and 350 monozygotic twins, depending on the measures being analyzed. Using an augmented version of the DeFries–Fulker model, results revealed the peer effect was no longer statistically significant once genetic confounding (active rGE) was controlled. These findings support selection arguments and run counter to learning theory explanations.
This study investigated a potential source of variability in actuarial scale performance: the individual items. Using data from 8,053 sex offenders across 22 samples, we examined the predictive and incremental accuracy of the items from Static-99R and Static-2002R, and the stability of predictive accuracy across samples. Generally, all items had significant predictive accuracy and contributed incrementally to predicting sexual recidivism, with few exceptions. Roughly half the items demonstrated significant variability in their predictive accuracy across samples, although this was often variability in the magnitude of predictiveness as opposed to the direction. Some moderator effects were found, with the most common being the country of the study (which influenced accuracy in different directions depending on the item) and whether the offenders were preselected as unusually high risk or need (lower discrimination was found in these samples). The findings support the Static-99R and Static-2002R items with few exceptions, and possibilities for future research are highlighted.
Past research indicates that men and women are treated differently at the sentencing phase, but the specifics of this relationship have not been fully explicated. The current study draws on the chivalry and evil woman hypotheses to examine how a defendant’s gender may interact with criminal history to affect sentence length in federal narcotics cases. Results indicate that gender’s effect on sentence length is nuanced, complex, and dependent on a defendant’s criminal history score; thus, conditional support is found for both the chivalry and evil woman hypotheses. Specifically, female defendants with lower criminal history scores received more lenient treatment (relative to male defendants) whereas those with higher criminal history scores received more severe sentences. These findings suggest that further exploration of interactions between extralegal and legal factors is necessary to uncover the complex ways in which gender influences court outcomes.
Work stress has been linked to a number of negative outcomes for employees and organizations. Drawing from the Job Demand–Control (–Support) model, we examined the influences of work stress among more than 1,800 prison officers working in 45 prisons across Ohio and Kentucky. Multilevel analyses revealed that individual factors such as experiencing victimization and greater job demands were related to more stress among prison officers, whereas perceived control over inmates and support from coworkers and supervisors were associated with less stress. Facility violence was also linked to higher levels of officer stress across prisons.
One hundred eighty-two undergraduates (96 women) read a summary of a child sexual assault (CSA) criminal trial involving a 6-year-old alleged victim. The trial summaries differed as to whether an eyewitness to the CSA other than the victim testified in court and the age of that eyewitness (6 or 36 years old). The results showed that the additional witness did not affect women’s pro-victim judgments, but significantly increased men’s pro-victim judgments. Furthermore, compared with women, men felt more anger toward the defendant when the additional witness testified. A follow-up experiment (43 women) included an additional witness who did not witness the CSA. The results of this follow-up showed that rather than the number of witnesses, it was the additional witness to the CSA that increased pro-victim judgments. The results are discussed in terms of how additional corroborating testimony in a CSA case affects men and women jurors.
Although psychotherapy literature identifies the client–therapist relationship as a key factor contributing to client outcomes, few studies have examined whether relationship quality among corrections populations and supervising officers influences outcomes. This is surprising given that many criminal justice intervention models include quality of the client–practitioner relationship. Parolees enrolled in a six-site randomized clinical trial, where they were assigned to a parole officer–therapist–client collaborative intervention designed to improve relationship quality (n = 253) or supervision as usual (n = 227), were asked to rate relationship quality with their supervising officer. Results showed parolees assigned to the intervention endorsed significantly higher relationship ratings and demonstrated a lower violation rate than those assigned to the control group. Ratings of the parolee–parole officer relationship mediated the relationship between study condition and outcomes; better perceived relationship quality was associated with fewer drug use days and violations during the follow-up period, regardless of the study condition. Findings are discussed as they pertain to supervision relationships.
The Generic Program Performance Measure (GPPM) was developed to assess the progress and performance of offenders participating in correctional programs. Program facilitators use the GPPM to systematically rate offenders’ skill development, attitude change, motivation level, and program participation. The present study examined the psychometric properties of the GPPM using a total sample of 3,815 offenders who were assessed on the tool at pre-treatment, and 2,120 who were assessed pre- and post-treatment and subsequently released. Results indicated that the measure was sensitive to significant treatment gain in all program areas: for men and women, and Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal participants. Internal consistency was excellent. Interrater reliability was acceptable. Importantly, offenders who were rated as not demonstrating treatment gain were more likely to return to custody than those who achieved treatment gain. The GPPM is a reliable and valid measure of progress across a range of correctional programs that is not resource intensive.
Bandura’s theory of moral disengagement (MD) refers to the freeing of oneself from moral or ethical standards to engage in wrongdoing. Little is known about heterogeneity in MD among serious adolescent offenders, how MD changes over time in the transition from adolescence to early adulthood, and how such heterogeneity corresponds to offending. We used data from the Pathways to Desistance study, a longitudinal study of a sample of serious youthful offenders followed for 7 years, to examine trajectories of MD as well as the relationship of these trajectories to offending. Furthermore, we assessed whether MD varied by demographic and individual characteristics. Results indicated the presence of three trajectories: low, moderate, and high patterns. Females and Whites were more likely to be in the low-MD trajectory, whereas Hispanics were more likely to be in the high-MD trajectory. Respondents in the moderate or high-MD trajectories had more re-arrests at the 7-year follow-up relative to those in the low-MD trajectory, net of controls.
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a potentially important, yet understudied, mental disorder to consider in models of criminal recidivism. The present study sought to address this gap in the literature with a large-scale secondary analysis of observational data from a sample of justice-involved persons with mental disorders. Administrative data were reviewed for 771 adult jail detainees with mental disorders. Hierarchical logistic regression models showed that PTSD was associated with a greater likelihood of general (arrest for any new charge) and serious (arrest for a new felony charge) recidivism during the year following the index arrest, after controlling for risk conferred by a recent history of arrest, demographic characteristics, and other mental disorders. Furthermore, risk of rearrest for new charges was comparable for PTSD and substance use disorders. Findings show that PTSD increases risk of both general and serious recidivism and suggest it should be considered in interventions to reduce justice-system involvement.
In this article an argument is developed that criminologists’ focus on individuals’ levels of self-control has caused us to miss another key component within this theoretical tradition: within-individual situational variability in self-control. Accordingly, in the present study, self-control variability is treated as an important theoretical construct that should explain criminal behavior independent of one’s level of self-control. This proposition is tested empirically on a sample of young adults, using measures of both self-control and situational self-control variability in a series of multivariate regression models. The results demonstrate that both self-control and self-control variability exert significant and independent effects on criminal behavior. These results reveal support for a reconceptualized model of self-control that incorporates both static and dynamic dimensions.
Justice-involved youths are more likely to have mental health problems than peers in the community. Therefore, it is important to develop an understanding of the antecedents of mental health problems in this group. The present study examined the association between childhood trauma and mental health problems in juvenile justice-involved adolescent males (N = 422), comparing childhood-onset with adolescent-onset offenders. Childhood-onset offenders were more likely than adolescent-onset offenders to report mental health and substance use problems, as well as childhood maltreatment. Via structural equation modeling, we found that childhood trauma predicted mental health problems in both offender groups. Multigroup analysis revealed a moderation effect of offender group: The association between trauma and mental health problems was stronger in adolescent-onset offenders than in childhood-onset offenders. Thus, mental health problems were more prevalent in childhood-onset offenders, but these problems were less well-explained by childhood trauma in childhood-onset than in adolescent-onset offenders. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
The current study examined the utility of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–2 Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF) validity scales in a sample of incarcerated offenders. Utilizing an analogue simulation design, we compared a group of 36 inmates instructed to feign symptoms of mental illness with 56 inmates who had been referred for psychiatric treatment and completed the test under standard instructions. We also had a group of 63 inmates with no history of mental illness who completed the test under standard instructions. Our results indicated large effect sizes between the feigning and comparison groups for all the validity scales. Infrequent Responses (F-r) exhibited utility in discriminating between feigning and control inmates, whereas Infrequent Psychopathology Responses (Fp-r) and Infrequent Somatic Responses (Fs) exhibited the largest effect size in discriminating between the feigning and psychiatric inmate groups. Classification accuracy generally revealed greater specificity than sensitivity for the MMPI-2-RF validity scales.
The study examined data from the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring–II (ADAM-II) program from 2007 until 2010 at 10 U.S. metropolitan jails to determine factors influencing the accuracy of self-reported drug use. The overall kappa coefficient for self-report data and urinalysis results of any type of drug use in the past 72 hr was .52, indicating a moderate level of agreement. Greater accuracy in self-reported drug use was found among arrestees who tested positive for methamphetamine and marijuana, although these results differed by age and race/ethnicity. African Americans provided less accurate self-reports of drug use than Caucasians, and younger arrestees less accurately self-reported all types of drug use except for marijuana. Persons with no prior arrests had higher accuracy of self-reported drug use than those with a history of frequent arrests, and prior involvement in substance abuse treatment was associated with more accurate self-reporting of drug use. Findings indicate moderate accuracy of self-reported drug use among new arrestees, with the accuracy influenced by demographic factors, arrest history, and substance abuse treatment history.
The present study uses longitudinal data to investigate whether differences in exposure to community violence discriminate among serious juvenile offenders in terms of mental health symptomatology for depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress, and hostility. Group-based modeling and moderation analyses are used to assess the influence of exposure to violence on mental health outcomes. The results demonstrate a moderating effect of psychosocial maturity and social support between exposure to community violence and adverse mental health consequences for youth on the stable low exposure trajectory. In addition, youth who experience stable high exposure to violence consistently suffer worse outcomes. The study contributes to the development of empirically derived profiles of serious youth offenders. While all of the youth in this study may face the stigma of being labeled as dangerous, some (particularly those on the chronic exposure trajectory) might find themselves in a situation where their psychological status exacerbates an already tenuous situation: reentry. Therefore, reentry services should better target the specific needs of this returning subgroup of serious youth offenders.
A growing body of evidence has highlighted the relationship between narcissism and violence. Importantly, however, the predominance of this evidence comes from experimental tests or small-scale samples that most often overlook the contribution of low self-control to explicating the relationship. The present study refers to the National Epidemiological Study of Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) to assess narcissism, low self-control, and violence among a nationally representative sample. Using Latent Class Analyses (LCA), four classes of individuals are identified, and multinomial regression models indicate that narcissism and low self-control are associated with a range of violent acts among these groups. Most importantly, results show that the class of individuals that is high in narcissism and deficient in self-control is far and away the most prone to violence. Together, these findings lend important nationally representative support to recent experimental and meta-analytical conclusions suggesting that the co-occurrence of narcissism and low self-control has significant implications for our understanding of violence. Limitations of this study and avenues for future research are discussed.
This study examined the applicability of a general risk/need assessment tool, the Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (LS/CMI), to a large sample of Aboriginal offenders (n = 1,692) and compared the predictive validity with that of the rest of the cohort, a sample of non-Aboriginal offenders (n = 24,758). It examined the use of the clinical override with offenders. Aboriginal offenders had considerably higher scores and a greater recidivism rate than non-Aboriginal offenders. Internal consistency was high and virtually identical for both samples. The predictive validity for Aboriginal offenders on general recidivism was high, although slightly higher for non-Aboriginal offenders. The predictive validity was significant but low on violent recidivism for Aboriginal offenders, as were numerous subscales. Assessors used the override feature to change risk level less frequently on Aboriginal offenders. The implications of this study for policy (use on ethnic minority offenders) and practice (how to interpret potential recidivism) are discussed.
Research indicates that adolescents tend to overestimate their risk for early death, and those who anticipate early deaths are at risk for numerous negative consequences. Little is known, however, about the factors that influence early violent death expectations. The present study develops and tests hypotheses about the influence of victimization and offending on perceived risk for early violent death using longitudinal data collected from a nationally representative sample of American adolescents. Logistic regression analysis was used to estimate the effects of prior violent victimization, witnessing serious violence, and various types of delinquency on adolescents’ perceptions that there is a 50% or greater chance they will be killed by the age of 21. Implications for theory, policy, and future research are discussed.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that many of the staff members working for prisoner reentry programs are formerly incarcerated persons. Moreover, criminologists have written that the strengths-based role of the "wounded healer" or "professional ex-" is exemplified by released prisoners who desist from a deviant career by replacing it with an occupation as a paraprofessional, lay therapist, or counselor. Despite these observations, there is a paucity of research about formerly incarcerated persons employed by agencies that provide reentry-related programming. This study begins to fill this gap by examining whether, how, and why the staff members of prisoner reentry programs differ from the clients. Characteristics of formerly incarcerated persons thought to be related to desistance and reconciling a criminal past such as overcoming stigma, prosocial attitudes and beliefs, active coping strategies, psychological well-being, and satisfaction with life are examined. Findings support the notion that the wounded healer or professional ex- role is related to desistance and can potentially transform formerly incarcerated persons from being part of "the problem" into part of "the solution" to reduce crime and recidivism.
Cognitive distortions are an important focus in many investigations and treatments of externalizing problem behavior, such as antisocial, delinquent, and aggressive behavior. Yet the overall strength of the association between cognitive distortions and externalizing behavior is unknown. Furthermore, it is unknown whether interventions can effectively reduce cognitive distortions and subsequently externalizing behavior. To fill these gaps, we conducted a meta-analysis of 71 studies on 20,685 participants. Results showed a medium to large effect size (d = .70) for the association between cognitive distortions and externalizing behavior. Interventions had a small effect (d = .27) on reducing cognitive distortions. In a subset of intervention studies that incorporated both cognitive distortions and externalizing behavior, however, neither cognitive distortions nor externalizing behavior were effectively reduced. Hence, although cognitive distortions are substantially linked to externalizing behavior and interventions can reduce cognitive distortions, a subsequent reduction in externalizing behavior remains to be demonstrated.
A body of research has examined the potential causes of psychopathy and psychopathic personality traits. What is surprisingly missing from these studies is an effort to estimate person–environment interactions that might explain variation in psychopathic personality traits. The current study addressed this lacuna, examining whether early-life temperament conditioned the effect of parental sensitivity on adolescent affective psychopathic personality traits. Drawing on data from the National Institute of Chlid Health and Human Development (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, the results revealed some evidence of temperament–parenting interactions, which were more in line with a differential-susceptibility than a diathesis-stress model of environmental action. Findings indicated that male infants with an easy temperament were the most affected by maternal and paternal sensitivity when it came to predicting a measure of affective psychopathic traits and the subcomponent of callousness. In addition, early-life temperament also interacted with paternal sensitivity in a for-better-and-for-worse fashion for the subcomponent of unemotionality.
This paper describes a three-phase multi-method research initiative to develop and validate measures used to quantify sources of work-role overload in policing. Phase I used qualitative techniques to generate items that predicted work-role overload in policing. These items were used to construct the initial measure and then tested (Phase II) using a sample of 202 police officers from one organization. Phase III tested the unidimensionality, validity, and reliability of the five measures identified in Phase II using a larger survey of 2,755 sworn officers working in 25 police organizations. Exploratory factor analysis identified and confirmatory factor analysis validated five antecedents to work-role overload in policing: competing demands, the court system, pressures to perform work outside one’s mandate, understaffing, and a nonsupportive organizational culture.
This study’s point of departure is the current debate over the ability to make prospective long-term predictions of criminal offending based on childhood risk factors. We begin by constructing groups based on cumulative childhood risk and measure their subsequent criminal career outcomes. The results show clear differences in adult offending but also considerable heterogeneity, suggesting that the relationship between risk factors and individuals’ subsequent offending or non-offending is complex and in need of closer study. We therefore identify individuals in the low- and high-risk groups who did not develop the criminal careers that could be expected from their risk scores and, using deviant case analysis, qualitatively analyze their life histories. Together, these cases inform us of the importance of the dynamics of risk, human agency, and the life course, as well as the historical influences under which their lives unfolded—features of social life that could in no way be predicted prospectively.
The Structured Assessment of Risk and Need–Treatment Needs Analysis (SARN-TNA) is routinely used by the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) in England and Wales to aid assessment of risk of sexual offenders. This structured professional judgment tool’s predictive validity was examined with convicted sexual offenders in this field study. Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) was not significant at 2 years (Area Under the Curve [AUC] = 0.59, n = 304, p = .193) or at 4 years (AUC = 0.57, n = 161, p = .242). Survival analysis did not reveal significantly different sexual reconviction rates between SARN-TNA risk groups. Individual domains were also examined, with the sexual interests domain being the only predictive element of the SARN-TNA risk assessment tool. Results support further examination of how SARN-TNA risk group is calculated and more heavily weighting the importance of the sexual interests domain. The SARN-TNA should not be relied upon as a predictor scale of sexual reoffending.
Using a sample of 497 Canadian women released into the community from federal prisons, this study examined the extent to which seven dynamic risk factors prospectively assessed at 6-month intervals (four waves) change over time and predict recidivism. Results obtained from a series of within-subject ANOVAs indicate that with the exception of substance abuse, all dynamic risk factors (i.e., employment, marital/family, community functioning, personal/emotional, criminal associates, and criminal attitudes) decreased among those offenders who did not recidivate. In addition, results obtained from a series of Cox regression survival analyses with time-dependent covariates also indicate that proximal assessments of dynamic risk predict recidivism more strongly than more distal assessments of dynamic risk. Employment and associates were the strongest dynamic predictors of recidivism, whereas the remaining factors were weak-to-moderate predictors of recidivism. This study lends support to the utility of repeatedly assessing dynamic risk factors among female offender populations.
Although prior research revealed that in noncorrectional and correctional settings, staff relationship style affects client outcomes, there has been little study of this effect for women offenders. The present study investigated effects of two dimensions of relationship style (probation or parole agent–reported supportiveness and punitiveness) on female clients’ reports of responding to interactions with their agents with anxiety, reactance, and a sense of self-efficacy to avoid a criminal lifestyle. Results of a longitudinal study of 330 women on probation or parole revealed that agent supportiveness elicited lower anxiety and reactance and higher crime-avoidance self-efficacy. Agent punitiveness elicited greater anxiety and crime-avoidance self-efficacy. Moderation effect analysis showed that punitive style was most related to anxiety and reactance for women at lowest risk for reoffending. In contrast, supportiveness was most related to positive outcomes for the highest risk women. The research findings suggest areas for future theory development and approaches to effective correctional practice.
This article reports an evaluation of two cognitive skills programs (Enhanced Thinking Skills and Think First) with 801 women offenders serving community sentences in the English and Welsh Probation Service. A quasi-experimental design was used to compare the reconviction rates at 1-year follow-up of offenders who completed the program, offenders who started but did not complete the program, and a comparison group that were not allocated to the program. Multivariate analysis showed that the completers did not have a significantly lower rate of reconviction than the comparison group. However, the non-completers had a significantly higher rate of reconviction than the comparison group. No differences were found in reconviction between the completers group and non-completers group. The implications of the findings for interventions with women offenders are discussed.
Trauma exposure is overrepresented in incarcerated male populations and is linked to psychiatric morbidity, particularly posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This study tests the feasibility, reliability, and validity of using computer-administered interviewing (CAI) versus orally administered interviewing (OAI) to screen for PTSD among incarcerated men. A 2 x 2 factorial design was used to randomly assign 592 incarcerated men to screening modality. Findings indicate that computer screening was feasible. Compared with OAI, CAI produced equally reliable screening information on PTSD symptoms, with test–retest intraclass correlations for the PTSD Checklist (PCL) total score ranging from .774 to .817, and the Clinician-Administered PTSD scale and PCL scores were significantly correlated for OAI and CAI. These findings indicate that data on PTSD symptoms can be reliably and validly obtained from CAI technology, increasing the efficiency by which incarcerated populations can be screened for PTSD, and those at risk can be identified for treatment.
The law can be a systemically induced decision point for offenders and can act to help or hinder desistance. Desistance can be described as a change process that may be initiated by decisive momentum, supported by intervention, and maintained through re-entry, culminating in a citizen with full rights and responsibilities. Desistance within courts, corrections, and beyond is maximized by applying the law in a therapeutic manner. In common, desistance, therapeutic jurisprudence, and human rights support offender autonomy and well-being. The intersections between the three models have been explored to propose a normative framework that provides principles and offers strategies to address therapeutic legal rules, legal procedures, and the role of psycholegal actors and offenders in initiating, supporting, and maintaining desistance.
The primary aim of this study is to determine the extent to which the consideration of strengths enhances the predictive validity of risk assessment protocols applied to correctional populations. Data from the Service Planning Instrument (SPIn) Pre-Screen were analyzed for 3,656 adult offenders bound by provincial supervision across Alberta, Canada. The predictive validity of the screening instrument was equivalent across gender and Aboriginal status (areas under the curve [AUCs] = .75-.77). Hierarchical logistic regression revealed significant main effects for risk and strength subtotals in predicting new offenses over 18 months for the overall sample, indicating that the inclusion of strengths adds uniquely to the prediction of recidivism. The overall model yielded a significant Risk Score x Strength Score interaction, illustrating that high strength scores are particularly effective in attenuating recidivism among higher risk cases. Rather than limit their consideration to case management contexts, results support the integration of strengths into quantitative assessments of criminal risk.
This article reviews the general legal framework governing risk assessment of prisoners in the Israeli parole process. It highlights the excessive power the Israeli courts have accorded to the professional body responsible for providing risk assessments, which severely limits the parole board’s discretion to order conditional release when prisoners persist in denying their crimes. Such prisoners, especially sex offenders, tend to be precluded from participation in treatment courses, thus substantially reducing their prospects of obtaining parole.
Research on implementation of a case management plan informed by valid risk assessment in justice services is important in contributing to evidence-based practice but has been neglected in youth justice. We examined the connections between risk assessment, treatment, and recidivism by focusing on the individual criminogenic needs domain level. Controlling for static risk, dynamic criminogenic needs significantly predicted reoffense. Meeting individual needs in treatment was associated with decreased offending. However, there is "slippage" in the system that reduces practitioners’ ability to effectively address needs. Even in domains where interventions are available, many youth are not receiving services matched to their needs. Implications and limitations of findings are discussed.
For more than two decades, the diagnostic and cultural insights of psychological jurisprudence (PJ) have informed social theory, clinical practice, and public policy. As a form of heterodox criticism, PJ probes the relationship between human agency and social structure, and it examines how both are informed by and co-produce extant reality. This article explores the utility of PJ—especially as a basis to reconfigure the problem of crime, to redefine institutional responses to it, and to reconceive the process of desistance. To accomplish this objective, the article addresses two issues. First, it explains how the diagnostic and cultural footing of PJ functions as philosophical critique concerning the subject of crime. Second, it demonstrates how this critique represents the grounding of an ethic with considerable relevance for developing a normative theory of trans-desistance. The article concludes by suggesting how the normative dimensions of trans-desistance portend dynamic change for future criminal justice practice and mental health treatment.
Four well-known delinquency intervention and prevention programs remain both publicly and politically popular regardless of a large body of evidence-based research revealing their ineffectiveness in promoting a lasting desistance from youth violence and crime. Scared straight programs, Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.), youth boot camps, and secure large-scale, custodial juvenile correctional facilities overemphasize offender "risk management and maintenance" as opposed to individual, group-based, and/or collective well-being. This article will identify the values that these current and dominant community-centered youth justice initiatives reflect, and it will explain how these values further (or forestall) offender desistance. Viable, evidence-based alternatives consistent with the value orientation of therapeutic and restorative programming will also be evaluated. The article concludes by examining the efficacy of this alternative normative agenda to foster successful desistance from juvenile delinquency and crime.
Interactive and additive terms for substance misuse and crime were used to predict recidivism in 1,435 male inmates. Negative binomial regression revealed that although the additive term consistently predicted general recidivism and the presence of new charges, the interaction term consistently failed to predict these same two outcomes. The additive model continued to predict general recidivism and new charges when age and prior convictions were both controlled and when prior substance misuse and crime were entered separately. Both the substance misuse and crime components predicted income (property and drug) offenses, but only the crime component predicted person offenses. These results have implications for assessing and treating substance-involved offenders and suggest that the two components of the "worst of both worlds" hypothesis accumulate rather than interact in their effect on future recidivism. Although the effect depends on both components, one component may be stronger than the other in predicting certain outcomes.
Procedural justice literature suggests that when criminal justice authorities treat people with fairness and respect, people will be more likely to comply with authority’s decisions and rules. Up until now, prior research has largely neglected the correctional context and often used cross-sectional designs. The aims of this study were to examine (a) the longitudinal relationship between prisoners’ procedural justice perceptions and their misconduct, and (b) the mediating role of anger in this relationship. Using two waves of survey data (T1 and T2) and disciplinary reports from a sample of 806 Dutch prisoners, structural equation models were employed to investigate associations. The results show that prisoners who felt treated in a procedurally just manner in the correctional facility at T1 were less likely to report engaging in misconduct at T2. They were also less likely to have received a disciplinary report at T2. Anger fully mediated the effect of procedural justice on prisoners’ misconduct.
This study evaluated the effect on burglary arrest rates when using statistically derived behavioral profiles for burglary offenses and offenders in active police investigations. To do this, an experiment was conducted where one police agency that used the profiles was compared with three matched police agencies that did not. Burglary arrest rates were studied 4 years before and 1 year after the profile was implemented. Results show that the arrest rates for the treated agency increased by 3 times as compared with the control agencies. The interaction effect between treatment/control agency and pretest/posttest arrest rates was significant, showing that the experimental intervention had an effect, after controlling for pre-existing differences between the agencies. These findings on the utility of offender profiling, the first to be derived from an experiment conducted in active police investigations, suggest that the statistically based behavioral profiles could be a useful tool in increasing arrest rates for police.
Risk and needs assessment (RNA) tools are well regarded as a critical component of a community corrections organization implementing evidence-based practices (EBPs), given the potential impact of using such tools on offender-level and system outcomes. The current study examines how probation officers (POs) use a validated RNA tool in two adult probation settings. Using interview and observational data, this study explores how POs use an assessment tool during all facets of their work from preplanning, routine administrative tasks, and face-to-face case management interactions with probation clients. Findings suggest POs overwhelmingly administer the RNA tool, but rarely link the RNA scores to key case management or supervision decisions. These findings highlight some of the challenges and complexities associated with the application of RNA tools in everyday practice. Study implications emphasize the need to modify current probation practices to create a synergy between the RNA and related supervision practices. Findings from this study contribute to a better appreciation for how the new penology integrates risk management with client-centered case models to improve outcomes.
We conducted an international survey in which forensic examiners who were members of professional associations described their two most recent forensic evaluations (N = 434 experts, 868 cases), focusing on the use of structured assessment tools to aid expert judgment. This study describes (a) the relative frequency of various forensic referrals, (b) what tools are used globally, (c) frequency and type of structured tools used, and (d) practitioners’ rationales for using/not using tools. We provide general descriptive information for various referrals. We found most evaluations used tools (74.2%) and used several (four, on average). We noted the extreme variety in tools used (286 different tools). We discuss the implications of these findings and provide suggestions for improving the reliability and validity of forensic expert judgment methods. We conclude with a call for an assessment approach that seeks structured decision methods to advance greater efficiency in the use and integration of case-relevant information.
This article draws on the life stories of a friendship group of men in their 40s who offended together in their youth and early adulthood. By exploring these interrelated narratives, we reveal individual, relational, and structural contributions to the desistance process, drawing on Donati’s relational sociology. In examining these men’s social relations, this article demonstrates the central role of friendship groups, intimate relationships, families of formation, employment, and religious communities in change over the life course. It shows how, for different individuals, these relations triggered reflexive evaluation of their priorities, behaviors, and lifestyles, but with differing results. However, despite these differences, the common theme of these distinct stories is that desistance from crime was a means of realizing and maintaining the men’s individual and relational concerns, with which continued offending became (sometimes incrementally) incompatible. In the concluding discussion, we explore some of the ethical implications of these findings, suggesting that work to support desistance should extend far beyond the typically individualized concerns of correctional practice and into a deeper and inescapably moral engagement with the reconnection of the individual to social networks that are restorative and allow people to fulfill the reciprocal obligations on which networks and communities depend.
Recent criminological studies have focused on what promotes desistance from crime, ranging from internal promoters (such as narrative identity shift) to external promoters (such as employment and marriage). An understudied promoter is the role of ordinary community members in integrating released offenders into community life. This article draws on qualitative data collected from a Circles of Support and Accountability (CoSA) program in Vermont, which uses community volunteers to create a circle around selected medium-to-high risk offenders (often sex offenders) who present a risk for reoffense due to their isolation. The nature of the forged relationships is examined, and the article asserts that desistance can be achieved through the actions of community members who communicate a sense of shared moral space, and a genuine sense of belonging. By actively integrating offenders into community life, CoSA model normative lives, create normative and ordinary relationships of mutual obligation and respect, and aid in the de-labeling process by focusing on the other attributes of offenders beyond their criminality. This article concludes by theorizing the role of community integration as an antecedent to desistance, rather than an outcome. In so doing, our knowledge of offender reintegration and desistance processes can be more fully understood.
The Level of Service Inventory–Revised (LSI-R) is a risk/needs assessment tool that is widely used in correctional settings. Extant research has demonstrated the predictive validity of the LSI-R for individuals under correctional supervision. Yet, few researchers have assessed whether the LSI-R and its various subcomponents predict prison misconduct similarly for White versus non-White inmates. Using data collected from male inmates confined in prisons across a Midwestern state, we examined the predictive validity of the LSI-R and its 10 subcomponents for White, Black, and Hispanic inmates. We found that the LSI-R predicted the prevalence of misconduct for inmates of varying races/ethnicities. However, we reached a different conclusion when we examined the incidence of misconduct; the LSI-R composite score and subcomponent scores showed greater predictive utility for White inmates than for non-White inmates. Our findings add to a growing body of research that suggests that the predictive validity of the LSI-R differs by offender race/ethnicity. We discuss the policy implications of our findings and offer recommendations for future research.
A key theme in mental health is the principle of recovery. However, it is not clear how this might apply to forensic mental health services, which offer mental health care to men and women who have offended when mentally unwell. In this article, we explore how discussion of the index offense fits into recovery paradigms and how reflection on offender identity relates to recovery. Using clinical material from therapy groups for homicide perpetrators, we discuss how narratives of agency and responsibility change (or not) in therapy, and how narrative shifts link with the concept of "recovery" in mental health.
The science examining institutional and community-based responses to sexual offending has been well documented. The responses to this form of criminal behavior include penal incarceration followed by civil commitment, community notification, and sex offender registration. To date, evidence-based findings report that these correctives and/or curatives yield limited effectiveness sufficient to justify their continued maintenance as statewide or even national criminal justice and mental health policy prescription. One official systems-level way that policy receives legitimacy is through the Courts. Interestingly, the precedent-setting sex offender case law indicates that current policy prescriptions are constitutionally permissible and therefore justifiable as regulatory practices, notwithstanding the empirical evidence that challenges their soundness. This article summarizes the science regarding sex offender policy from the point of imprisonment to reentry, recounts the relevant case law that judicially sanctions such institutional and community practices, and explains how the driver for sex offender law and policy is legal moralism grounded in and advanced by utilitarian reasoning and duty-based logic. This article concludes by suggesting how judicial reliance on legal moralism could further the interests of public safety and civil liberties if insights from virtue jurisprudence informed the analysis.
The issue of dual roles within forensic and correctional fields has typically been conceptualized as dissonance—experienced by practitioners—when attempting to adhere to the conflicting ethical requirements associated with client well-being and community protection. In this article, we argue that the dual role problem should be conceptualized more broadly to incorporate the relationship between the offender and their victim. We also propose that restorative justice (RJ) is able to provide a preliminary ethical framework to deal with this common ethical oversight. Furthermore, we unite the RJ framework with that of Ward’s moral acquaintance model to provide a more powerful approach (RJ-informed moral acquaintance) aimed at addressing the ethical challenges faced by practitioners within forensic and correctional roles.
Job morale is often mentioned in literature on correctional staff, but its antecedents have seldom been investigated. In this study, survey data were collected from 975 facility and community staff working for the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice to determine the relationship of personal characteristics (educational level, gender, race, tenure, and age) and workplace variables (input into decision-making, job stress, organizational communication, perceptions of coworkers, workplace cooperation, and public support) with job morale. Type of staff (community or facility) had a non-significant association with job morale. In multivariate analyses controlling for nested data, educational level, race, tenure, age, input into decision-making, organizational fairness, perceptions of coworkers, and workplace cooperation each had a positive relationship with morale, while job stress had a negative association. Workplace variables accounted for far greater variance in the job morale variable than did personal characteristics, which holds implications for efforts to improve correctional staff morale.
Despite the nationwide use of halfway houses (HWHs), empirical findings documenting their impact have been generally infrequent over the last 30 years. Recent high-profile incidents have increased public attention and raised questions regarding their effectiveness and appropriate use. In response, this study provides information needed to fill the knowledge gap and answer policy questions through an analysis of 6,599 participants across 18 HWH programs in New Jersey. Participants were matched and compared with released inmates who were not provided a HWH placement. Using frailty models, an examination of five correctional outcomes revealed support for the effectiveness and continued use of HWH interventions, with regard to violating conditions of release resulting in revocations. Nonsignificant findings were identified for rearrests and convictions.
The first Norwegian tools designed to assess the violence risk of the mentally ill were developed in the late 1980s, though the first national guidelines for both violence and suicide risk assessment were not published until two decades later in 2007. This article reviews the history of the field of forensic risk assessment in Norway from its humble beginnings to the present day. First an overview is provided of the history of forensic psychiatry and the criminal justice system. The main scope, however, is to discuss current research on and practice of risk assessment of violence in Norway, with an emphasis on the development and use of Norwegian risk assessment tools and methods. Particular attention is paid to instruments that follow the structured professional judgment model of risk assessment, as actuarial tools are rarely researched and not routinely implemented in clinical practice in Norway. Finally, a brief analysis is provided of some controversies concerning risk assessment in the expert witness reports on Anders Behring Breivik, who murdered 77 persons in 2011.
The Chinese research literature on violence risk assessment is small compared with Western countries. However, violence by mentally disordered populations is an area of considerable importance in China, given major legal developments in recent years. The aim of the present article was to provide an overview of the current state of violence risk assessment practices in China, focusing on the role that such assessments play in forensic and non-forensic hospitals as well as in community treatment settings. The Chinese evidence base on currently available approaches to violence risk assessment was also explored. Further research on risk assessment, formulation, communication, and management is needed before it can be argued that practitioners in China charged with making risk-based decisions are using the most scientifically defensible procedures.
This study examines predictors of recidivism over 3 years for 624 women released from a county jail using a comprehensive range of standardized measures derived from gender-responsive and gender-neutral criminogenic recidivism models. Although more than a dozen factors were related to recidivism in the univariate analysis, the multivariate analysis shows that recidivism can be reliably predicted (area under the curve = 0.90) with just four factors: age, no custody of children, substance use frequency, and number of substance problems. Exploratory analysis of women who recidivated in post-release months 1 to 3, 4 to 12, and 13 to 36 revealed that the effects of several variables (age, super optimism, and number of weeks in the jail treatment program) were dependent on the time elapsed since release from jail, whereas others (substance use and custody) had persistent effects over time. These findings support the development of re-entry services tailored for female offenders who address both gender-responsive and gender-neutral criminogenic risk factors.
This article uses data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) to investigate the sex gap in violent crime. We posit that the sex gap decreases at higher levels of exposure to violent peers, and we test two competing explanations for this possibility. The first hypothesis, based on previous research using the PHDCN, suggests that there is a stronger nonlinear relationship between exposure to violent peers and respondent violence for females than for males. The second hypothesis points to sex differences in the shape of the nonlinear relationship between peer violence and respondent violence. We find that a decrease in the sex gap at higher levels of peer violence is due to (a) a stronger effect of peer violence exposure on individual violence for females than for males, and (b) a nonlinear peer violence/respondent violence relationship in the form of a decelerating curve that is consistent across the sexes.
This article explores male police officers’ law enforcement preferences across different scenarios of interpersonal violence, involving intimate (partner violence against women) and non-intimate relationships (between- and within-gender). The influence of police officers’ sexist attitudes and empathy on their law enforcement preferences was also analyzed within and across these scenarios. The sample consisted of 308 male police officers. Results showed that police officers prefer a stronger and unconditional law enforcement approach in cases of violence against women, both in intimate and non-intimate relationships. Benevolent sexism was linked to a preference for a more conditional law enforcement across interpersonal violence scenarios. The type of interpersonal violence scenario also conditioned the influence of hostile sexism and empathy on police preferences. Implications for training and selection of police officers are discussed.
The Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory (YPI) assesses psychopathic traits cost-effectively while minimizing social desirability. To determine which YPI summary scores should be used, we tested (a) the factorial validity of its three scales and 10 subscales, (b) the fit of a new bifactor model, and (c) the measurement invariance of the best model across gender, age, and community/institutionalized samples. Three hundred ninety-five community adolescents (M age 15.8) and 200 institutionalized adolescents (M age 15.0) filled in the French translation of the YPI. The factorial validity of the 10 subscales was supported by confirmatory factor analysis. Model comparisons favored the new bifactor model, independent of age, gender, and community/institutionalized status. Measurement invariance was confirmed. These findings support the previous YPI validation studies conducted on the 10 subscale scores, and suggest that YPI users should rely in all samples on the simultaneous use of the total score and the three scale scores, which is a common practice.
Finding strategies to prevent burnout is imperative for correctional administrators. Ordinary least squares regression analyses of survey results from 160 employees at a private prison for offenders aged 14 to 19 who were tried as adults were used to examine the effects of affective and continuance commitments on the three dimensions of staff burnout. The results indicate that affective commitment had a negative association with emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and feelings of reduced accomplishment, while continuance commitment had a positive relationship with these dimensions of burnout. Of the control variables, tenure had a positive association with emotional exhaustion, age had a negative relationship with depersonalization, and average daily contact with inmates had a positive association with feelings of reduced accomplishment. One strategy that administrators could employ to reduce staff burnout is to strengthen staffs’ emotional ties and feelings of loyalty to the organization, while attempting to decrease perceptions that the employee is trapped in the job.
A large body of criminal justice research has investigated the decisions made by system actors, especially police, judges, and prosecutors. A growing area of research interest has focused on the decisions made by crime victims in response to criminal victimization. Many times, victims decide to seek help from informal sources such as friends or family in overcoming their criminal victimization, a decision that may influence the likelihood of reporting to more formal outlets, including the police. These decisions and the factors that influence a victim’s decision to seek help are not well understood, particularly for victims of stalking. The present study examines the situational and victim characteristics that affect informal help-seeking decisions among stalking victims while also exploring the impact of informal help-seeking on the decision to report the crime to law enforcement (formal help-seeking). Results suggest that dimensions of offense seriousness, fear of victimization, and victimization acknowledgment are among the factors affecting decision-making, and that these informal and formal victim decisions are unrelated despite having similar predictors.
In this article, we examine key propositions from Colvin, Cullen, and Vander Ven’s Differential Coercion/Social Support Theory (DCSST) to explain inmate violence, misconduct, and resistance within prison. Results from logistic regression models applied to data from a sample of 481 prisoners incarcerated in state correctional facilities across the United States provide mixed support for the theory. Coercive experiences within prison are associated with engagement in violent misconduct as well as defiant and institutionalized forms of inmate resistance. However, social support is not consistently related to either misconduct or resistance. Furthermore, results suggest that prison staff can inhibit these reactive behaviors by effectively reducing violence and promoting safety within prisons. These findings have important implications for the status of DCSST and for advancing popular explanations of inmate misconduct.
Determining the interdependence of family and peer influences on the development of delinquency is critical to defining and implementing effective interventions. This study explored the longitudinal relationship among harsh punishment, positive parenting, peer delinquency, and adolescent delinquency using data from a sub-sample of the Pittsburgh Girls Study. Participants were 622 adolescent girls (42% European American, 53% African American); families living in low-income neighborhoods were oversampled. After controlling for the effects of race, living in a single parent household, and receipt of public assistance, harsh punishment and peer delinquency in early adolescence were positively related to delinquency in mid-adolescence. No significant main effects of positive parenting or interaction effects between parenting and peer delinquency were observed. Thus, the effects of harsh parenting and peer delinquency are independent and perhaps additive, rather than interdependent. Results indicate the continued importance of targeting both parenting and peer relationships to prevent delinquency in adolescent girls.
As a criminal justice policy, researchers have encountered numerous problems attempting to evaluate whether supermax confinement achieves its desired goals. Among the many goals of supermax confinement is the incapacitation of the "worst of the worst" inmates. This type of custody, however, has been widely criticized for worsening inmate mental health. In an effort to better understand the treatment of the mentally ill in supermax confinement, we performed a content analysis on 42 state correctional policies. We found considerable variation exists regarding the treatment of the mentally ill as prescribed by official policies and that the majority of correctional policies dictate some level of treatment or intervention for supermax inmates. As criticism regarding the indefinite use of lockdown increases, we argue it is important correctional departments have a foundation that protects inmates and the agency itself, which begins with official policies.
Self-control represents, perhaps, one of the most robust predictors of antisocial behavior uncovered by behavioral scientists. What remains more unclear, however, are the exact sources of individual differences in levels of self-control. Emergent evidence along these lines is beginning to suggest that levels of intelligence—another robust correlate of antisocial behavior—may play an important role in predicting the development of self-control. Moreover, the influence of intelligence may begin to manifest very early in development. Building on prior work, the current study seeks to explore the role of intelligence in predicting levels of self-control in children. Our findings suggest that higher levels of intelligence predict higher levels of self-control beyond other traditional criminological and sociological variables including parenting practices and parental levels of self-control. These findings further underscore the relevance of intellectual functioning for a host of impactful traits in humans.
Since the 1980s, increasing numbers of individuals entering into the criminal justice system have caused criminal justice professionals and researchers concern about the phenomenon of individuals continually returning to the system. It is possible that identifying and addressing needs in the pretrial stage of the criminal justice system could interrupt this cycle and contribute to pretrial success. Furthermore, attention to gender-responsive needs at this stage of the criminal justice process may prove beneficial for female pretrial defendants. This study contributes to both the pretrial and gender-responsive literature by investigating whether pretrial needs are predictive of pretrial outcomes and if there are gender differences in these needs. Results indicate that many of the examined needs are risk factors for pretrial failure, there are gender differences in the composition of several of these needs, and gender-responsive pretrial needs are important to predicting pretrial outcomes.
The Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory–Screening Version (YLS/CMI-SV) is designed to provide a preliminary estimate of the level of risk for antisocial behaviors as well as an indication of areas for intervention in youth offenders. This study examined the predictive validity of the YLS/CMI-SV for violent, nonviolent, and general recidivism in a sample of 3,264 youth offenders within a Singaporean context (Mfollow-up = 1,764.5 days; SDfollow-up = 521.5). Cox regression and Receiver Operating Characteristic analyses revealed that the YLS/CMI-SV is significantly predictive of general, violent, and nonviolent recidivism for the male youth offenders, but there were mixed results for the female youth offenders. Overall, these results indicated that the YLS/CMI-SV is a useful measure for assessing the levels of risk for male youth offenders, and more investigation is needed to determine the suitability of the YLS/CMI-SV for the female youth offenders. Its implications for clinical practice and policy are discussed.
Previous research suggests that religiousness correlates with less criminal behavior and that this relationship is partially mediated by higher self-control. Because most studies are cross-sectional, causality remains uncertain as stable between-subject factors may influence self-control, religiousness, and offending, confounding their relationships. Moreover, directionality may be reversed with higher self-control leading to both higher religiousness and less offending. The current research aimed to directly exclude these possibilities using longitudinal data from 1,354 adolescents participating in the Pathways to Desistance Study. Results indicated that short-term, within-subject increased religiousness predicted decreased future criminal behavior and that this effect was partially mediated by increased self-control. A reversed model in which past self-control predicted future religiousness was not significant. These findings suggest that religiousness may be causally related to offending, and self-control is likely one of multiple mediating processes. Additional research in this area appears warranted and may yield effective strategies for reducing criminal behavior and improving self-control.
This meta-analysis was conducted to examine predictors of two indicators of inmates’ adjustment to prison life: institutional infractions and health care utilization. Focusing on male prisoners, the final data set consisted of 90 studies and produced 1,815 correlations. Predictors were grouped into personal and contextual characteristics. Regarding institutional infractions, the strongest personal predictors were prior prison misconduct, aggressiveness, impulsiveness, antisocial traits, institutional risk, and younger age. At the contextual level, higher infraction rates were observed in prisons with more gang activity, and in prisons housing more inmates and a larger proportion of maximum security inmates. Major correlates of health care utilization were prior mental health problems, older age, and physical symptoms. Moderator effects were observed for prison sample size, sample selection, length of follow-up, geographic location, and type of analysis. These findings may help to improve prison classification procedures to optimize prisoners’ management and treatment.
This study examines the alternative ways that key personality traits—Agreeableness and Conscientiousness—work in conjunction with measures of situational opportunity in affecting offending and victimization simultaneously. More specifically, we explore (a) the extent to which the effects of Agreeableness and Conscientiousness on offending and victimization are mediated by opportunity, and (b) the extent to which the effects of Agreeableness and Conscientiousness on offending and victimization are moderated by opportunity. These interrelationships are estimated using path modeling of two waves of survey data from a 4-year panel study of 2,220 adolescents. Results suggest that the effects of Agreeableness and Conscientiousness on offending and/or victimization are partially mediated by situational opportunity. Regarding interaction effects, results show that the effects of Agreeableness and Conscientiousness are also moderated by measures of situational opportunity. These traits appear to protect against offending most notably at the highest levels of opportunity.
The current study used crime scene analysis (CSA) to identify the psychological characteristics of child molesters and examined the contribution of these behavioral themes for sexual offender risk assessment. CSA was conducted on a sample of 424 cases of child sexual abuse in Berlin (Germany) using non-metric Multi-Dimensional Scaling. The analysis revealed the behavioral themes of fixation, regression (sexualization), criminality, and (sexualized) aggression, consistent with previous theories and empirical research in child molestation. The construct validity of the four themes was demonstrated through correlational analyses with known sexual offending measures, ratings of offender motivation, and criminal histories. The themes of fixation and (sexualized) aggression were significant predictors of sexual recidivism and added incrementally to the Static-99 for the prediction of sexual recidivism. The results indicate that crime scene information can inform the assessment of child molesters’ risk-relevant propensities and improve the prediction of sexual recidivism.
The present investigation examined the predictive validity of the Level of Service/Risk–Need–Responsivity (LS/RNR) instrument for general and violent recidivism in a sample of 138 community-supervised adult mentally disordered offenders. The General Risk/Need section was strongly predictive of general recidivism, whereas the Specific Risk/Need section most strongly predicted violent recidivism. Among males, the General Risk/Need section produced a large effect size for general recidivism, whereas general and violent outcomes for females were best predicted by the Specific Risk/Need section. Across diagnostic subgroups, the General and Specific Risk/Need sections predicted general but not violent recidivism; however, many subgroups were small, highlighting a need for replication research with larger samples. The Other Client Issues and Special Responsivity Considerations sections did not significantly inform recidivism prediction. Broadly interpreted, the overall pattern supports the LS/RNR instrument as valid for use with mentally disordered offenders.
The Risk–Need–Responsivity (RNR) framework for working with offenders has been well validated. Factors that contribute to reoffending within adult and youth forensic populations have been identified, including antisocial attitudes, but less is known about the measurement of this construct in youth. Thus, in the present study, the reliability and validity of criminal attitudes measures were examined in a sample of justice-involved male youth (N = 291). Two measures widely used with adult offenders were included in the present study: the Pride in Delinquency Scale (PID) and the Criminal Sentiments Scale–Modified (CSS-M). Both measures were found to be reliable and valid, and of importance, useful in the prediction of reoffending behavior (area under the curve = .70 and .69 respectively). These findings further support the use of the RNR framework in general with youthful offenders, and more specifically, the use of criminal attitudes measures with youth.
The present meta-analysis explored the relationship between psychopathy and instrumental and reactive violence with a focus on factor and facet scores. A total of 53 studies (reporting on 55 unique samples, N = 8,753) from both published and unpublished sources were included. Results from random-effects analyses indicated moderate and significant relationships between psychopathy and both instrumental and reactive violence. There was some evidence that the Interpersonal facet was more important for instrumental violence, while Factor 2 (social deviance) was more important for reactive violence. The Lifestyle facet appeared important in explaining both violent outcomes. Effect sizes were significantly smaller for clinical rating scales compared with informant and self-report scales. Significant between-study variability was partly explained by mean age of the sample and type of outcome measure. The current findings do not support the conclusion that psychopathy is more related to instrumental violence as opposed to reactive violence.
Despite meta-analytic evidence on the effectiveness of offender treatment programs, little is known about how therapeutic changes to dynamic risk factors contribute to this effect. The present study explores the relationship between prison climate, changes in dynamic risk factors, and recidivism in a sample of 185 male violent and sexual offenders. Participants completed psychometric tests on dynamic risk factors (procriminal attitudes, antisocial personality patterns, empathy, anxiety/neuroticism) and perceived prison climate before and after correctional treatment (length: M = 32 months) in a social-therapeutic facility. Recidivism data were available for 92 participants with a follow-up of M = 4 years. Medium-sized prosocial changes to the dynamic risk factors of procriminal attitudes and anxiety/neuroticism in all offenders were found, while antisocial personality patterns only decreased among violent offenders. Positive ratings of different aspects of prison climate significantly correlated with prosocial changes in all dynamic risk factors except empathy. Cox regressions showed that prosocial changes in dynamic risk factors were not predictive of general or sexual/violent recidivism. The reasons that could account for the missing link between therapeutic change and reduced recidivism are discussed. These range from problematic methodological issues like the repeated measurement of self-reports to the omission of relevant constructs from desistance theory and protective factors. It is concluded that more attention should be given to creating a prison climate that is conducive to therapeutic change.
Although studies have consistently demonstrated mentally ill offenders to be disproportionately involved in misconduct within correctional facilities, research is limited on the potential exacerbating effects of co-occurring disorders (CODs) on inmate behavior. With the vast number of offenders who have comorbid psychiatric and substance use disorders, it is essential that we understand whether the clinically interactive nature of CODs may present increased security and management challenges for correctional administrators. Using data from the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (PADOC), we compared the institutional misconduct experiences of female inmates with CODs to those for inmates with singular disorders or no disorders. The findings of our study support prior research showing mental illness as a risk factor for prison misconduct. The results further suggest that the presence of both a substance use disorder and a mental illness exacerbates the risk of negative behaviors beyond the singular disorder of mental illness.
Studies examining the protective effect of religiosity on crime are frequently rooted in the assumption that the impact of religiosity is invariant across sociodemographic differences. This study systematically examines the validity of this assumption across gender and the developmental periods of adolescence and young adulthood. Using a nationally representative sample of adolescents (n = 90,202) and young adults (n = 93,710), negative binomial regression (NBR) is employed to examine the associations between religiosity and criminal behaviors (e.g., drug selling, theft) among male and female adolescents and young adults. Results indicate that the protective relationship between religiosity and criminal behaviors such as drug selling and theft is consistent across gender as well as across the developmental periods of adolescence and young adulthood. This study provides support for the validity of the invariance hypothesis as the protective effect of religiosity on criminal behavior was consistently observed across important sociodemographic differences.
Research on desistance emphasizes the importance of the transformation narrative, in which the individual has replaced his old, criminal self with a new, law-abiding self. Key elements of the transformation narrative are generative motivations, the core self, and a sense of agency. Thus far, it is not known what role these elements play in desistance among released lifers. To fill this caveat, we conducted in-depth life interviews with 67 individuals who had served a life sentence. Almost all interviewees presented a transformation narrative that included a good core self and generative motivations, including those who persisted in criminal behavior. We found that individual agency was a key factor distinguishing the paroled lifers from the re-incarcerated lifers. Findings suggest that rather than learning to present a transformation narrative focused on reflecting a good core self and generative motivations, (post-)prison programs should focus on restoring agency to ensure successful re-entry.
Study attrition is a problem in all community-based intervention studies using longitudinal research designs, but is compounded with hard to reach populations. High attrition poses threats to internal and external validity and may result in an inadequate sample size. The purpose of our study was to determine the characteristics associated with attrition. The study employed data from a cross-site evaluation of jail diversion programs. A self-report interview was conducted at baseline for 1,289 individuals. A 33% and 52% attrition rate was observed at the 6-month and 12-month follow-up interviews, respectively. The characteristics associated with loss to follow-up were male gender, part-time or full-time employment, drug offenses, jail days, baseline interview location, community supervision, and community geography. Knowing which individuals are more likely to attrit allows evaluators to develop targeted sampling strategies and participant engagement strategies.
This study explores outcome variation among women offenders who participated in gender-responsive substance abuse treatment (GRT). To identify subgroups of participants that may differentially benefit from this treatment, secondary analyses examined the interaction between randomization into GRT and a history of abuse (physical/sexual) on depression and number of substances used post treatment. The sample consisted of 115 incarcerated women assessed at baseline and 6 and 12 months post parole. Longitudinal regression showed that women reporting abuse randomized into GRT had significantly reduced odds of depression (odds ratio [OR] = .29, p < .05, 95% confidence interval [CI] = [0.10, 0.86]) and lowered rates of number of substances used (incidence rate ratio [IRR] = .52, p < .05, 95% CI = [0.28, 0.98]), in comparison with those who reported abuse and were randomized to the non-GRT group. Findings suggest that GRT for women offenders who have experienced prior abuse may maximize the benefits of the trauma-informed, gender-sensitive intervention.
The current study examines whether or not prosecutors in New Jersey are properly using the state’s sex offender risk assessment tool, and the implications of improper implementation. All prosecutors and public defenders who handle Megan’s Law cases in New Jersey participated in two confidential surveys. The results of those surveys were used to score a fact pattern. Results reveal that prosecutors are not consistently implementing risk assessment, that there are several sources of disparities, and that these disparities can result in a substantial variation in risk assessment scores. The implications of these disparities are that offender risk is often over-classified, thereby increasing offender supervision costs and potentially compromising public safety. The authors make recommendations for formal training on the proper use of risk assessment tools, as well as an assessment supervision plan. Although this research was conducted in New Jersey, the findings have implications for risk assessment tools employed by other jurisdictions.
This article examines the interaction between social control and social risk mechanisms, and genes within the dopaminergic system (DAT1 and DRD2) as related to serious and violent forms of delinquent behavior among adolescents and young adults. We use nine waves of data from the National Youth Survey Family Study (NYSFS) to examine the relevance of protective or risky social factors at four social levels, including school, neighborhood, friends, and family within the gene–environment interaction framework. We extend previous work in this area by providing a testable typology of gene–environment interactions derived from current theories in this area. We find consistent evidence that the associations between putatively risky genotypes and delinquent behavior are suppressed within protective social environments. We also provide some evidence that supports the differential susceptibility hypothesis for these outcomes. Our findings largely confirm the conclusions of previous work and continue to highlight the critical role of the social environment within candidate gene studies of complex behaviors.
This study explores the confluence of victimization and incarceration to contribute to the understanding of battered women’s experience of the criminal justice system. Building on previous qualitative research investigating pathways to incarceration for battered women, this study utilizes qualitative data from 10 focus-group interviews to investigate and compare battered women’s experiences with victimization, help-seeking, and perceptions of incarceration across four different site types: jails, prisons, shelters, and post-release support groups. The study makes comparisons across these sites and identifies site-specific service needs and perceived barriers to meeting these needs. These data also reveal three ways battered women perceive incarceration to operate with respect to their service needs: as a symbolic barrier, as a potential opportunity, and as a structural barrier. The association of these divergent perspectives on incarceration with specific locations in the criminal justice system and the implications for targeted interventions based on these findings are discussed.
Each year many offenders are released homeless putting them at great risk of being returned to prison. To reduce the likelihood of recidivism, Washington State implemented the Reentry Housing Pilot Program (RHPP) to provide housing assistance for high risk/high need offenders leaving prison without a viable place to live. This study provides a longitudinal (2008-2011), multisite outcome evaluation that considers how ex-offenders in the RHPP program (n = 208), who were provided housing and wraparound services, compared with similar offenders released with an elevated risk of homelessness while being traditionally supervised (n = 208). Findings show that the RHPP program was successful in significantly reducing new convictions and readmission to prison for new crimes, but had no significant effect on revocations. In addition, results showed that periods of homelessness significantly elevated the risk of recidivism for new convictions, revocations, and readmission to prison. The authors recommend that subsidized housing for high risk offenders become a central part of coordinated responses to reentry.
In this study, we examined the (incremental) predictive validity of Andrews and Bonta’s Central Eight risk factors for recidivism in the German youth correctional system. The sample consisted of N = 589 male youth inmates who were incarcerated for the first time. Recidivism during the 78 months’ follow-up was assessed using official data. The Central Eight risk factors predicted recidivism in survival analyses. In a cross-validation, composite scores predicted general (area under curve [AUC] = .65) and violent recidivism (AUC = .66). The Moderate Four risk factors (family, school, leisure/recreation, substance abuse) showed predictive validity incremental to the Big Four risk factors (history of antisocial behavior, antisocial personality pattern, antisocial cognition, antisocial associates). School was the most predictive single risk factor. The results provide evidence for the applicability of the Central Eight as predictors for recidivism in the German youth correctional system. Furthermore, the study adds to the debate on the importance of dynamic risk factors.
Voluntary turnover among law enforcement personnel is a significant concern. However, few studies have considered potential intermediate linkages in the relationship between working conditions and officers’ quit/stay intentions. Utilizing a large cross-sectional sample of U.K.-based officers (n = 1,789, response rate = 25%), a mediational model of officer turnover intentions was tested. Findings indicated that a number of key psychosocial conditions specified in the U.K. Health and Safety Executive Management Standards Indicator Tool (e.g., job demands, role clarity) were associated with officer intentions to leave; however, when job stress and job satisfaction were entered into the model, these relationships were either reduced, or no longer significant. Findings indicated that task-oriented conditions were more strongly associated with job stress while relational or socially oriented conditions were stronger predictors of job satisfaction. These results highlight that monitoring stress and satisfaction may be a valuable component of officer retention efforts, and could offer early-warning of impending turnover among staff.
The effectiveness of specialized interventions depends in part on the target population and whether those selected for admission to interventions (i.e., specialized programs) and recruited to participate in research evaluations are representative of the target population. This article describes the process by which clients were selected to participate in a specialized mental health caseload (SMHC). The study focuses on the referral and selection process at the program level and the factors influencing acceptance and rejection. Using a mixed methods approach, we found that selection was guided by a three-stage process: The first was a general education phase, followed by an informal pre-screening stage, and finally a formal screening stage. Once clients were referred, client selection was informed principally by the program’s formal criteria. Informal processes appeared consistent with the formal selection criteria. Further research is necessary to assess potential bias prior to the formal referral process.
In this article, we present the results of a preliminary evaluation of a comprehensive treatment program specifically designed to treat co-occurring issues of mental illness and criminal risk in persons with mental illness (PMI) that are criminal justice involved. Participants include 47 incarcerated male PMI in a secure psychiatric prison or a residential treatment facility. Of the 47 participants, 31 (66%) completed the program, attended 94% of all sessions, completed 83% of assigned homework, and actively participated in treatment sessions as evidenced by participation ratings. Change was examined using a four-tiered assessment strategy, including pre–post significance testing, magnitude of effect sizes, clinical cutoffs, and reliable change indices. Results showed evidence of strong therapeutic alliance and treatment program satisfaction, as well as symptom reduction and some evidence for reduced criminal thinking. Program modifications and implications for enhancing service delivery to justice involved PMI are discussed.
Relatively little effort has been made to develop and validate theories that explain firesetting. In this study, the first offense chain model of firesetting in mentally disordered offenders was developed. Twenty-three mentally disordered firesetters were interviewed about the affective, cognitive, behavioral, and contextual factors leading up to and surrounding one of their recorded firesetting offenses. Offense account interviews were analyzed using grounded theory. The resulting model consists of four main phases: (a) background, (b) early adulthood, (c) pre-offense period, and (d) offense and post-offense period. The model accounts for firesetting by male and female mentally disordered offenders and highlights the importance of early childhood experiences of fire and the onset of mental illness as precursors to firesetting within this population. Furthermore, the model is able to distinguish between different types of mentally disordered firesetters and their offense styles. The clinical implications and utility of the model are also discussed.
Relations among childhood victimization, substance use prior to the commission of a sexual offense, and force used during a sexual offense were examined in a sample of residentially based, male juvenile sex offenders (n = 406; Mage = 16.6). Marshall and Marshall’s (2000) theory of sex offending proposes that childhood victimization, among other factors, creates a vulnerability to offend, which when paired with disinhibition (e.g., from substance use) may lead to sexual offending. Guided by this theory, we examined whether substance use prior to the commission of a sexual offense mediated the relation between trauma and force used in sexual offending. Six mediation analyses were used to examine subtypes of childhood victimization and the effects of cumulative victimization. Results provided support for partial mediation of substance use prior to a sexual offense on the effects of cumulative victimization on force used during a sexual offense. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.
Traditionally, neutralization theory has been conceptualized as a situational strategy employed by offenders to preemptively assuage the guilt they anticipate from contemplated offending and delinquency, and thereby promote offending. While scholars have established that neutralizing and delinquency are related, they have yet to sufficiently determine whether this relationship is causal in nature, or whether neutralizing should be thought of as an individual difference. In this study, we used trajectory analysis and structural equations modeling (SEM) techniques on GREAT (Gang Resistance Education and Training) data to find that juveniles coalesced into four stable and distinct neutralizing and delinquency groups. These trajectories were parallel across ages 12 to 16, and systematically related to each other (e.g., higher neutralizing trajectories with higher delinquency trajectories). Subsequent SEM analysis demonstrated a recursive, causal effect of neutralizations on delinquency. Our results suggest that practitioners develop measures to identify "high" versus "low" neutralizers, which may have ramifications for the offender management and counseling.
With almost 700,000 inmates released annually in the United States, the predictors of successful reentry have received considerable attention. Prior research documents that recidivism is influenced by both ex-inmate characteristics and social context. Little attention, however, has been paid to the role social context might play in moderating the effects of individual-level risk factors. Using inmate release data from the Florida Department of Corrections and other sources, we examine whether contextual factors that promote crime and antisocial behavior amplify the association between individual criminal propensity and recidivism. Our analysis offers limited support for the moderating effects of context, suggesting that the relationship between criminal propensity and recidivism is substantial and largely independent of community characteristics. We discuss the implications of the findings for theory, research, and policy.
Is there a relationship between victimization and subsequent behaviors, and if so, does victimization lead to risky or constrained activities? Previous research is mixed, possibly due to limitations associated with selection bias, cross-sectional data, and floor and ceiling effects. The current study examines how victimization influences lifestyles using longitudinal National Crime Victimization Survey data. To avoid problems of selection bias and spuriousness, we use a propensity score matching approach to compare the subsequent lifestyles of victims and nonvictims. We find that victims tend to engage in higher levels of risky behavior following victimization than do nonvictims at similar points in time but that differences are due to preexisting factors that distinguish victims from nonvictims and not due to the victimization event, itself.
This research examined the combined impact of alcohol and previous experience growing up in a disadvantaged neighborhood on aggression in a laboratory setting. Participants were 505 young adult social drinkers between 21 and 35 years of age who completed a retrospective measure of neighborhood disadvantage and then participated in an experimental procedure, where they either consumed an alcohol or placebo beverage. They were subsequently tested on a laboratory aggression task in which they were provoked by receiving electric shocks from a fictitious opponent under the guise of a competitive reaction-time task. Aggression was operationalized as shock intensities and durations administered, in retaliation, by the participants to their fictitious opponent. Acute alcohol intoxication significantly increased aggression for those who grew up in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Thus, our investigation supports Sampson’s notions of "legacies of neighborhood inequality" with important implications for the etiology and prevention of violence in real-world settings.
The present study examines violent victimization patterns across the life course and outlines a victim careers agenda for future scholarly inquiry. I analyzed four waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to examine whether violent victimization prevalence, onset, and persistence during earlier stages of the life course can predict violent victimization risk in adulthood, and whether these relationships are observed independent of current violent offending. Violent victimization in adolescence was significantly related to subsequent risk in adulthood. Even when current violent offending is controlled, those who report early and persistent violent victimization during prior stages of the life course appear particularly vulnerable to subsequent victimization. The findings demonstrate the importance of moving forward with a victim careers agenda and the present study outlines numerous theoretical and empirical avenues for victimization scholars to pursue.
Outwardly directed aggression is associated with suicide attempts, but aggression is a heterogeneous construct. Increased specificity in our understanding of the link between aggression and suicide attempts can be attained by examining subtypes of aggression. We studied the relationships of reactive and proactive aggression to history of a suicide attempt among 96 criminal offenders in a pretrial supervision program. Consistent with prior findings in nonoffender samples, reactive aggression was associated with a history of suicide attempt after controlling for gender and depression. Proactive aggression was unrelated to suicide attempts. Results indicate that suicide risk assessments in forensic settings may be informed by the measurement of reactive aggression.
Cognitive Experiential Self-Theory (CEST) posits that individuals process information rationally (measured by Need for Cognition [NFC]) or experientially (measured by Faith in Intuition [FI]). This study investigated whether information processing traits (NFC and FI) and states (CEST logic problems) are related to general death penalty attitude and sentencing verdict—and whether these relationships differed for students versus community members. FI and NFC were related to sentencing verdicts. An increase in FI was related to a higher likelihood of a death sentence; an increase in NFC was related to a higher likelihood of a life sentence. CEST logic problems were related to sentencing verdicts and general attitudes. However, these relationships were moderated: For community members, but not students, a decrease in rational processing was related to a higher likelihood of a death sentence and support for the death penalty. Results have implications for psychology and the legal system.
Methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) can benefit post-release outcomes for correctional populations with opioid dependence, yet few outcome data exist for Canada. This retrospective study examined return to custody (RTC) outcomes following correctional release among three samples of male federal offenders with problematic opioid use (n = 856): offenders who continued MMT post-release (MMT-C) and offenders who discontinued MMT post-release (MMT-T) after being initiated on correctional MMT, and a non-MMT treated control group (MMT-N). MMT status was determined by community-based urinalysis; administrative data were used for outcomes. While the rate of continued MMT was lower, the MMT-C group had a 36% lower risk of RTC than the MMT-N group; RTC risk was not significantly different between the MMT-T and the MMT-N groups. Continuous MMT for correctional offenders with opioid dependence appears to be related to decreased post-release recidivism, and thus to social reintegration outcomes. Better understanding and improvement of corrections-to-community transition dynamics concerning MMT are required.
The Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument–Version 2 (MAYSI-2) is a brief screening tool used to identify youth in the juvenile justice system who are at-risk of mental-health-related difficulties. The MAYSI-2 was administered to 5,205 African American and Latino/a youth throughout Chicago, Illinois, who were on probation and residing in the community. This study investigated differences (i.e., legal status, gender, age, race/ethnicity) in reporting of mental health symptoms and substance use on the MAYSI-2. Females scored above the clinical cutoffs more frequently than males, and there were few differences found between diverted and adjudicated youth. Age comparisons revealed mixed results. Overall, youth in the current sample scored above the clinical cutoffs less often than youth in the MAYSI-2 norm reference groups. Nonetheless, during the first phase of this study, the MAYSI-2 demonstrated effectiveness by accurately identifying a substantial portion of youth in need of mental health and/or substance abuse treatment.
Prison inmates are at greater risk for death by suicide compared with the general population. Although many risk factors for suicide identified in the general population (e.g., depression, substance abuse) also apply to prison populations, few studies have examined variables that are of particular relevance to prison inmates. The current study used cross-sectional survey methodology to examine the relationships of primary and secondary psychopathic personality traits with current suicide ideation and previous suicide attempts in a sample of male prison inmates. Prison inmates who endorsed greater secondary psychopathic traits were more likely to be multiple-suicide attempters versus single and nonattempters. Primary psychopathic traits did not predict suicide attempt status. The relationship of secondary psychopathic traits and suicide ideation grew stronger as depressive symptoms increased. Primary psychopathic traits were not associated with increased suicide ideation either alone or in confluence with depressive symptoms.
Andrews and Bonta identified the following criminogenic needs as important to reducing offending: substance use, antisocial cognition, antisocial associates, family and marital relations, employment, and leisure and recreational activities. This study examines dynamic criminogenic need changes across a 12-month period and identifies which need changes are the best predictors of criminal offending and illicit drug use among a sample of drug-involved probationers who participated in an intervention (N = 251). Probationers had significant changes in several need areas, and treatment participation moderated some changes. Probationers who had reductions in criminally involved family members they associate with, improved work performance, and decreased alcohol use had the greatest reductions in offending. Those who increased time spent engaged in leisure and recreational activities were less likely to self-report subsequent drug use. These findings suggest that certain dynamic need changes may be more important than others, and designing interventions to impact these needs might improve outcomes.
This study involved a comparison of the influences on inmate misconduct among female and male inmates. Data were collected from over 5,500 inmates housed in 46 facilities in Ohio and Kentucky (570 women and 5,059 men), and the relative effects of these inmates’ background characteristics and confinement experiences were examined for sex-specific samples. The magnitudes of effects were then compared across the two groups. Findings revealed that background characteristics (e.g., age) and confinement experiences (e.g., involvement in education/vocational program) influence women’s and men’s odds of misconduct. Equality of coefficient tests revealed only three differences in the magnitude of these effects across the analyses of the sex-specific samples, suggesting there are far more similarities than differences in the predictors of misconduct among men versus women.
This review examines female offender reentry within the context of the Transition from Prison to Community Initiative (TPCI). Specifically, we consider each stage of the TPCI, noting the extent to which current reentry policies and practices can be informed by gender responsiveness. To illustrate further, we compare reentry approaches and correctional outcomes in two states. Directions for further research on female offender reentry and TPCI evaluations are discussed.
A burgeoning criminological literature has identified important intersections between public health, crime, and antisocial behavior. This study is based on public-use data collected between 2006 and 2010 as part of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) and an analytical sample of men (N = 84,054) and women (N = 95,308) between the ages of 18 and 64. Latent class analysis (LCA) identified three classes: a large normative group, a small drug-involved group, and a criminal-justice-involved group. Chronic health conditions that are more closely associated with longer term medical problems and perhaps cumulative stress such as heart disease and diabetes are not linked to criminal-justice-system-involved or drug-involved offenders. Medical problems that are more closely related to an antisocial lifestyle such as sexually transmitted diseases, pancreatitis, and hepatitis were found to be more prevalent among antisocial subgroups in this sample.
There is growing interest in examining whether the findings generated from biosocial studies of crime can be integrated into existing criminological theories. To this point, however, not much empirical research has focused on this possibility. The current study addresses this gap in the literature by examining the nexus between biosocial criminology and the social support perspective as it relates to levels of self-control. To do so, a sample of twin pairs from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) was analyzed using quantitative genetic analyses. The analyses revealed three key findings. First, genetic factors account for about 50% of the variance in measures of social support. Second, the covariance between social support and self-control is largely due to a common genetic pathway. Third, even after holding genetic influences constant, social support has a significant effect on levels of self-control.
The management of intimate partner violence (IPV) typically falls to police. For assistance, officers are increasingly using violence risk assessment tools like the Brief Spousal Assault Form for the Evaluation of Risk (B-SAFER). This study replicates the methodology of Belfrage et al. but examines the B-SAFER as used by Swedish police officers when assessing and managing IPV. Results revealed a positive relationship between risk and management. Total scores and overall risk ratings predicted recidivism (AUC [Area under the curve] = .70 and .69, respectively). Finally, a pattern where management recommendations were associated with decreased recidivism in high risk perpetrators but increased recidivism in low risk perpetrators was found. Results validate the use of the B-SAFER by police and reveal mostly comparable findings between the B-SAFER and the Spousal Assault Risk Assessment Guide, as examined by Belfrage et al., but suggest that the B-SAFER may be better suited for police.
Although studies have established that homicide offenders are clearly well versed in the criminal world, there is limited knowledge of the specific types of offenses they engage in leading up to the homicide, and if patterns of specialization or escalation exist. In addition, no study on homicide offenders has differentiated between gang and non-gang members. This study examines the arrest histories of homicide gang and non-gang offenders to assess whether patterns of offense specialization, escalation, or de-escalation exist. The findings suggest that homicide offenders were heavily involved in violent and drug crimes prior to the homicide. Gang members committed and specialized in drug crimes, while non-gang members committed more violent crimes and had the highest probability of specializing in drug crimes. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed in light of these findings.
Over the past decade school bullying has emerged as a prominent issue of concern for students, parents, educators, and researchers. Bully victimization has been linked to a long list of negative outcomes, such as depression, peer rejection, school dropout, eating disorders, delinquency, and violence. Previous research relating bully victimization to delinquency has typically used standard regression techniques that may not sufficiently control for heterogeneity between bullied and nonbullied youths. Using a large, nationally representative panel dataset, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97), we use a propensity score matching technique to assess the impact of bully victimization on a range of delinquency outcomes. Results show that 19% of respondents had been victimized prior to the age of 12 years (n = 8,833). Early victimization is predictive of the development of 6 out of 10 delinquent behaviors measured over a period of 6 years, including assault, vandalism, theft, other property crimes (such as receiving stolen property or fraud), selling drugs, and running away from home. Bully victimization should be considered an important precursor to delinquency.
Prior research on correctional staff turnover intent and turnover generally assumes that staff are impacted by the workplace in a similar manner regardless of career stage. This study examined whether correctional officers (N = 2,621) with a Southwestern correctional agency differed in their level of turnover intent across different career stages, and whether the impact of work environment variables on turnover intent varied across career stages. Results indicated that turnover intent was lowest among staff with less than 1 year into their careers, and that the effects of work environment variables on turnover intent varied greatly across the 4 career stages. Commitment to the organization was the only work environment variable to be a significant predictor of intent to leave among four career stages, with a negative association in each of the four career groups.
This study investigates the influence of prior relationship and severity of behavior on perceptions of stalking and responsibility with a combined sample of 1,080 members of the community from Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Participants were presented with 1 of 12 versions of a hypothetical stalking scenario and responded to scale items regarding the behavior of a male perpetrator toward a female target. Prior relationship and severity of behavior influenced perceptions of stalking and responsibility, and the pattern of findings was consistent across the three countries. The perpetrator’s behavior was perceived to constitute stalking, and necessitate police intervention and a criminal conviction to the greatest extent when the perpetrator and target were portrayed as strangers. In addition, the target was perceived to be the least responsible and the perpetrator was perceived to be the most responsible when they were portrayed as strangers.
This article conceptualizes intermittency in the form of Matza’s drift and assesses the relationship between co-offending and intermittency to determine whether the gap between offenses is influenced by a situation of company. Using the 1958 Philadelphia Birth Cohort, we explore the age/intermittency curve for the entire sample and lifetime co-, solo-, and mixed offenders to determine whether co-offending during the life-course influences intermittency. We devote particular attention to lifetime mixed offenders, who exhibit variation between co-offending and solo-offending, by using survival analysis to predict the risk of re-offending (i.e., time to re-offense) when the immediately prior offense was a co-offense. Findings suggest that lifetime mixed offenders have the shortest average gaps between offenses. Among mixed offenders, an immediately prior co-offense is related to a significantly lower risk of re-offending (longer time between offenses). The results do not support a relationship between a situation of company and persistent offending behavior.
The application of common risk assessment measures, such as the Level of Service Inventories (LSI), to Aboriginal offenders has been a criticized practice. The belief that Aboriginal offenders have distinct needs has informed the argument that existing risk-need assessments cannot adequately capture their risk. To explore this, the present meta-analysis reviewed 16 samples to test the extent to which LSI scores predict recidivism for Aboriginal compared with non-Aboriginal offenders. In addition, one large sample was used to examine the similarities in recidivism rates per LSI score for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal offenders. Results indicated that the LSI predicts recidivism for Aboriginal offenders; however, for five of eight subscales, it predicts with less accuracy compared with non-Aboriginal offenders. In addition, the LSI underclassifies low-scoring Aboriginal offenders, but accurately estimates recidivism rates for higher scoring offenders. Implications for research into culturally-specific risk factors and the application of current risk factors to Aboriginal offenders are explored.
This study tests whether subtyping justice-involved adolescent girls into violent and delinquent (VAD), delinquent only, and low subgroups is predictive of adult health and offending. We use data from the Gender and Aggression Project to examine young adulthood functioning among women (N = 114) who were incarcerated during adolescence. After controlling for age, initial official-reports of offending, and baseline scores on the outcome of interest, the VAD subgroup experienced the worst functioning in young adulthood. Compared with the delinquency only subgroup, the VAD subgroup recidivated at higher rates and reported more internalizing psychopathology and physical health discomfort. Findings indicate that justice-involved girls should not be treated as a homogeneous group and prevention and intervention services should focus on girls who are most at risk in adolescence.
Deliberate firesetting costs our community in destruction to property and lives. Public concern heightens when similar fires occur in a series, raising the specter of copycat firesetting. Difficulties associated with researching copycat crimes in general mean that not a lot is known about copycat firesetting. As an initial step toward filling this research gap, we explore connections between research on copycat crime and research into deliberate firesetting. The intention is to extract salient features from what is known about the phenomena of deliberate firesetting and copycat crime, map them together, and point out shared and unique characteristics. It is argued that a "copycat firesetter" is likely to exist as a distinct subgroup and potentially requiring targeted interventions.
"Peer deviance" is normally measured through one’s perceptions of the deviant behavior of friends. However, recent research suggests that peer deviance perceptions may be inaccurate and unreflective of a peer’s actual deviance. Using dyadic data, the current study addresses the potential for three distinct sources of misperceptions of peer deviance stemming from (a) the actor who generates the perception, (b) the friend about whose deviance is perceived, and (c) the friendship between the actor and the friend. Using multilevel regression alongside analyses of variance (ANOVAs), results demonstrate that misperceptions, overperceptions, and underperceptions of peer deviance occur frequently and systematically covary with the deviant behavior of the perceiver, the friend, and the total amount of deviance within the friendship.
Serious offenders, especially incarcerated individuals, are rarely asked to judge the procedural justice of the police and courts. While serious offenders are rarely studied, even more uncommon are assessments of serious female offenders. In addition, despite a fair amount of research on perceptions of the procedural justice of the police and courts, little research has examined the spill-over of police effects onto the perceptions of the courts. This paper aims to bridge these gaps, by examining a sample of female inmates’ perceptions of the police and courts, and the spill-over of perceptions of the police onto perceptions of the courts. Results indicate that female offenders’ procedural justice perceptions are significantly influenced by their perceived honesty of police officers and the judge, and their perceived opportunity to have their voice heard in police and court encounters. There also appears to be a significant spill-over of police effects onto perceptions about the courts.
The Violence Risk Scale–Youth Version (VRS-YV; S. Wong, Lewis, Stockdale, & Gordon, 2004-2011) is a risk assessment and treatment planning tool for youths designed to assess violence risk, identify dynamic risk factors or treatment targets, and evaluate changes in risk from treatment or other change agents. We examined the psychometric properties of the VRS-YV on a diverse sample of 147 young offenders. The tool demonstrated high internal consistency (α = .90) and interrater reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC] = .90). Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) identified three factors: Interpersonal Aggression, Antisocial Tendencies, and Family Problems. VRS-YV static, dynamic, and total scores significantly predicted violent and general recidivism, including youth and adult outcomes, with moderate to high accuracy (area under the curve [AUC] = .65-.77); however, results varied among ethnic/cultural, gender, and developmental subgroups. The VRS-YV also demonstrated strong convergent validity with two well-established youth forensic assessment tools. Clinical implications of these findings and future research directions are discussed in this article.
This study uses a propensity scoring and matching approach to compare the costs of crimes committed by former inmates with mental illness (MI) and without MI. Our findings indicate that the recidivism costs of those with MI over the course of 3 years of follow-up are nearly 3 times as large as similar reintegrating former inmates without MI. However, prior to matching on mental health indicators, the costs of the reoffense patterns of the average reintegrating individual with MI are less than half those of the average former prisoner without MI. Our discussion centers on the identification of relevant groups that corrections officials should focus their rehabilitative resources on and whether those with MI should be a group they focus on during this process.
Delinquent peer association and criminal/delinquent behaviors are highly intertwined. The directionality and mechanisms underlying this relationship, however, have been debated in the literature for decades. The current study seeks to further inform this debate by examining whether individual differences at the level of the genome can help to explain the association between delinquent peer affiliation and delinquency. Using the twin and full-sibling subsample from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), behavioral genetic methodology is used to examine whether delinquent peer affiliation and delinquency in adolescence covary as the result of common genetic factors. Results indicate that delinquent peer association and delinquency are moderately influenced by additive genetic factors, and that common genes are in fact influencing the covariance between the two outcomes. The importance of incorporating genetic explanations into traditional theories of delinquency is discussed.
The assessment of inmate risk and need in prison poses a unique challenge to correctional policy makers because it is used for two purposes: classification and case management. Classification and case management require assessment instruments that are designed to predict two separate outcomes: institutional misconduct and community recidivism. The current research examines differences between a prison classification instrument developed to predict misconduct and a case management instrument developed to predict community recidivism using a sample of 414 inmates in Ohio. The results indicated substantial differences between assessment instruments and that separate risk and needs assessments should be conducted. A hybrid assessment system is suggested that seeks to maximize accuracy and efficiency by including select factors from each instrument.
This study examines the impact of offenders’ psychological and demographic attributes and their offense history on the effectiveness of Reasoning and Rehabilitation, a cognitive–behavioral intervention. Differential effects were examined for a sample of 940 male parolees randomly assigned to either experimental or comparison conditions. The study used survival analysis to test interactions between treatment and age, race, social class, risk, marital status, prearrest employment status, education, prior violence, interpersonal maturity level, personality, reading level, and IQ. For the entire sample, the difference in recidivism rates (returns to prison up to 33 months) was not statistically significant. The analysis of differential effects, however, uncovered five interaction effects. The treated high-risk, aged 28 to 32 years, assessed as dependent (Jesness Inventory [JI]), and White groups evidenced lower recidivism rates than their comparison group. The treated parolee group assessed with high anxiety (JI) evidenced a higher recidivism rate than their comparison group.
Offenders are exposed to violence at higher rates than the general population. Yet little is known about whether exposure to violence affects offenders’ adjustment to incarceration. Using a nationally representative sample of inmates housed in secure confinement facilities, we examine the relative effects of exposure to different types of violence prior to incarceration (e.g., physical assault, sexual assault, child abuse) on inmate maladjustment. Results indicate that exposure to violence prior to incarceration influences individuals’ odds of maladjustment during imprisonment, and that abuse as a child and physical victimization by a nonstranger as an adult are particularly robust predictors of maladjustment. Implications of these findings for future research and correctional practice are discussed.
The Psychopathy Checklist–Revised (PCL-R) is the standard assessment method for psychopathic personality traits of offenders. PCL-R norms for German-speaking countries have not yet been published. This study reviews the extant literature on the PCL-R and its screening version in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. Based on 25 published empirical studies (total N = 4,254) overall means and standard deviations were estimated using meta-analytic methods. Assuming normality, estimates of norms (percentiles and T-scores) were derived for male offenders with respect to the standard assessment protocol (PCL-R interview plus file review), purely file-based assessments, and the screening version of the instrument. Compared with the North American normative data, estimated sample means were significantly lower for PCL-R standard assessments and for the screening instrument. The present findings may serve as provisional estimates for gauging the level of psychopathic traits of male offenders in Austria, Germany, and the German-speaking parts of Switzerland.
The current research examined the influence of prior relationship on perceptions of stalking, and compared the perceptions of laypersons, nonspecialist police officers, and specialist police officers. Two studies employed experimental designs where participants were presented with one of three vignettes in which the nature of the prior relationship was manipulated so that the perpetrator and victim were portrayed as strangers, acquaintances, or ex-partners. Participants comprised 101 nonspecialist police officers and 108 laypersons in Study 1, and 49 specialist police officers and 49 nonspecialist police officers in Study 2. Findings indicate that nonspecialist police officers and laypersons shared the common misperception that stranger stalkers present a greater threat to the personal safety of their victims than acquaintance or ex-partner stalkers. Specialist police officers were less susceptible to common misperceptions and believed that intervention was more necessary. Specialist police officers also believed that the perpetrator’s behavior would cause the victim more alarm or personal distress than nonspecialist police officers.
The Hare Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-R) is an important predictor of violent behavior and is widely used to make important decisions about forensic clients. Some research casts doubt on whether the scoring of the PCL-R in clinical practice matches that attained in research and, therefore, whether the use of the PCL-R is warranted in high-stakes decisions. We examined scoring correspondence of the PCL-R in 58 offenders where scoring by trained clinicians was compared with that by a very experienced researcher whose scoring was of known predictive validity (or with a student supervised by this experienced researcher). Research and clinical scorers showed good agreement (Spearman’s rank order correlation = .85; intraclass correlation coefficient = .79, absolute agreement for single measures), especially on those parts of the PCL-R that are most consistently and robustly associated with violence. We conclude that trained clinicians can achieve acceptable reliability and validity when scoring the PCL-R, especially for risk assessment.
The Static-99 is the actuarial risk assessment instrument most commonly used and best validated for sexual offenders. Some research has indicated that the original version of the instrument does not sufficiently cover the influence of age-related decreases in recidivism risk of sexual offenders. Therefore, an age-corrected version, the Static-99R, has been proposed. It includes four age categories compared with only two in the original instrument. The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of several age-related variables on the predictive accuracy of the German version of the Static-99 using a population-based sample of prison-released sexual offenders (N = 1,077). The results indicated that—for the prediction of sexual reoffenses in a population-based prison sample—the original Static-99 performed better than the age-corrected Static-99R. Theoretical and empirical implications for research as well as recommendations for applied risk assessment settings are discussed.
While few variables have been studied with greater frequency than job satisfaction, outcomes have largely reflected ambiguous and inconsistent findings. To advance empirical knowledge as it relates to job satisfaction in corrections, this research design addresses a number of shortcomings prevalent in extant correctional literature. In that regard, it uniquely focuses on the rarely explored work environment of jails in the United States, incorporates a nationwide target population, includes both personal and organizational variables in the analysis, and employs a multifaceted inferential methodology based on the strength of causal analysis. Results indicate that it is not the personal variables such as age, race, gender, or ethnicity that primarily account for the job satisfaction of jail line staff, but rather, organizational variables. These include a supportive work climate, empowerment/autonomy, and compensation/benefits, with the greatest contributor being the employee’s overall work environment. Implications of the findings for sheriffs and jail administrators committed to the long-term process of elevating employee job satisfaction are discussed.
This study examines the relationship between behavioral health problems and criminogenic thinking, aggression, self-control, and hopelessness, controlling for other demographic and criminal behavior characteristics among incarcerated persons. Male (n = 3,986) and female (n = 218) inmates expected to be released within 24 months from prisons affiliated with a northeastern state department of corrections completed the Criminal Sentiments Scale–Modified, Buss–Perry Aggression Questionnaire Short-Form, Brief Self-Control Scale, and Beck Hopelessness Scale. Results indicated that behavioral health variables were significantly and substantially correlated with antisocial thinking, aggression, self-control, and hopelessness. For male inmates, serious mental illness and substance abuse problems significantly increased antisocial attitudes, aggression, and hopelessness scores and decreased self-control scores. In preparing incarcerated persons with and without mental illnesses for reentry to the community, it is critical to develop and implement evidence-based interventions that respond to attitudinal and emotional risk factors that predict relapse and recidivism.
This study examined the influence of adolescent psychiatric disorder on young adult recidivism and compared findings with earlier studies of juvenile recidivism. Logistic regression analysis examined subsequent adulthood recidivism (through age 23 years) by disorder profile, adjusting for prior offense severity and background variables, in 340 Alabama juveniles referred to juvenile justice agencies (probation and detention). Youths with comorbid internalizing and disruptive behavior disorder had a sixfold increased risk for young adult recidivism compared with nondisordered counterparts. Comorbid internalizing disorder likely is a marker for the severity of a youth’s disruptive behavior disorder; similarly, offending that continues into adulthood likely betokens a more serious course of offending behavior. The severity underlying disorder and offending behavior is probably the common link between them. To prevent reoffending into adulthood, the mental health needs of juvenile justice youths’ internalizing and externalizing problems should be addressed.
Youth-perpetrated homicide has considerable impact on our society and justice system. Unfortunately, youth-perpetrated homicide is an understudied crime and even less research has been conducted specific to a Canadian population. Two decades ago, Meloff and Silverman published the most thorough examination of youth-perpetrated homicide in Canada. Since that time, it has been proposed that the motivations and characteristics of youth violence have changed in a number of important ways. The present study expands on previous limited empirical studies and investigation into features of youth homicides using a sample of 105 Canadian youth homicide offenders. A number of important differences were observed. For instance, there were substantially more multiple-perpetrator, stranger, and instrumental homicides. Results are considered in relation to trends observed in Canada and the United States.
While research conducted in Western nations suggests that religiosity and spirituality protect against delinquent behavior, few studies have examined these relationships in developing world contexts. Using a community sample of 290 high-risk and gang-involved adolescents (11-17 years) and young adults (18-25 years) in San Salvador, El Salvador, structural equation modeling and logistic regression are used to examine the relationships between religious coping, spirituality, social developmental factors, and delinquency. Results suggest that spirituality and, to a lesser extent, religious coping, protect Salvadoran youth at risk for involvement in delinquent behavior. The relationship between spirituality and delinquency was completely mediated by social developmental factors as no direct association was identified between spirituality and delinquency. Spirituality and religious coping are both relevant protective factors among Salvadoran youth; however, spirituality is more consistently protective against delinquency in terms of its relationship to social developmental mediating factors and its direct associations to particular delinquent behaviors.
Applied to police officers, displaced aggression theory would suggest that an officer primed for a negative affect by a personal family conflict will be more likely to arrest, and less likely to show lenience toward, criminal suspects engaged in minor offenses. The present study primed a sample of police officers for either positive or negative affects. The police officer participants were then presented with a vignette involving a drunken driver that contained details presenting only the minimum level of evidence to justify a legal arrest. The respondent officers primed for a negative affect were significantly more likely to indicate they would arrest the driver. This result held even after controlling for the officers’ ascribed characteristics in a multivariate analysis. The results suggest that officers primed for a negative affect by personal circumstances are more likely to take out their frustration by exercising their discretion to arrest for a minor offense.
The present study used data on prisoners to advance our understanding of the joint effects of sex, race, and psychopathology, specifically antisocial personality disorder (APD) and Psychopathy, on criminal violence. The sample comprised 3,525 male and 1,579 female inmates between the ages of 18 and 45 years who were incarcerated in state prisons in Wisconsin at the time of data collection. Multivariate analyses were used to examine all sex–race–psychopathology combinations. The findings indicate that Black males and females with comorbid APD and Psychopathy were more likely to commit violent crime than similarly situated White males. While gendered patterns of aggression may characterize males and females in the aggregate, the present study clearly highlights the importance of considering sex/race subgroups when examining the relationship between psychopathology and violent crime.
Although the Static-99R has been found to be a robust measure of long-term risk to reoffend among adult male sex offenders, few studies have investigated the relationship between Static-99R scores and institutional (i.e., prison) behavior. The current study sought to address this gap in the research by testing the ability of the Static-99 and Static-99R to predict five types of institutional misconduct: (a) sexual, (b) violent (nonsexual), (c) nonviolent (nonsexual), (d) drug-related, and (e) any nonsexual. Results indicate that the Static-99/99R may be useful as predictors of institutional misconduct and, therefore, as a risk classification measure for prisons to protect both staff and inmates and improve institutional environments.
Self-control theory (SCT), as a control theory, assumes that the pleasures gained from crime are equally obvious and attractive to all. This study brings a consideration of crime as a process into SCT, recognizing that the sensations inherent in offending may not be equally attractive to everyone. In doing so, we test the theory’s equal motivation assumption, bringing a consideration of individual differences in thrill seeking to the fore. Drawing on theory and research on the personality characteristic thrill seeking, we hypothesize that thrill seeking and self-control have independent influences on offending: that motivation to the process of crime matters. In addition, we investigate whether the effects of self-control are contingent on levels of thrill seeking, in part because high thrill seekers are less averse to the process of risk. These hypotheses are tested using data from the Family and Community Health Study, a sample of roughly 700 African American youth and their families. A new measure of self-control is employed in tandem with an existing attitudinal measure of self-control and thrill seeking. Consistent with hypotheses, the results suggest that self-control and thrill seeking have largely independent influences on offending and that the effects of self-control are contingent on levels of thrill seeking. These results provide further evidence that SCT’s assumption of equal motivation to crime is untenable, as individual differences in the personality characteristic thrill seeking influence the likelihood of offending.
The aim of this study is to advance scholarship on the IQ–offending relationship by examining the functional form of this relationship and whether confounding introduced by socioeconomic status (SES) and other factors can be adequately addressed. Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth are analyzed using generalized propensity score and propensity score matching analyses. The results suggest that the relationship is curvilinear, such that lower and higher levels of IQ are associated with lower levels of offending. They also indicate that the distribution of confounders, especially SES, may limit the ability of statistical approaches to arrive at unbiased estimates of IQ effects.
Prior research has not sufficiently explained the various pathways that lead to career-ending misconduct among police officers, most notably the timing of misconduct in officers’ careers, whether certain factors are related to that timing, and whether the types of misdeeds vary over time. The current study seeks to address these questions through an examination of all officers separated from the New York City Police Department (NYPD) for career-ending misconduct (n = 1,542) from 1975 to 1996 as well as a comparison sample of officers who served honorably during that same time (n = 1,543). The authors adopt a survival perspective using both Cox regression survival analysis and multinomial logistic regression. Results indicate that time to termination is a complex, long-term process with distinct patterns that emerge over police officers’ careers. A number of variables were significantly associated with time to termination across officer careers, such as officer race and prior criminal history, while others were significant only at certain career stages. For example, promotion only protected against termination early in an officer’s career, while military service was a predictor of misconduct only after 10 years of service. The article highlights the importance of selection screening "out and in" processes, as officers with red flags early in their careers were at greatest risk for dismissal. The results also suggest that police departments themselves play an important role in shaping the patterns and timing of officer misconduct. Moreover, the survival framework provides a foundation for a long-overdue dialogue on good policing.
This study was designed to assess satisfaction with methadone treatment (MT) in a multidimensional manner among prison inmates and to identify significant independent predictors of inmates’ satisfaction with MT. A total of 158 prison inmates, who were currently on MT for at least the past 3 months, were assessed with the Verona Service Satisfaction Scale for MT. Inmate participants reported slight satisfaction with MT (3.1 on a 1-5 scale), with 51.3% of them feeling dissatisfied. Three factors were found to be independently associated with satisfaction with MT: HIV infection, odds ratio (OR) = 3.72, 95% confidence interval (CI) = [1.79, 7.73]; number of MT episodes, OR = 0.68, 95% CI = [0.53, 0.88]; and perceived influence on methadone dose changes, OR = 1.69, 95% CI = [1.25, 2.28]. Given that perceived involvement in treatment decisions is the only variable independently associated with MT satisfaction that can be modified by changing how MT is implemented, patient participation should be promoted and supported.
Prior studies have reported correlations between childhood abuse and antisocial behavior and psychopathy, which suggest that exposure to violence may be a risk factor for the development of psychopathy. However, prior studies are largely limited to retrospective studies of adult samples and studies of violence within the home environment. To increase our understanding of risk factors relevant to the development of psychopathy, we investigated associations between self-reports of exposure to violence within the home and community and psychopathic traits in adolescents. A total of 147 adolescents at an Illinois detention center completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) and Community Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) and were assessed using the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV). CEQ and CTQ total scores were associated with psychopathy scores. Moreover, exposure to violence within the community correlated uniquely with scores on the interpersonal, behavioral, and antisocial factor of psychopathy, and exposure to home violence was uniquely related to behavioral factor scores. Results highlight the potential contribution of environmental factors to core components of psychopathy.
Little research has examined offenders’ understanding of the factors that increase their likelihood of future criminal activity. Although social-psychological research has described many ways in which individuals have overly positive views of themselves and their performance, a more limited body of literature has demonstrated that offenders exhibit an unrealistically optimistic perception of their success upon release from incarceration. A survey designed to assess offender understanding of general risk factors and their own risk factors was administered to male offenders (N = 88) returning to the community from prison incarceration. Results suggest that these individuals have an appreciation for the factors that generally increase the risk of future offending, but do not perceive these factors as personally relevant. In addition, the concordance between offender-identified and Level of Service/Case Management Inventory–identified risk factors was limited. Implications of this lack of understanding, and ways to improve upon this knowledge, are discussed.
Despite societal perception that sex offenders will repeat their crimes, research indicates these offenders are more likely to be generalists than sex offense–specific offenders. Sex offender–specific legislation has reinforced this erroneous perception while contributing to the excessive labeling of sex offenders as sexual recidivists. Additionally troubling is the lack of research on the efficacy of generalized risk/needs assessments for sex offenders. The present study fills this void by evaluating the adequacy of the Level of Service Inventory–Revised (LSI-R) for use with a sexual offending population. The predictive accuracy of the LSI-R for sexual and nonsexual recidivism outcomes was explored using a sample of 21,298 individuals released from New Jersey correctional facilities from 2004 to 2006. Results indicate that while the LSI-R does not have predictive utility for sexual offenses, it has utility for sex offenders overall. Policy implications of the usefulness of the LSI-R for this offending population are discussed.
The relationship between administrative policy and deadly force has been well established in the policing literature. Surprisingly, there has been no similarly oriented research with respect to less lethal force. The current inquiry seeks to start this process. Utilizing data collected from a national multiagency use of force project, we focus on those charged with the street-level application of organizational use of force policy. In doing so, patrol officers (N = 990) from three agencies, each varying in terms of policy direction, are surveyed regarding the extent to which they believe their agency policy offers appropriate forms of guidance and restrictiveness. The findings show a number of significant policy effects. In particular, officers working in a department that uses a loosely coupled nonlinear model are significantly less likely to believe their agency policy offers adequate guidance in terms of when force can and cannot be used. However, the findings also illustrate that officers do not want to be too tightly constrained within a linear policy model in relation to restrictiveness. Such findings suggest that agency leaders may wish to consider a linear-based design that offers some degree of policy guidance, but not so much that force options are overly restricted. The implications of these findings for police practitioners and researchers are considered.
The emotional Stroop task has been used to assess deviant sexual interests of sexual abusers. Two limitations noted in the literature are difficulties surrounding the choice of word stimuli and the task’s inability to elicit significant differences between offender subtypes thus far. The purpose of this study was to examine differences in emotional Stroop bias between three adult groups using new, empirically derived word stimuli intended to reflect sexual interests more specific to sexual abusers. Significant differences were found between sexual abusers and nonoffending controls for affective and sexual word stimuli. The results further support differential processing biases between sexual offenders and nonoffenders; however, difficulties in differentiating between offender groups are still evident. Implications of these findings are discussed and recommendations for future research are made.