CRIMINAL ACHIEVEMENT, OFFENDER NETWORKS AND THE BENEFITS OF LOW SELF‐CONTROL

Abstract

This study follows recent research on criminal earnings and examines the impact of underlying traits (low self‐control) and personal organization features (nonredundant networking) on the criminal earnings of a sample of incarcerated offenders previously involved in market and predatory crimes. Controlling for various background factors (age, noncriminal income, lambda and costs of doing crime), both low self‐control and nonredundant networking independently explain why some offenders are more successful than others in achieving higher monetary standards through crime. Although efficient, brokerage‐like networking enhances market offenders' earnings, low self‐control emerges as an asset for predatory offenders: the lower their self‐control, the higher their criminal earnings. For market offenders, however, low self‐control has no direct effect, but it does mitigate the impact of effective networking on criminal earnings. The results emerging from this study have implications for Gottfredson and Hirschi's theory of crime and the advent of a criminal network perspective. Extensions are also made toward the conventional/criminal embeddedness framework and deterrence research.