Violators
Marriage markets and mating aggression help explain societal differences in violent crime
Nigel Barber
Aggression and Violent Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Violent crimes (murders, rapes, and assaults) are higher in countries with a relative scarcity of men according to research using both United Nations and INTERPOL data and controlling for economic development, income inequality, urbanization, population density, police presence, and drug trafficking (Barber 2009a). This is an apparent contradiction given that males are more criminally violent and I argue that the most plausible explanation is that there is more direct mating effort, and hence more violent crime, in countries having a relative scarcity of men (or a low sex ratio). Alternative explanations that are discussed and found wanting include cultural determinism. Causal links connecting the marriage market and violent crime include possible sociological, physiological, and developmental mechanisms that offer exciting prospects for future researchers.
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Glenn Walters
Journal of Criminal Justice, March-April 2011, Pages 192-197
Purpose: This study was designed to assess whether black inmates hold more positive outcome expectancies for crime than white inmates in an effort to inform the debate on the nature of well documented differences in criminal involvement between blacks and whites.
Methods: Positive outcome expectancies for crime were measured in 393 black male inmates and 154 white male inmates housed in a medium security federal correctional institution using the Outcome Expectancies for Crime (OEC: Walters, 2003b) inventory.
Results: Black inmates reported significantly stronger positive outcome expectancies for crime than white inmates after controlling for preexisting group differences in age, education, marital status, confining offense, response style, general criminal thinking, and negative outcome expectancies for crime. Anticipation of social benefits for crime in the form of love, respect, and security were particularly salient in distinguishing between black and white inmates.
Conclusions: It is speculated that an interaction of motivational (high achievement motivation), structural (blocked economic opportunities), and cultural (peer reinforcement) factors may be responsible for black-white differences in crime with important implications for theory, research, and clinical practice.
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Ethnic fragmentation and police spending
Olugbenga Ajilore & John Smith
Applied Economics Letters, March 2011, Pages 329-332
Abstract:
Using a two-stage least-squares procedure, we estimate the relationship between ethnic fragmentation and police spending using a cross-section of the US counties. Our results show that, when controlling for community characteristics and accounting for simultaneity bias, ethnic fragmentation is positively related to police spending. This article contributes to the understanding of the stylized fact that public spending on police increased over a period in which the incidence of crime decreased.
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Household gun prevalence and rates of violent crime: A test of competing gun theories
Anthony Hoskin
Criminal Justice Studies, March 2011, Pages 125-136
Abstract:
This study analyzes the reciprocal relationship between a direct measure of gun availability and three types of violent crime across the 120 most populous counties in the USA. Survey data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System are used to construct a measure of household gun prevalence. Hypotheses derived from four competing perspectives concerning the role of guns in the production of violence are tested. Strong support is found for the view that easy access to guns raises the risk of serious violence by giving the perpetrator the power to inflict greater victim injury. By contrast, no support is found for the argument that widespread legal gun ownership lowers violent crime by deterring prospective offenders.
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Thomas Hyclak
Economics Letters, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper examines the hypothesized positive relationship between casinos and local crime rates. Analysis of reported crime data for 173 residential colleges and universities in four Midwestern states suggests that robberies and motor vehicle thefts, but not burglaries, are significantly higher on campuses located within 10 miles of a casino.
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The External Effects of Black Male Incarceration on Black Females
Stéphane Mechoulan
Journal of Labor Economics, January 2011, Pages 1-35
Abstract:
This article examines how the increase in the incarceration of black men and the sex ratio imbalance it induces shape the behavior of young black women. Combining data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the Current Population Survey to match male incarceration rates with individual observations over two decades, I show that black male incarceration lowers the odds of black nonmarital teenage fertility while increasing young black women's school attainment and early employment. These results can account for the sharp bridging of the racial gap over the 1990s for a range of socioeconomic outcomes among females.
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Christopher Wildeman
Social Forces, September 2010, Pages 285-309
Abstract:
This study extends research on the consequences of mass imprisonment and the causes of children's behavioral problems by considering the effects of paternal incarceration on children's physical aggression at age 5 using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study. Results suggest that paternal incarceration is associated with increased physical aggression for boys, and that effects are concentrated among boys whose fathers were neither incarcerated for a violent offense nor abusive to the boys' mother. Results also suggest that paternal incarceration may decrease girls' physical aggression, although this finding is not robust. Taken together, results imply that mass imprisonment may contribute to a system of stratification in which crime and incarceration are passed down from fathers to sons (but not daughters).
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First-time DWI offenders are at risk of recidivating regardless of sanctions imposed
Eileen Ahlin et al.
Journal of Criminal Justice, March-April 2011, Pages 137-142
Objective: Research demonstrates that punitive approaches to DWI employed by the judiciary have failed to significantly reduce recidivism. However, little is known about the deterrent effects of administrative and diversion sanctions. We examine whether such sanctions deter first-time DWI offenders.
Methods: We grouped combinations of administrative, judicial, and diversion sanctions routinely employed in the state of Maryland for processing drivers arrested for DWI into one of eight mutually exclusive disposition sequences. We applied this classification to Maryland drivers who had been licensed in the state and had precisely one DWI on their record prior to January 1, 1999. We then used a proportional hazards model to estimate the probability of remaining free of a new DWI during a 6-year period (January 1, 1999 - December 31, 2004) as a function of the disposition of the index violation, and of selected factors that could affect that probability.
Results: Drivers with a prior DWI were at relatively high risk of recidivating regardless of how they were sanctioned. Those who received administrative and alternative sanctions had a risk of recidivating similar to that of drivers who were convicted.
Conclusion: All dispositions sequences, not just convictions, indicate that first-time DWI offenders are at high risk of recidivating.
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Predictors of rape: Findings from the National Survey of Adolescents
Lisa Elwood et al.
Journal of Traumatic Stress, forthcoming
Abstract:
The current report examines data for 872 female adolescents obtained during the initial and follow-up interviews of the National Survey of Adolescents, a nationally representative sample. Lifetime prevalence of violence exposure reported was 12% and 13% for sexual assault, 19% and 10% for physical assault/punishment, and 33% and 26% for witnessing violence at Waves I and II, respectively. Racial/ethnic status, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), childhood sexual abuse (CSA), and family drug problems emerged as significant predictors of new rape. Each of the PTSD symptom clusters significantly predicted new rape and analyses supported the mediational role of PTSD between CSA and new rape. African American or other racial identity was associated with lower risk.
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Reid Meloy, Kris Mohandie & Mila Green
Behavioral Sciences & the Law, March/April 2011, Pages 240-254
Abstract:
A study of 143 female stalkers was conducted, part of a large North American sample of stalkers (N = 1005) gathered from law enforcement, prosecutorial, and entertainment corporate security files (Mohandie, Meloy, Green McGowan, & Williams, 2006). The typical female stalker was a single, separated, or divorced woman in her mid-30s with a psychiatric diagnosis, most often a mood disorder. She was more likely to pursue a male acquaintance, stranger, or celebrity, rather than a prior sexual intimate. When compared with male stalkers, the female stalkers had significantly less frequent criminal histories, and were significantly less threatening and violent. Their pursuit behavior was less proximity based, and their communications were more benign than those of the males. The average duration of stalking was 17 months, but the modal duration was two months. Stalking recidivism was 50%, with modal time between intervention and re-contacting the victim of one day. Any prior actual relationship (sexual intimate or acquaintance) significantly increased the frequency of threats and violence with large effect sizes for the entire female sample. The most dangerous subgroup was the prior sexually intimate stalkers, of whom the majority both threatened and were physically violent. The least dangerous were the female stalkers of Hollywood celebrities. Two of the McEwan, Mullen, MacKenzie, and Ogloff (2009b) predictor variables for stalking violence among men were externally validated with moderate effect sizes for the women: threats were associated with increased risk of violence, and letter writing was associated with decreased risk of violence.
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Female sex offenders and the criminal justice system: A comparison of arrests and outcomes
Jeff Sandler & Naomi Freeman
Journal of Sexual Aggression, March 2011, Pages 61-76
Abstract:
Using a sample of 138,000 offenders arrested for a sexual offence in New York State from 1986 to 2005, this study compared the criminal justice processing of females arrested for sexual offences (n=4,053; 2.94%) to that of males arrested for sexual offences (n=134,023; 97.06%) over the same time-period. Specifically, the study tracked the number of sexual arrests of females, as well as the rates of three different arrest outcomes: (a) conviction for a sexual offence, (b) conviction for a non-sexual offence and (c) no conviction. Additionally, the study sought to determine if female sex offenders, like female general offenders, receive more lenient sentences compared to their male counterparts. Results of the study indicated that there was no difference in the likelihood of sexual conviction for males and females. Offender gender did, however, significantly reduce the likelihood of incarceration for offenders convicted of sexual offences.
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Traditional Gender Role and Rape Myth Acceptance: From the Countryside to the Big City
Laura King & Jennifer Roberts
Women & Criminal Justice, January 2011, Pages 1-20
Abstract:
Previous research on rape myths has identified a positive correlation between the acceptance of traditional gender roles and rape myths. Based on earlier research citing the prevalence of these gender roles among rural cultures, it was hypothesized that individuals from rural-farm areas would be more accepting of traditional gender roles and rape myths than their more urban counterparts. Contrary to previous literature on the rural culture milieu, the degree of rurality of one's hometown was not found to be statistically significant in relation to the acceptance of traditional gender roles and rape myths. However, consistent with past research, traditional gender role acceptance was found to be the strongest predictor of rape myth acceptance in this sample of university students.
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Effect of drug law enforcement on drug market violence: A systematic review
Dan Werb et al.
International Journal of Drug Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
Violence is amongst the primary concerns of communities around the world and research has demonstrated links between violence and the illicit drug trade, particularly in urban settings. Given the growing emphasis on evidence-based policy-making, and the ongoing severe drug market violence in Mexico and other settings, we conducted a systematic review to examine the impacts of drug law enforcement on drug market violence. We conducted a systematic review using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Specifically, we undertook a search of English language electronic databases (Academic Search Complete, PubMed, PsycINFO, EMBASE, Web of Science, SociologicalAbstracts, Social Service Abstracts, PAIS International and Lexis-Nexis), the Internet (Google, Google Scholar), and article reference lists, from database inception to January 24, 2011. Overall, 15 studies were identified that evaluated the impact of drug law enforcement on drug market violence, including 11 (73%) longitudinal analyses using linear regression, 2 (13%) mathematical drug market models, and 2 (13%) qualitative studies. Fourteen (93%) studies reported an adverse impact of drug law enforcement on levels of violence. Ten of the 11 (91%) studies employing longitudinal qualitative analyses found a significant association between drug law enforcement and drug market violence. Our findings suggest that increasing drug law enforcement is unlikely to reduce drug market violence. Instead, the existing evidence base suggests that gun violence and high homicide rates may be an inevitable consequence of drug prohibition and that disrupting drug markets can paradoxically increase violence. In this context, and since drug prohibition has not meaningfully reduced drug supply, alternative regulatory models will be required if drug supply and drug market violence are to be meaningfully reduced.
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The Jailing of America's Homeless: Evaluating the Rabble Management Thesis
Kevin Fitzpatrick & Brad Myrstol
Crime & Delinquency, March 2011, Pages 271-297
Abstract:
The authors of this article test hypotheses derived from Irwin's rabble management thesis. The analysis uses data from 47,592 interviews conducted with jailed adults in 30 U.S. cities as part of the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring program. Clearly, homeless persons are overrepresented among those arrested and booked into local jails. Bivariate analysis support a fundamental assertion of the rabble management thesis: Homeless are jailed not because of their dangerousness but rather their offensiveness. Homeless arrestees are distinct from their domiciled counterparts in terms of sociodemographic characteristics, previous experiences with alcohol and drug treatment, mental health, criminal justice systems, and alcohol and drug use histories. In addition, homeless are less likely than domiciled arrestees to be jailed for felonies and violent crimes but more likely to be charged with maintenance and property crimes. Logistic regression models confirm these differences, even after other factors are controlled. A discussion of the policy implications of these findings follows.
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Mining writeprints from anonymous e-mails for forensic investigation
Farkhund Iqbal et al.
Digital Investigation, October 2010, Pages 56-64
Abstract:
Many criminals exploit the convenience of anonymity in the cyber world to conduct illegal activities. E-mail is the most commonly used medium for such activities. Extracting knowledge and information from e-mail text has become an important step for cybercrime investigation and evidence collection. Yet, it is one of the most challenging and time-consuming tasks due to special characteristics of e-mail dataset. In this paper, we focus on the problem of mining the writing styles from a collection of e-mails written by multiple anonymous authors. The general idea is to first cluster the anonymous e-mail by the stylometric features and then extract the writeprint, i.e., the unique writing style, from each cluster. We emphasize that the presented problem together with our proposed solution is different from the traditional problem of authorship identification, which assumes training data is available for building a classifier. Our proposed method is particularly useful in the initial stage of investigation, in which the investigator usually have very little information of the case and the true authors of suspicious e-mail collection. Experiments on a real-life dataset suggest that clustering by writing style is a promising approach for grouping e-mails written by the same author.
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Do data breach disclosure laws reduce identity theft?
Sasha Romanosky, Rahul Telang & Alessandro Acquisti
Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Spring 2011, Pages 256-286
Abstract:
In the United States, identity theft resulted in corporate and consumer losses of $56 billion dollars in 2005, with up to 35 percent of known identity thefts caused by corporate data breaches. Many states have responded by adopting data breach disclosure laws that require firms to notify consumers if their personal information has been lost or stolen. Although the laws are expected to reduce identity theft, their effect has yet to be empirically measured. We use panel data from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to estimate the impact of data breach disclosure laws on identity theft from 2002 to 2009. We find that adoption of data breach disclosure laws reduce identity theft caused by data breaches, on average, by 6.1 percent.
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Gaylene Armstrong & Beth Freeman
Journal of Criminal Justice, March-April 2011, Pages 175-182
Purpose: Legislative mandates that require GPS monitoring of offenders add to the existing logistical complexities of community supervision. Challenges in implementing GPS policies and practices are heightened by the lack of sound empirical research. Studies examining the relationships between GPS monitoring of sex offenders in the community and the legislative goals of public safety, deterrence, and cost effectiveness are virtually nonexistent. To begin to address this gap in the literature, this study examines the impact of a statutorily-based GPS monitoring program for adult sex offenders convicted of dangerous crimes against children and placed under community supervision.
Method: Official offender generated alert data for DCAC Sex Offenders in Maricopa County, AZ are examined from the time of legislative mandate for a subsequent two year period.
Results: Analyses highlight the significant number of equipment related alerts triggered by a loss of satellite signal for offenders under GPS monitoring as a key concern as well as a significant increase in officer workload as a result.
Conclusions: A divergence between legislative goals and practical application of mandated GPS monitoring programs exists. GPS technology is far more limited than anticipated and should be viewed as a tool rather than depended upon as a control mechanism.
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Rehabilitation in the Punitive Era: The Gap Between Rhetoric and Reality in U.S. Prison Programs
Michelle Phelps
Law & Society Review, March 2011, Pages 33-68
Abstract:
Scholars of mass incarceration point to the 1970s as a pivotal turning point in U.S. penal history, marked by a shift toward more punitive policies and a consensus that "nothing works" in rehabilitating inmates. However, while there has been extensive research on changes in policy makers' rhetoric, sentencing policy, and incarceration rates, scholars know very little about changes in the actual practices of punishment and prisoner rehabilitation. Using nationally representative data for U.S. state prisons, this article demonstrates that there were no major changes in investments in specialized facilities, funding for inmate services-related staff, or program participation rates throughout the late 1970s and the 1980s. Not until the 1990s, more than a decade after the start of the punitive era, did patterns of inmate services change, as investments in programming switched from academic to reentry-related programs. These findings suggest that there is a large gap between rhetoric and reality in the case of inmate services and that since the 1990s, inmate "rehabilitation" has increasingly become equated with reentry-related life skills programs.
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Smells Like Teen Spirit: Evaluating a Midwestern Teen Court
Michael Norris, Sarah Twill & Chigon Kim
Crime & Delinquency, March 2011, Pages 199-221
Abstract:
Teen courts have grown rapidly in the United States despite little evidence of their effectiveness. A survival analysis of 635 teen court and 186 regular diversion participants showed no significant differences in recidivism, although program completers were half as likely to reoffend as noncompleters. Older offenders survived significantly better than younger ones, and girls better than boys. For the full sample, increasing the number of sanctions resulted in earlier reoffending. This effect disappeared when noncompleters were removed from the analysis, suggesting that increasing sanctions may lead certain teens to drop out and/or reoffend. Implications for policy include screening younger juveniles out of teen courts and reconsidering their panacea status.
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Is androgen deprivation therapy effective in the treatment of sex offenders?
Marnie Rice & Grant Harris
Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, forthcoming
Abstract:
We review the effects of androgen deprivation on the sexual behavior of human males. Although eunuchs have existed in many cultures over the last 4,000 years, there is scant detailed and specific information in the historical record about castration status and sexual behavior. From the literature on modern-day eunuchs who are not sex offenders, we conclude that androgen deprivation reduces sexual desire and behavior, including sexual intercourse. Most men, especially those who did not volunteer for the treatment, experience the side effects as extremely bothersome. Androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) receives endorsements from some clinicians who treat sex offenders, and it probably reduces sexual recidivism among men who freely request the procedure, but good evidence is sorely lacking. Men who freely request and persist with ADT are probably an especially low-risk group. Little is known about the effects of sexual or violent recidivism among sex offenders who do not freely request it. Little is known about the long term effects of ADT on sexual behavior in general, and sexual recidivism in particular, or about long-term health effects. Clearly, much more research is needed before ADT has a sufficient scientific basis to be relied upon as a principal component of sex offender treatment.
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Mengyan Dai, James Frank & Ivan Sun
Journal of Criminal Justice, March-April 2011, Pages 159-168
Purpose: Theories of procedural justice have facilitated the development of a process-based approach to policing which emphasizes the fairness of the manner in which the police exercise their discretion. The study examines whether procedurally fair behavior by the police affects two types of citizen behavior during encounters: citizen disrespect toward the police and citizen noncompliance with police requests.
Methods: This study uses data from systematic social observations of police-citizen encounters to examine procedural justice factors on citizen behavior. Because of the reciprocal nature of police-citizen interactions, an instrumental variable is used in the statistical analysis to help address the causal relationship between police force and citizen disrespect.
Results: The statistical analyses find limited support for procedural justice factors. Two types of procedurally fair behavior by the police, police demeanor and their consideration of citizen voice, are significant in reducing citizen disrespect and noncompliance, respectively.
Conclusion: Procedural justice factors have limited and inconsistent impacts on the two types of citizen behavior, and future research should address the limitations of this study and evaluate process-based policing with more data from social observations of police-citizen encounters.
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Racial Distinctions in the Psychosocial Histories of Incarcerated Youth
Kimberly Langrehr
Psychological Services, February 2011, Pages 23-35
Abstract:
This study examined the psychosocial histories of 134 male, juvenile offenders, focusing on race and the probability of being diagnosed with internalizing and/or externalizing psychological disorders at the time of their sentencing to a correctional institution for committing serious and violent crimes as minors. In addition, based on case file information, the author investigated offenders' histories with child maltreatment, court-ordered probation, and counseling services received as part of the child welfare and/or juvenile justice system. Results from logistic regression analyses indicated the probability for White youth to be diagnosed with internalizing disorders was over 19 times that of Black youth; however, rates of externalizing disorders were similar across groups. Although maltreatment histories were comparable based on race, White youth received more counseling services, were significantly older at the time of diagnosis, and were more likely to be diagnosed with internalizing and comorbid disorders. Issues regarding multicultural assessment in the child welfare and juvenile justice system are discussed, specifically highlighting the potential for attributional bias in the diagnostic and treatment recommendation process.
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Cost-benefit analysis of multisystemic therapy with serious and violent juvenile offenders
Stephanie Klietz, Charles Borduin & Cindy Schaeffer
Journal of Family Psychology, October 2010, Pages 657-666
Abstract:
This study investigated the economics of multisystemic therapy (MST) versus individual therapy (IT) using rearrest data from a 13.7-year follow-up (Schaeffer & Borduin, 2005) of a randomized clinical trial with serious juvenile offenders (Borduin et al., 1995). Two types of benefits of MST were evaluated: The value to taxpayers was derived from measures of criminal justice system expenses (e.g., police and sheriff's offices, court processing, jails, community supervision), and the value to crime victims was derived in terms of both tangible (e.g., property damage and loss, health care, police and fire services, lost productivity) and intangible (e.g., pain, suffering, reduced quality of life) losses. Results indicated that the reductions in criminality in the MST versus IT conditions were associated with substantial reductions in expenses to taxpayers and intangible losses to crime victims, with cumulative benefits ranging from $75,110 to $199,374 per MST participant. Stated differently, it was estimated that every dollar spent on MST provides $9.51 to $23.59 in savings to taxpayers and crime victims in the years ahead. The economic benefits of MST, as well as its clinical effectiveness, should be considered by policymakers and the public at large in the selection of interventions for serious juvenile offenders.
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Juvenile Transfer and Deterrence: Reexamining the Effectiveness of a "Get-Tough" Policy
Kareem Jordan & David Myers
Crime & Delinquency, March 2011, Pages 247-270
Abstract:
Although research has examined the effectiveness of juvenile transfer on recidivism, there has been a lack of research done in assessing how well juvenile waiver to adult court meets the criteria necessary for deterrence to occur (i.e., certainty, severity, and swiftness of punishment). The purpose of this study is to assess how well juvenile transfer meets these criteria, using data on 345 youths legislatively waived to adult court in Pennsylvania. The findings indicate that there is greater punishment severity in adult court, but there is no difference in punishment certainty between the two court systems. In addition, court processing occurred more quickly in juvenile court. In other words, only one element of deterrence theory is achieved with juvenile transfer. Implications for subsequent research and policy are discussed.