Objectives Quantitative studies of institutional (non)engagement are limited by available measures and temporal ordering concerns. Using unique and detailed qualitative data, we examine (non)engagement behaviors and perceptions among formerly incarcerated adults. Methods We conducted around 100 face-to-face interviews to elicit rich information about an array of behaviors and perceptions for three key formal institutions: financial, medical, and employment. Results Almost everyone in our sample was at least partially engaged post-release and experienced bounded engagement as they navigated the option set available to them. When people were not engaged, common reasons included insufficient funds to meet bank requirements or institutional or logistical barriers to access, which align with an administrative burden perspective. Concerns about wage garnishment, a system avoidance explanation, were also raised; however, avoidance was rare and contained to the relevant institution(s). We also observed institutional interdependency, where barriers encountered with one institution could prevent engagement in another. Conclusions Reducing or removing barriers to healthcare insurance and access, minimum balance requirements, and burdens placed on job applicants with criminal records can improve institutional engagement. Alleviating burdens in one domain (e.g., formal identification or schedule restrictions) may also improve access in other institutions (such as formal employment or bank accounts).

Objectives To advance research on racial disparities in processing prison rule violators, we examined disparities at citation, “conviction,” and sanctioning to assess cascading race effects on sanctions via harsher upstream decisions. Methods Black and White persons admitted to Ohio prisons in a 5-year period and cited for rule violations were examined ( N = 39,356). Outcomes included total cited charges, total convicted charges, and sanctions. Path analysis was used to estimate direct and indirect race effects on dispositions, controlling for covariates of convicted charges and sanction severity. Results Black individuals were cited for more rule violations but convicted on fewer violations (controlling counts cited) than White individuals, had lower odds of placement in disciplinary segregation, and served less time in segregation. Indirect race effects on convicted counts and sanctions were statistically significant. Conclusions Rule infraction boards may serve as a downstream correction to upstream racial disparities in the prison infraction process. Despite a significant cascading race effect on convicted charges via cited charges, cascading race effects on prison sanctions via convicted charges were refuted, where correctional officers’ decisions did not culminate in harsher sanctions for Black individuals at rule infraction hearings. These hearings may constitute an important check on upstream decisions.

Objectives This study explored the extent to which law-abiding behavior depends on legal punishment by replicating and extending Meldrum et al. who found that 18% of participants were willing to offend if all crimes were legal during a hypothetical day (i.e., “purging”) and that these individuals exhibited higher psychopathic traits and lower self-control. We sought to replicate their findings and extend them through methodological refinements. Methods A community convenience sample of 865 predominantly European participants completed an online survey. Participants responded to a single item asking whether they would offend in the absence of legal controls, followed by a 33-item questionnaire assessing willingness of committing specific crimes under the same conditions, and self-report measures of psychopathy and self-control. Results Thirty percent of participants reported willingness to offend on the single-item measure, and 76.7% endorsed at least one specific crime. Minor offenses (e.g., theft; ∼50%) were more frequently endorsed than severe ones (e.g., violent- or sex-crimes; 0.3%-4.3%). An exploratory factor analysis of the purge questionnaire identified seven crime categories with distinct endorsement levels. Regression analyses indicated that psychopathic traits and low self-control were positively related to purging, with psychopathy emerging as the stronger predictor of purging and most crime categories. Conclusions Legal punishment alone does not explain law-abiding behavior; individuals appear to refrain from severe crimes for extralegal reasons, whereas minor crimes may require legal deterrence. Psychopathic traits and low self-control represent robust psychological risk factors, underscoring the need for prevention strategies that target these predispositions alongside traditional legal deterrence.

Objectives The issue of psychopathology among gang populations is controversial. Classic gang scholarship points to psychopathic traits as time-stable characteristics of those who join gangs, others argue gangs facilitate attitudes and behaviors endogenous to psychopathy, stisll others reject a gang-psychopathic traits link. Building off an interdisciplinary theoretical basis that adapts a tripartite theoretical model (i.e., selection, facilitation, and enhancement) on the gang membership-offending link to the mixed positions on the gang membership-psychopathic traits relationship, this study tests selection and facilitation models. Methods Using longitudinal data from Pathways to Desistance, I examine whether psychopathic traits are an antecedent and/or consequence of gang membership. Specifically, I test whether (a) there are between individual differences in psychopathic traits that contribute to selection into gangs and (b) gangs facilitate within-individual change in psychopathic traits among their members. Results The findings suggest that the enhancement model (i.e., both selection and facilitation) best represents the relationship between gang membership and psychopathic traits. Conclusions Analyzing the role of individual propensities—like psychopathic traits—and social-environmental influences—like gang membership—is critical for understanding crime and criminality. This study demonstrates that these factors do not operate in isolation but instead interact bidirectionally. By moving beyond the selection-facilitation dichotomy, this study contributes to a more integrated framework for explaining problem behaviors and helps establish best practices for prevention and rehabilitation.

Objectives This study examines how social embeddedness and multiplex social ties shape criminal collaboration in the Sinaloa Cartel. It investigates how different types of relationships—such as kinship, friendship, meetings, and compadre ties—influence participation in drug crimes and broader forms of collaboration. Methods Drawing on trial transcripts from Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera's U.S. federal case, we reconstructed social networks among 188 actors. Using social network analysis and Logistic Regression Quadratic Assignment Procedure (LRQAP) models, we assessed the conditional associations of different social ties with drug crimes and criminal collaboration, controlling for demographic and organizational characteristics. Results Friendship and meeting ties exhibited the strongest associations with drug crimes and criminal collaboration. Familial ties were initially significant but lost their effect once shared cartel affiliation was considered, suggesting a mediating role of organizational membership. Compadre and prison ties showed no significant associations. Conclusions Trust-based relationships such as friendships and meetings play a pivotal role in fostering collaboration within organized crime groups. Familial ties may exert indirect effects through shared cartel affiliation. The findings underscore the importance of distinguishing between types of social ties and demonstrate the value of trial transcripts as a source for advancing empirical research on organized crime.

Objective Apply the concept of income packaging to formerly incarcerated men by examining how an individual's income portfolio changes from pre- to post-incarceration, in terms of total income, source-specific income, and income shares. Method A zero-inflated Poisson model is used to examine changes in income likelihood (extensive margin) and amount (intensive margin), both for total income and five different income sources (formal work, public assistance, informal work, illegal activities, and other sources). To examine changes in all income shares simultaneously, a fractional estimator represents a multinomial logistic regression of proportions (the proportion of total income from each of five sources). Results Individuals experience substantial income loss upon release from prison. Formal employment and public assistance are highly stable sources of income. There is no reduction in the number of workers, but workers do experience decay in earnings. Public assistance serves as an important safety net upon release, as more individuals rely on it after imprisonment. Conclusion The findings reveal how returning individuals make ends meet from smaller budgets and highlight the potential utility of concepts as income packaging and bureaucratic capital in refining theories and understanding the financial wellbeing of released individuals.

Objectives: Examine gender similarities and differences in defensive, offensive, and instrumental motives for homicide, disaggregated by the victim–offender relationship (intimate partner homicide [IPH] vs. non-IPH). Methods: Using data from the National Violent Death Reporting System, logistic regression models compared the victim, offender, and situational characteristics of IPH and non-IPH incidents perpetrated by men ( N = 35,868) and women ( N = 5,146) in the United States from 2003 to 2021. Results: While female IPH offenders were more likely to engage in defensive violence, women who killed outside their romantic relationships were more similar to their male counterparts in their use of offensive and instrumental violence than traditionally assumed. Conclusions: The findings suggest that women's violence cannot solely be attributed to their recent experiences of victimization, and women who kill do so for a variety of defensive and offensive reasons. Future work should consider whether and how women's motivations for violence are gendered across distinct contexts.

Objectives Although most incarceration spells are brief, the collateral consequences of short spells are understudied. This study tested whether brief incarcerations predicted postrelease employment outcomes, and whether any apparent impacts of these spells were artifacts of the impacts of arrest or other confounds. Methods We used data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth—1997 cohort ( N = 8,842) and propensity score matching. Individuals who were incarcerated for two months or less or for more than two months were compared against similar never-incarcerated individuals and arrested but not incarcerated individuals. Results In bivariate analyses, arrest and incarceration were negatively associated with employment and work intensity. After matching, among all respondents, short spells were associated with employment outcomes only when all nonincarcerated persons were the reference group. Among respondents who were employed preincarceration, longer spells had stronger negative associations with employment outcomes than short spells, and short spells were not associated with most outcomes when arrested persons were the reference group. Conclusions Individuals who have experienced brief incarcerations may not be disadvantaged in the labor market because of their incarceration. The collateral consequences literature should be integrated with the literature on preexisting disadvantage and other forms of criminal justice contact.

Objectives Research on the immigration-crime link has grown substantially yet researchers have not sufficiently considered immigrant heterogeneity, which reflects both the number of immigrant groups in a community and their relative sizes or representation, even as theory has a lot to say regarding the possible impact of such heterogeneity. With few exceptions, scholars have yet to consider how immigrant diversity, including by race/ethnicity, country of origin, or language use, may matter for the immigration-crime association. This is the focus of the current study. Methods Building on a handful of studies, we examine the association between measures of immigrant heterogeneity based on different social dimensions and crime rates across 15,000 neighborhoods in roughly 350 U.S. cities, reflecting a wide range of immigrant community contexts. Results We find that immigrant diversity matters greatly for neighborhood crime rates, although in unique ways. Conclusions We discuss the implications of our findings for theories that emphasize the consequences of heterogeneity specifically, and for the immigration-crime relationship more generally.

Objectives As the frequency with which youth defendants are transferred from the juvenile justice system to the adult criminal court has declined in recent years, questions remain regarding how transferred juveniles are punished relative to adults in a contemporary sentencing context. Moreover, little prior research on the effects of juvenile status in sentencing has considered potential variations in these patterns according to presumptive sentencing guideline recommendations, which can have notable implications for the exercise of judicial discretion. Methods The current study analyzes data on felony cases disposed under the Minnesota sentencing guidelines between 2011 and 2022 ( N = 189,835). Results The findings reveal that transferred youth are more likely to receive sentences to prison than members of all adult age groups, though limited age-related disparities in sentence length are observed. Further, the differential assignment of prison sentences to juvenile defendants is more pronounced in cases involving upward dispositional departures, and greater juvenile-adult inequalities also emerge among cases with shorter presumptive sentence durations. Conclusions The increased sentencing penalties for transferred youth observed in some prior studies have persisted since the “get tough” era. Additionally, the presumptive severity structures these disparities in ways that align with the expectations of the liberation hypothesis.