Investigating the Human Capital Accounts for a Variation in Desistance and Its Relative Impact on Desistance at the Louisiana State Penitentiary

Geraldine Doucet

doi:10.7176/jlpg/112-15

Abstract

This study investigates the human capital accounts for a variation in desistance and its relative impact on desistance at the Louisiana State Penitentiary. The study used a survey research design, binary logistic regression, and a primary data source to investigate the study. A sample size of 144 inmates were surveyed for the purposes of analysis. The primary data source comes from the Louisiana State Penitentiary based on self-reported face-to-fact survey interviews initially taken May 2007 and followed by face-to-fact interviews officially obtained data over the period of a year and eight months regarding the same sample population. Results suggested that in the Before study, using self-reported data, that human capital variables were not statistically reliable in distinguishing desistance among the sample of aged delinquents at 5% significance level, but tend to be statistically reliable in distinguishing desistance among the sample of aged delinquents at 10% significance level. The After -study results showed no predictability with respect to desistance among any of the predictor variables. Among all the regression variables such as religion, education, past and present education, mental health, and punishment adjustment in the human capital account analysis, only punishment adjustment was statistically significant at 5% and 10% significance levels with a p-value of 0.006 (p<0.05). The study further revealed in the analysis that all the nine human capital variables, adjustment [LSAC1] was three times more likely to predict the desistance process. In other words, an aged delinquent offender who adjusts to prison is 3.12 times more likely to have a decrease in anti-social behavior than an aged delinquent who did not adjust to prison. Keywords: Desistance, Delinquents, Crime, Juvenile, Punishment, Incarceration, Human Capital, Social Capital, Sanction. DOI: 10.7176/JLPG/112-15 Publication date: August 31 st 2021

Highlights

The U.S Census Bureau (2001) and the Office of Justice Statistics (OJJDP, 1999), estimate that between 1995 and 2015, the population that will be at the greatest risk for delinquency is expected to increase by 22 percent
IMPLICATION In the Before study, which was based on self-reported data form the aged-delinquents themselves, human capital variables were not statistically reliable in distinguishing among desistance aged delinquents at 5% significance level but the story changes at 10% significance level since the overall model significance p-value of 0.061 is less than 0.10 (p
In both the human capital variables and the punishment variables categories, adjustment to prison variables was statistically reliable in distinguishing desistance among young adult lifers and juvenile lifer offenders

Summary

Introduction

The U.S Census Bureau (2001) and the Office of Justice Statistics (OJJDP, 1999), estimate that between 1995 and 2015, the population that will be at the greatest risk for delinquency is expected to increase by 22 percent. It has been well documented that crime rates follow the proportion of young people, especially males in the population (Siegel, Welsh, & Senna, 2003; Mukherjee,1997; Kanazawa, 2008). The higher the proportion of young men in the population, the higher the crime rates will escalate. Several studies showed that with this group increasing in population, it is safe to predict that as the number of young males in the population increases, so too will the rise in crime (Blumstein & Cohen, 1987; Mukherjee, 1997; Kanazawa, 2008). The most violent offenders cannot be rehabilitated within the juvenile system and are subject to transferred for adult prosecution (Redding, 2008; OJJDP, 2008)

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Conclusion