Broken Windows
Free to Punish? The American Dream and the Harsh Treatment of Criminals
Rafael Di Tella & Juan Dubra
NBER Working Paper, August 2011
Abstract:
We describe the evolution of selective aspects of punishment in the US over the period 1980-2004. We note that imprisonment increased around 1980, a period that coincides with the "Reagan revolution" in economic matters. We build an economic model where beliefs about economic opportunities and beliefs about punishment are correlated. We present three pieces of evidence (across countries, within the US and an experimental exercise) that are consistent with the model.
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Kevin Beaver et al.
Journal of Criminal Justice, forthcoming
Purpose: Research has consistently revealed that measures of psychopathy and psychopathic personality traits represent some of the most consistent predictors of violent criminal involvement. As a result, there has been a considerable amount of interest in trying to identify the various etiological factors related to psychopathy. The current study builds on this existing body of literature by examining the genetic foundations to psychopathic personality traits.
Methods: An adoption-based research design is used to estimate genetic effects on psychopathic personality traits. Adoptees are drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.
Results: Analyses revealed that having a biological criminal father was related to psychopathic personality traits for male adoptees, but not for female adoptees. For males, having a criminal biological father increased the odds of scoring in the extreme of the psychopathic personality trait scale by a factor ranging between 4.3 and 8.5. However, there was no association between having a biological criminal mother and psychopathic personality traits for adoptees.
Conclusions: Psychopathic personality traits are transmitted from father-to-offspring due to genetic reasons.
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Police Presence, Isolation, and Sexual Assault Prosecution
Darryl Wood et al.
Criminal Justice Policy Review, September 2011, Pages 330-349
Abstract:
This article considers the effects of geographic isolation and local police presence on the processing of 239 sexual assault cases reported to the Alaska State Troopers. Geographic isolation is hypothesized to hinder case processing due to its impact on the celerity and thoroughness of investigations, whereas the presence of local police is hypothesized to facilitate case processing by legitimizing reported offenses and assisting with evidence collection. Controlling for a host of important legal and "extra legal" case characteristics, the authors find that geographic isolation and local police presence did significantly influence case processing. However, contrary to expectations, geographic isolation facilitates case processing in that sexual assault cases from isolated locations are actually more likely to be referred for prosecution. As expected, local police presence facilitates case processing by enhancing the likelihood that referred cases would be accepted for prosecution.
Implications for rural policing are discussed.
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Sex Offender Registries: Fear without Function?
Amanda Agan
Journal of Law and Economics, February 2011, Pages 207-239
Abstract:
I use three separate data sets and designs to determine whether sex offender registries are effective. First, I use state-level panel data to determine whether sex offender registries and public access to them decrease the rate of rape and other sexual abuse. Second, I use a data set that contains information on the subsequent arrests of sex offenders released from prison in 1994 in 15 states to determine whether registries reduce the recidivism rate of offenders required to register compared with the recidivism of those who are not. Finally, I combine data on locations of crimes in Washington, D.C., with data on locations of registered sex offenders to determine whether knowing the locations of sex offenders in a region helps predict the locations of sexual abuse. The results from all three data sets do not support the hypothesis that sex offender registries are effective tools for increasing public safety.
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Known Risk Factors for Violence Predict 12-Month-Old Infants' Aggressiveness With Peers
Dale Hay et al.
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study tested the hypothesis that 12-month-old infants' use of force against peers is associated with known risk factors for violence. We conducted a prospective longitudinal study, which included laboratory observations of firstborn British infants (N = 271) during simulated birthday parties. No gender differences in aggressiveness were observed. The infants' observed aggressiveness was significantly correlated with mothers' mood disorder during pregnancy and with mothers' history of conduct problems. Infants' observed aggressiveness was correlated with parents' ratings of infants' anger and aggression, which were also predicted by mothers' mood disorder and history of conduct problems. Our findings indicate that infants at risk for serious aggression can already be identified when the motor ability to use physical force first enters the human repertoire.
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Stray Bullet Shootings in the United States
Garen Wintemute et al.
Journal of the American Medical Association, 3 August 2011, Pages 491-492
"We defined a stray bullet as having escaped the sociogeographic space or perimeter customarily set by the circumstances surrounding the firing of the gun from which it came, and cases as shooting events that involved at least 1 stray bullet injury to a person: a gunshot wound or injury by secondary mechanism...Between March 1, 2008, and February 28, 2009, we conducted real-time surveillance using Google and Yahoo! news alert services, searching on stray bullet, and the news archives of GunPolicy.org. One year later, we searched for follow-up reports...Altogether, 317 persons received stray bullet injuries; 142 (44.8%) were female, and 176 (55.5%) were outside the age range 15 to 34 years (Table). Most individuals (258, 81.4%) were unaware of the events leading to the gunfire that caused their injuries. Many (129, 40.7%) were at home; most of these persons (88, 68.2%) were indoors. Sixty-five persons (20.5%) died, 18 (27.7%) of them at the shooting site and 55 (84.6%) on the day they were shot."
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Preeti Chauhan et al.
Homicide Studies, August 2011, Pages 268-290
Abstract:
The current study evaluated a range of social influences including misdemeanor arrests, drug arrests, cocaine consumption, alcohol consumption, firearm availability, and incarceration that may be associated with changes in gun-related homicides by racial/ethnic group in New York City (NYC) from 1990 to 1999. Using police precincts as the unit of analysis, we used cross-sectional, time series data to examine changes in Black, White, and Hispanic homicides, separately. Bayesian hierarchical models with a spatial error term indicated that an increase in cocaine consumption was associated with an increase in Black homicides. An increase in firearm availability was associated with an increase in Hispanic homicides. Last, there were no significant predictors for White homicides. Support was found for the crack cocaine hypotheses but not for the broken windows hypothesis. Examining racially/ethnically disaggregated data can shed light on group-sensitive mechanisms that may explain changes in homicide over time.
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Do Sex Offender Registration and Notification Laws Affect Criminal Behavior?
J.J. Prescott & Jonah Rockoff
Journal of Law and Economics, February 2011, Pages 161-206
Abstract:
Sex offenders have become targets of some of the most far-reaching and novel crime legislation in the United States. Two key innovations have been registration and notification laws, which, respectively, require that offenders provide identifying information to law enforcement and mandate that this information be made fully public. We study how registration and notification affect the frequency and incidence across victims of reported sex offenses. We present evidence that registration reduces the frequency of reported sex offenses against local victims (for example, neighbors) by keeping police informed about local sex offenders. Notification also appears to reduce crime, not by disrupting the criminal conduct of convicted sex offenders, but by deterring nonregistered offenders. We find that notification may actually increase recidivism. This latter finding, consistent with the idea that notification imposes severe costs that offset the benefits to offenders of forgoing criminal activity, is significant, given that notification's purpose is recidivism reduction.
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John Hipp
Criminology, August 2011, Pages 631-665
Abstract:
This study tests the effect of the composition and distribution of economic resources and race/ethnicity in cities, as well as how they are geographically distributed within these cities, on crime rates during a 30-year period. Using data on 352 cities from 1970 to 2000 in metropolitan areas that experienced a large growth in population after World War II, this study theorizes that the effect of racial/ethnic or economic segregation on crime is stronger in cities in which race/ethnicity or income are more salient (because of greater heterogeneity or inequality). We test and find that higher levels of segregation in cities with high levels of racial/ethnic heterogeneity lead to particularly high overall levels of the types of crime studied here (aggravated assaults, robberies, burglaries, and motor vehicle thefts). Similarly, higher levels of economic segregation lead to much higher levels of crime in cities with higher levels of inequality.
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The Enduring Significance of Racism: Discrimination and Delinquency Among Black American Youth
Monica Martin et al.
Journal of Research on Adolescence, September 2011, Pages 662-676
Abstract:
Prominent explanations of the overrepresentation of Black Americans in criminal justice statistics focus on the effects of neighborhood concentrated disadvantage, racial isolation, and social disorganization. We suggest that perceived personal discrimination is an important but frequently neglected complement to these factors. We test this hypothesis with longitudinal data on involvement in general and violent juvenile delinquency in a sample of Black youth from a variety of communities in 2 states. We examine the direct effects of concentrated disadvantage and racial isolation and the direct and mediating effects of social organization, support for violence, and personal discrimination. Consistent with our hypothesis, perceived personal discrimination has notable direct effects on both general and violent delinquency and is an important mediator between neighborhood structural conditions and offending; moreover, its effects exceed those associated with neighborhood conditions.
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Poverty Matters: A Reassessment of the Inequality-Homicide Relationship in Cross-National Studies
William Alex Pridemore
British Journal of Criminology, September 2011, Pages 739-772
Abstract:
Dozens of cross-national studies of homicide have been published. Virtually all have reported an association between inequality and homicide, leading scholars to draw strong conclusions about this relationship. Unfortunately, each of these studies failed to control for poverty, even though poverty is the most consistent predictor of area homicide rates in the US empirical literature and a main confounder of the inequality-homicide association. The cross-national findings are also incongruent with US studies, which have yielded inconsistent results for the inequality-homicide association. In the present study, I replicated two prior studies in which a significant inequality-homicide association was found. After the original results were replicated, models that included a measure of poverty were estimated to see whether its inclusion had an impact on the inequality-homicide association. When effects for poverty and inequality were estimated in the same model, there was a positive and significant poverty-homicide association, while the inequality-homicide association disappeared in two of three models. These findings were consistent across different samples, data years, measures of inequality, dependent variables (overall and sex-specific homicide rates) and estimation procedures. The new results are congruent with what we know about poverty, inequality and homicide from the US empirical literature and suggest that the strong conclusions drawn about the inequality-homicide association may need to be reassessed, as the association may be a spurious result of model misspecification.
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The implementation of county residence restrictions in New York
Kelly Socia
Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, forthcoming
Abstract:
First implemented in 1995 at the state level and in 2005 at the county and local level, sex offender residence restrictions have become extremely popular throughout the United States. However, only a single state-level study has examined the types of jurisdictions most likely to implement these policies, and no research has examined their implementation at the county level. This study addresses this lack of research by examining the characteristics of counties implementing these policies in New York State over the course of 5 years using Logistic regression and linear probability models. In doing so, this study draws on the literatures relating to the implementation of crime policies and the diffusion of policy innovations. Results indicate that political competition is very influential in implementing a county residence restriction. Further, while geographic proximity to an existing residence restriction may have some influence, it appears to discourage rather than encourage the implementation of these policies in nearby counties. This finding undercuts contentions of a "domino effect" and instead supports the existence of a "polar effect," at least at the county level. Finally, the rate of sex crimes in a county is not related to the likelihood of implementing a residence restriction.
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Neighborhood Context and Nonlinear Peer Effects on Adolescent Violent Crime
Gregory Zimmerman & Steven Messner
Criminology, August 2011, Pages 873-903
Abstract:
Although evidence of the strong correlation between deviant behavior and exposure to deviant peers is overwhelming, researchers have yet to investigate whether a nonlinear functional form better captures this relationship than does a linear form. Researchers also have yet to examine the extent to which peer effects vary as a function of the neighborhood context. To address these issues, we use data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) to examine 1) the functional form of the relationship between peer violence exposure and self-reported violent crime and 2) the extent to which the effect of exposure to violent peers on violence is ecologically structured. Estimates from logistic hierarchical models indicate that the effect of peer violence exposure on violent crime decreases at higher values of peer violence, as reflected in a nonlinear relationship (expressed in terms of log-odds). Furthermore, exposure to violent peers increases along with neighborhood disadvantage, and the effect of peer violence exposure on violent crime is attenuated as neighborhood disadvantage increases, which is reflected in a cross-level peer violence/disadvantage interaction.
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The Relationship Between Gun and Gun Buyer Characteristics and Firearm Time-to-Crime
Steven Brandl & Meghan Stroshine
Criminal Justice Policy Review, September 2011, Pages 285-300
Abstract:
Gun violence continues to be a major crime control problem in many metropolitan cities in America. To comprehend this problem more completely, this study seeks to develop an understanding of the dynamics of illegal firearm markets in one particular city: Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In particular, the characteristics of guns and gun buyers that are related to fast firearm time-to-crime are identified. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) trace data and Milwaukee (Wisconsin) Police Department (MPD) records associated with guns purchased at federally licensed gun dealers and subsequently confiscated by the MPD in 2005 (N = 1,563) are used. The results of the analyses revealed both the characteristics of the fast time-to-crime guns (large caliber, semiautomatic, sold at a particular Milwaukee gun dealer) and their buyers (minority females). The results highlight problematic gun sales and purchasing patterns that are suggestive of statutory changes, stronger regulatory measures, and supply-side gun market disruption efforts.
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Jason Gold, Margaret Wolan Sullivan & Michael Lewis
Child Abuse & Neglect, July 2011, Pages 459-467
Objective: While the relationship between abusive parenting and violent delinquency has been well established, the cognitive and emotional processes by which this occurs remain relatively unidentified. The objective of this work is to apply a conceptual model linking abusive parenting to the conversion of shame into blaming others and therefore to violent delinquency.
Methods: A retrospective study of 112 adolescents (90 male; 22 female; ages 12-19 years; M = 15.6; SD = 1.4) who were incarcerated in a juvenile detention facility pending criminal charges, completed measures of exposure to abusive and nonabusive discipline, expressed and converted shame, and violent delinquency.
Results: Findings tend to confirm the conceptual model. Subjects who converted shame (i.e., low expressed shame, high blaming others) tended to have more exposure to abusive parenting and showed more violent delinquent behavior than their peers who showed expressed shame. Subjects who showed expressed shame (i.e., high expressed shame, low blaming others) showed less violent delinquency than those who showed converted shame.
Conclusions: Abusive parenting impacts delinquency directly and indirectly through the effects of shame that is converted. Abusive parenting leads to the conversion of shame to blaming others, which in turn leads to violent delinquent behavior.
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Jerry Ratcliffe et al.
Criminology, August 2011, Pages 795-831
Abstract:
Originating with the Newark, NJ, foot patrol experiment, research has found police foot patrols improve community perception of the police and reduce fear of crime, but they are generally unable to reduce the incidence of crime. Previous tests of foot patrol have, however, suffered from statistical and measurement issues and have not fully explored the potential dynamics of deterrence within microspatial settings. In this article, we report on the efforts of more than 200 foot patrol officers during the summer of 2009 in Philadelphia. Geographic information systems (GIS) analysis was the basis for a randomized controlled trial of police effectiveness across 60 violent crime hotspots. The results identified a significant reduction in the level of treatment area violent crime after 12 weeks. A linear regression model with separate slopes fitted for treatment and control groups clarified the relationship even more. Even after accounting for natural regression to the mean, target areas in the top 40 percent on pretreatment violent crime counts had significantly less violent crime during the operational period. Target areas outperformed the control sites by 23 percent, resulting in a total net effect (once displacement was considered) of 53 violent crimes prevented. The results suggest that targeted foot patrols in violent crime hotspots can significantly reduce violent crime levels as long as a threshold level of violence exists initially. The findings contribute to a growing body of evidence on the contribution of hotspots and place-based policing to the reduction of crime, and especially violent crime, which is a significant public health threat in the United States. We suggest that intensive foot patrol efforts in violent hotspots may achieve deterrence at a microspatial level, primarily by increasing the certainty of disruption, apprehension, and arrest. The theoretical and practical implications for violence reduction are discussed.
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Econometric Estimates of Deterrence of the Death Penalty: Facts or Ideology?
Gebhard Kirchgässner
Kyklos, August 2011, Pages 448-478
Abstract:
In 2007, the Wall Street Journal published an article claiming that each execution saves more than 70 lives. This example is used to show how easy it is, using simple or advanced econometric techniques, to produce results that do or do not support the deterrence hypothesis. Moreover, we also point to some puzzles which have not been satisfactorily solved so far. We then present a critical survey of the papers published in the last ten years. It is shown how simple changes can produce quite different results using the same data. Finally, we draw some conclusions about the usefulness of statistical arguments in policy debates, but also on the moral questions involved in this particular debate.
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Anke Ramakers, Catrien Bijleveld & Stijn Ruiter
British Journal of Criminology, September 2011, Pages 856-874
Abstract:
This paper investigates the intersection of two types of reproduction over generations: the transmission of offending and of occupational status. According to Farrington's (2002) risk factor mechanism, the effect of parental offending on offspring offending should decrease when the intergenerational transmission of occupational status is taken into account. To test this mechanism, we use a longitudinal prospective multi-generation research design, containing data from the Netherlands on offending and occupational status during the twentieth century. Results show that a substantial part of the intergenerational association in offending is indeed mediated by risk factors such as low occupational status and, especially, low educational attainment.
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Motives and methods for leaving the gang: Understanding the process of gang desistance
David Pyrooz & Scott Decker
Journal of Criminal Justice, forthcoming
Purpose: This study examined the process of leaving the gang. Gang membership was conceptualized in a life course framework and the motives for why and methods for how one leaves the gang were analyzed.
Methods: Data were gathered from a sample of 84 juvenile arrestees in Arizona, all of whom left their gang. Motives for leaving the gang were organized into factors internal (push) and external (pull) to the gang, while methods for leaving the gang were organized into hostile and non-hostile modes of departure. Motives and methods were cross-classified and their correlates were examined, notably in relation to gang ties-persisting social and emotional attachments to the gang.
Results: Push motives and non-hostile methods were the modal responses for leaving the gang. While it was not uncommon to experience a hostile departure from the gang, most former gang members reported walking away without ritual violence or ceremony. This method was conditional on the motive for departure, however. None of the individuals leaving the gang for pull or external reasons experienced a hostile departure. While gang ties persisted regardless of motive or method, retaining such ties corresponded with serious consequences.
Conclusions: A life course framework is capable of organizing similarities between leaving the gang and desistance from other forms of crime and deviant groups. The process of gang desistance is consistent with asymmetrical causation. Due to limited attention to this process, a typology is introduced as a basis for understanding leaving the gang in relation to desisting from crime.
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Parole? Nope, Not for Me: Voluntarily Maxing Out of Prison
Michael Ostermann
Crime & Delinquency, September 2011, Pages 686-708
Abstract:
This study addresses the phenomenon of inmates voluntarily forgoing parole supervision and opting to remain in prison until the maximum expiration of their sentence. The research was conducted to inform public policy makers about the potential repercussions of this decision-making process and to help guide future policy and legislative proposals that would target this group of inmates. Bivariate and multivariate analyses are used to explore characteristics of this population with regard to postrelease recidivism and prerelease indicators of recidivism. A 2005 group of voluntary max outs are contrasted with those who are forced to max out due to continual parole denial as well as those who are released to parole supervision. All offenders were released in the state of New Jersey. Although several between-group differences were apparent between both max out groups and the parole group at a bivariate level, differences between the two max out groups were far less pronounced. Multivariate Cox regression models indicated that, after controlling for pertinent predictor variables, the likelihood of experiencing a new arrest and/or incarceration after release did not significantly differ according to group membership. Findings suggest that parole boards that make decisions in discretionary release systems should more closely analyze the release opportunities that already present themselves to their agencies but are not capitalized on. Because those who are forced to max through continual denial of parole demonstrated such similar prerelease characteristics to the voluntary max out group, it is unlikely that many who would have otherwise voluntarily maxed their sentence would be paroled if the ability to make this decision were taken away.