Offending
Effects of Welfare Reform on Women's Crime
Hope Corman, Dhaval Dave & Nancy Reichman
NBER Working Paper, March 2013
Abstract:
We investigate the effects of broad-based work incentives on female crime by exploiting the welfare reform legislation of the 1990s, which dramatically increased employment among women at risk for relying on cash assistance. We find that welfare reform decreased female property crime arrests by 4-5%, but did not affect other types of crimes. The effects appear to be stronger in states with lower welfare benefits and higher earnings disregards, and in states with larger caseload declines. The findings point to broad-based work incentives - and, by inference, employment - as a key determinant of female property crime.
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Broadband Internet: An Information Superhighway to Sex Crime?
Manudeep Bhuller et al.
Review of Economic Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
Does internet use trigger sex crime? We use unique Norwegian data on crime and internet adoption to shed light on this question. A public program with limited funding rolled out broadband access points in 2000-2008, and provides plausibly exogenous variation in internet use. Our instrumental variables estimates show that internet use is associated with a substantial increase in both reports, charges and convictions of rape and other sex crimes. We present a conceptual framework that highlights three mechanisms for how internet use may affect reported sex crime, namely a reporting effect, a matching effect on potential offenders and victims, and a direct effect on sex crime propensity. To investigate the importance of these mechanisms, we use data on individual reporting behavior, police investigations, and criminal charges and convictions. None of the analyses we perform suggest that the positive relationship between internet use and sex crime is driven by changes in reporting behavior. Our findings suggest that the direct effect on sex crime propensity is positive and non-negligible, possibly as a result of increased consumption of pornography.
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Economic Liberalization and Violent Crime
Kislaya Prasad
Journal of Law and Economics, November 2012, Pages 925-948
Abstract:
I study the effect of economic liberalization on violent crime. The particular emphasis is on the case of India, where, in the years following 1991, there was a virtual dismantling of controls on entry and production in registered manufacturing. This was accompanied by a significant reduction in impediments to foreign trade and access to foreign exchange. Economic controls create an incentive for illegal trade, and a frequent by-product of illegal trade is violent crime. Consequently, violent crimes such as murders would be expected to decline following market-based reforms. Analysis of aggregate all-India data, as well as data at the state level, suggests that economic reforms did indeed lead to a reduction in violent crime. I extend the analysis to a panel of countries and find strong evidence that greater trade openness is negatively related to violent crime.
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First do no harm: A look at correctional policies and programs today
Doris Layton MacKenzie
Journal of Experimental Criminology, March 2013, Pages 1-17
Objectives: This paper reviews the historical changes in correctional policies and the impact these changes have had on the operations of corrections and correctional programs. Social changes and theoretical perspectives moved corrections away from a focus on rehabilitation to programs characterized by deterrence, incapacitation, and control. Similarly, theoretical criminology encouraged corrections to move away from rehabilitation towards programs designed to provide social opportunities such as employment and housing for offenders. This paper examines whether these changes in policies and programs have been effective in reducing recidivism. The question is: What works in corrections?
Methods: This paper reviews the research examining the impact of correctional policies and programs on the later criminal activities of offenders and delinquents. Research using systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and the Maryland method scores is used to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of various types of programs, management strategies, and policies.
Results: Research demonstrates programs based on deterrence, incapacitation and increased control do not reduce the future criminal activities of offenders and delinquents. Nor have programs targeting social opportunities such as employment and housing been effective in reducing recidivism. The most effective programs target individual-level change in thinking and information processing.
Conclusions: In the search for ways to sanction offenders, U.S. correctional policies and programs using control, deterrence, and incapacitation have harmed individuals and communities. Such programs have not been effective in reducing recidivism. While programs that provide social opportunities for offenders do not necessarily harm offenders neither do they decrease later criminal activities. Effective programs bring about a cognitive transformation in offenders and delinquents. Theorists have begun to develop hypotheses about how and why these transformations are effective. The current emphasis on evidence-based programs, the research evidence on what is effective and the need to reduce the cost of corrections suggest we are on the brink of another paradigm change. Where this will take us is still unclear, but the paradigm will have to address the current problems facing the U.S. correctional systems.
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Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera
Politics & Policy, February 2013, Pages 65-82
Abstract:
This article analyzes the effects of Mexico's drug war on security, migration, and the economy on the eastern U.S.-Mexico border between the state of Texas and the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. Both sides of the border are analyzed and compared simultaneously. The article shows that the extreme violence that Mexico is suffering has benefited U.S. border towns while having a negative impact on Tamaulipas. The positive effects of Mexico's violent spiral on U.S. border security and the U.S. border economy are evident, notwithstanding American public discourse and the reporting of U.S. media alleging the opposite.
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Race and Crime in Sports Media: Content Analysis on the Michael Vick and Ben Roethlisberger Cases
Dan Coogan
Journal of Sports Media, Fall 2012, Pages 129-151
Abstract:
Between 2007 and 2009 a prominent black and white National Football League (NFL) quarterback was implicated in violent criminal activity. This paper looks at how ABC, CBS and Fox News portrayed the cases of Michael Vick and Ben Roethlisberger. Not only did these outlets dedicate far more content to Vick's case, but there also emerged the theme that his behavior reflected a subculture of violence more so than did Roethlisberger's.
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Michelle Meloy, Kristin Curtis & Jessica Boatwright
Criminal Justice and Behavior, April 2013, Pages 438-452
Abstract:
In the first investigation of its kind, a national U.S. sample of state-level policy makers (N = 61) were interviewed about their perceptions of the sexual offenders in their state, their state's sex offender laws, and collateral consequences of these laws, among other efficacy questions. Respondents were selected nonrandomly, as policy makers who sponsored sex offender bills were deliberately targeted for inclusion in the study. It was presumed these respondents would be more knowledgeable about sex offenders and sex offender laws. Results indicated that most respondents were familiar with the sex offender legislation in their state, that most of the laws were drafted with hopes of increasing public safety, and that policy makers believed their laws were functioning as intended, although empirical data are lacking to support these latter claims. Despite a strong conviction that sex offender laws are necessary to control sexual recidivism, policy makers discussed numerous complications and potentially deleterious effects of their own laws.
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Alias: Lying to the police and pathological criminal behavior
Matt DeLisi et al.
Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, forthcoming
Abstract:
The use of aliases has been shown to be associated with antisocial behavior, but the empirical research on this topic is modest. The current study employs a multiple analytical approach to explore the association between aliases and career criminality in two large samples of adult offenders. We hypothesized that the use of aliases would not only be strongly associated with arrest history but this singular behavior would accurately classify a large proportion of habitual criminals. Results show that alias usage is robustly associated with career arrests net the effects of arrest onset, age, and sex in negative binomial regression models and was an excellent classifier (AUC = .82) of habitual criminality. Implications of the findings for forensic and criminal justice practitioners are offered.
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Schools, Neighborhood Risk Factors, and Crime
Dale Willits, Lisa Broidy & Kristine Denman
Crime & Delinquency, March 2013, Pages 292-315
Abstract:
Prior research has identified a link between schools (particularly high schools) and neighborhood crime rates. However, it remains unclear whether the relationship between schools and crime is a reflection of other criminogenic dynamics at the neighborhood level or whether schools influence neighborhood crime patterns independently of other established structural predictors. We address this question by investigating the relationship between schools and serious crime at the block group level while controlling for the potentially criminogenic effects of neighborhood instability and structural disadvantage. We find that, net of other structural correlates, neighborhoods with high schools and middle schools experience more violent, property, and narcotics crimes than those without middle or high schools. Conversely, neighborhoods with elementary schools exhibit less property crime than those not containing elementary schools. These results, which are consistent with prior research and with explanations derived from the routine activities and social disorganization perspectives, suggest some strategies for police deployment and community involvement to control crime.
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Lynn Addington & Callie Marie Rennison
Justice Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Despite the widely-held belief that gated communities are safer than their non-gated counterparts, little is known about the veracity of this assumption. Explanations rooted in routine activity theory and situational crime prevention suggest that restricted entry would reduce crime. Alternative explanations hypothesize that the overuse of security may actually increase crime. The present study explores this issue by comparing burglary victimizations in gated and non-gated communities using data from the National Crime Victimization Survey. We find support for the hypothesis that housing units in gated communities experience less burglary than their non-gated counterparts. Our findings also emphasize the diversity of gated communities and their residents, which is in stark contrast to commonly held perceptions of these areas as affluent enclaves. Future research is needed to further explore this initial finding and assess the influence, if any, of gated communities on other types of crime such as intimate violence and vandalism.
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Burglary in Gated Communities: An Empirical Analysis Using Routine Activities Theory
Gregory Breetzke & Ellen Cohn
International Criminal Justice Review, March 2013, Pages 56-74
Abstract:
Gated communities have experienced phenomenal growth worldwide due in part to increasing fear of urban crime and violence. However, very little is known about the effect of gating a neighborhood on rates of criminal victimization. In this article, we fill this gap by examining the relationship between residential burglary and gated communities in Tshwane, South Africa. South Africa has over 26,000 registered gated communities and high levels of violent and property crime, making it a suitable geographical focus area for research of this nature. Using variables informed by routine activities theory, we ran a series of regression models to assess the independent effect of gating on rates of day and night time burglary. The findings indicate that gated neighborhoods have a significant positive association with burglary rates in both day and night time models, suggesting that residing in a gated community actually increases one's risk of burglary victimization. Possible explanations for these unexpected findings are discussed in the context of South Africa's unique sociopolitical past.
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Frustration, Euphoria, and Violent Crime
Ignacio Munyo & Martín Rossi
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, forthcoming
Abstract:
We exploit a series of natural experiments that use real crime data to investigate the effect of a violation of expectancies on violent crime. We study two types of violation of expectancies that generate the emotions of frustration and euphoria. Our empirical designs exploit differential expectations (as measured by the odds of soccer games in the betting market) while maintaining the outcome unchanged (a loss in a soccer game for frustration, a win in a soccer game for euphoria). We find that frustration is followed by a spike in violent crime whereas euphoria is followed by a reduction in violent crime. The two effects are concentrated in a narrow time window after the end of the game: one hour.
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Guns and Fear: A One-Way Street?
Will Hauser & Gary Kleck
Crime & Delinquency, March 2013, Pages 271-291
Abstract:
Surveys show that more than one half of gun owners report owning their firearm for self-protection. Although research has examined the effect of fear of crime on gun ownership, the issue of reciprocity and temporal order has been largely ignored. Furthermore, the effect of firearm acquisition and relinquishment on fear has not been evaluated empirically. We hypothesize that the relationship between fear and gun ownership is reciprocal. As James Wright and Peter Rossi noted, it may be that "the initially most fearful may arm themselves and then feel psychologically safer because of it." Using two-wave panel data, we found, as expected, that higher fear among nonowners encourages them to become gun owners, but lower fear among gun owners does not encourage gun relinquishment. We also found that gun acquisition does not reduce fear, but relinquishment increases fear, suggesting the relationship between guns and fear may be asymmetrical.
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Deaths in New York City Jails, 2001-2009
Joan Brittain, George Axelrod & Homer Venters
American Journal of Public Health, April 2013, Pages 638-640
Abstract:
Approximately 90 000 inmates are admitted annually to the New York City jail system, many of whom require a high level of medical or mental health services. According to our analysis of deaths in custody from 2001 to 2009, crude death rates have dropped significantly despite the increasing age of the population. Falling HIV-related mortality appears to contribute to this change. Other observations include low rates of suicide across all 9 years and increasing age of the population in recent years.
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Putting Parolees Back in Prison: Discretion and the Parole Revocation Process
Sara Steen et al.
Criminal Justice Review, March 2013, Pages 70-93
Abstract:
As the prison population in the United States has ballooned over the past 30 years, people entering prison for parole revocation have come to constitute an increasingly large percentage of all prison admissions (35% in 2006). As a result, researchers have begun to turn their attention toward this criminal justice decision-making point to examine the factors that relate to why an individual is returned to prison. Notably, this developing body of research focuses almost entirely on one decision maker: the parole board who ultimately determines whether or not an individual on parole stays in the community, receives alternative sanctions, or returns to prison. Notably, this ignores the fact that parole revocation is a process beginning with the parolee who commits a violation behavior, turning next to the parole officer who uses his or her discretionary power to determine whether or not to file a complaint, and ending with the decision of the parole board. In this article, we examine each stage of this revocation process using structured qualitative interviews with 35 parole officers as well as quantitative data on 300 individuals on parole in Colorado between 2006 and 2007, who we followed for an 18-month period. We find that parolees with mental health needs commit significantly more technical violations; that race, gender, age, and measures of parolee effort affect whether a parole officer files a complaint; and that the decision made by the parole board is either largely random or driven by variables unspecified in our models.
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Why the Police Have an Effect on Violent Crime After All: Evidence from the British Crime Survey
Ben Vollaard & Joseph Hamed
Journal of Law and Economics, November 2012, Pages 901-924
Abstract:
We present evidence that the use of police statistics as a source of crime data can seriously bias empirical tests of the model of deterrence. We use data for 21 areas in England and Wales in 2001-8. In addition to police-recorded crime data, we use victim-reported crime data from the British Crime Survey that are unaffected by changes in public reporting of crime and police recording of crime. We find that the estimated effect of the number of police on recorded and victim-reported crime is similar for property crime but different for violent crime. Our findings suggest that higher numbers of police not only reduce crime rates but also increase the share of crime, and in particular violent crime, that finds its way into police statistics. The resulting estimation bias is found to be large.
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The Paradox of Probation: Community Supervision in the Age of Mass Incarceration
Michelle Phelps
Law & Policy, January-April 2013, Pages 51-80
Abstract:
After four decades of steady growth, U.S. states' prison populations finally appear to be declining, driven by a range of sentencing and policy reforms. One of the most popular reform suggestions is to expand probation supervision in lieu of incarceration. However, the classic socio-legal literature suggests that expansions of probation instead widen the net of penal control and lead to higher incarceration rates. This article reconsiders probation in the era of mass incarceration, providing the first comprehensive evaluation of the role of probation in the build-up of the criminal justice system. The results suggest that probation was not the primary driver of mass incarceration in most states, nor is it likely to be a simple panacea to mass incarceration. Rather, probation serves both capacities, acting as an alternative and as a net-widener, to varying degrees across time and place. Moving beyond the question of diversion versus net widening, this article presents a new theoretical model of the probation-prison link that examines the mechanisms underlying this dynamic. Using regression models and case studies, I analyze how states can modify the relationship between probation and imprisonment by changing sentencing outcomes and the practices of probation supervision. When combined with other key efforts, reforms to probation can be part of the movement to reverse mass incarceration.
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Aleksandra Snowden & William Alex Pridemore
Criminal Justice Review, March 2013, Pages 29-49
Abstract:
This study examined the direct and moderating effects of alcohol outlet density, social disorganization, and land use on violence in a large college town whose economy is driven by the presence of a flagship state university. Empirical literature points to a consistent association between alcohol outlet density and assault density, and recent research has found social disorganization and land use to moderate the association in urban areas. However, little research has been done to determine whether similar associations hold outside large urban cities. Using geocoded data on assaults and alcohol outlets in Bloomington, Indiana, we estimated ordinary least squares and spatially lagged regression models to determine whether social disorganization and land use moderate the association between alcohol outlet density and assault. We found a consistent association between outlet density and assault density. In contrast to the findings from urban areas, however, the direct effects of social disorganization and of seven land use types on simple assault density were nonsignificant, nor was social disorganization associated with aggravated assault. Further, the relationship between alcohol outlet density and assault density was moderated by neither social disorganization nor land use. Ecological characteristics like social disorganization and land use may matter less in smaller cities and towns than they do in large urban cities, both in terms of direct effects and when accounting for the relationship between alcohol outlet density and violence.