“Stick 'em up, buddy”: robbery, lifestyle, and specialization within a cohort of parolees

Abstract

Clearly, criminal career research has successfully located chronic offenders within arrestee populations, prison populations, and parole populations through empirical research. Within the paradigm, some notable findings have demonstrated that there is specialization in violent crime, i.e., the likelihood of a second violent arrest, conviction, or incarceration is predicted by a previous like offense. Only a few researchers have examined whether there are specific forms of repeat violent offending, namely robbery. This research uses Wright and Decker's [Wright, R. T., & Decker, S. H. (1997). Armed Robbers in Action. Boston: Northeastern University Press.] Armed Robbers in Action to provide a theoretical framework that can explain and predict repeat incarceration periods for robbers within a cohort of parolees. Data used in this research examine a cohort of parolees released from the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction in Ohio. Logistic regression analysis showed that an initial robbery predicts a subsequent incarceration period for robbery after controlling for demographic and criminal history variables.