Adult Convictions Research Articles

The Work of Community in Raposa's Theosemiotic

The Work of Community in Raposa's Theosemiotic

From Childhood System Contact to Adult Criminal Conviction: Investigating Intersectional Inequalities using Queensland Administrative Data

It is well known that youth justice contact is associated with criminal conviction in adulthood. What is less well understood is whether ‘cross-over’ children, who have contact with both child welfare and youth justice systems, experience relatively worse outcomes and, if so, whether these outcomes vary by important demographic factors, such as sex and race. Criminal careers scholars have examined patterns of adult convictions for different groups, but attempts to understand intersectional variation in these outcomes have been constrained by limitations of standard statistical analysis. Using administrative data from the Queensland Cross-sector Research Collaboration, we adopt a flexible regression model specification to explore the cumulative effects of both child welfare and youth justice contact on adult conviction trajectories, and how these associations vary by sex and Indigenous status. We find clear evidence across all demographic groups that contact with both justice and welfare systems in childhood is associated with increased likelihood and severity of conviction trajectories in adulthood. The cumulative effect of cross-over status results in greater equity of negative outcomes across groups, although the conviction profile is worst for Indigenous men. Evidence of an additional inequality is present only for non-Indigenous women, who have the lowest likelihood of conviction overall. We conclude that while cross-over children are at elevated risk of conviction in adulthood, the nature and seriousness of their conviction pathways is conditional on pre-existing intersectional inequalities. The model specification used is a promising method by which to explore the existence of such inequalities.

Making Schools Safer and/or Escalating Disciplinary Response: A Study of Police Officers in North Carolina Schools

The “defund the police” movement has recently called for the removal of police—or school resource officers (SROs)—from schools. This call is driven by concerns that SROs may heighten student contact with criminal justice or lead to disproportionately harsh disciplinary consequences. This study uses linked disciplinary, academic, juvenile justice, and adult conviction data from North Carolina to estimate the effects of middle school SROs on a variety of student outcomes. Our findings indicate that SROs not only decrease the incidence of serious violence but also increase the use of out-of-school suspensions, transfers, expulsions, and police referrals. This study provides new insights into the effects of police in schools and implies new directions for policies, training, and accountability.

Predictive Associations Between Adolescent Profiles of Violent and Nonviolent Deviant Behavior With Convictions in Adulthood.

This study examines how multivariate trajectory patterns of overt and relational peer and dating violence perpetration, alcohol use, and nonviolent deviant behavior during high school predict convictions in adulthood. Adolescent data are from an accelerated cohort design study that spanned four waves in 2003-2005. In 2019, conviction records were obtained for a random subsample of 1,579 individuals from the original study. We identified latent classes that were jointly characterized by distinct behavioral trajectories and adult conviction status, and described the demographic and psychosocial profiles of each class. The best-fitting model comprised four trajectory classes: Low Deviance (44%), Moderate Stable Deviance (40%), Increasing Deviance (8%), and Dating Violence Perpetrators (8%). Adolescents whose deviance increased during adolescence had substantially higher risk of convictions, including violent convictions, than all other groups. Classes were differentiated by gender, household structure, parental education, school bonding, grades, emotional dysregulation, sensation-seeking, family conflict, and prosocial values. The Increasing Deviance class was predominantly male, had an elevated probability of coming from a single-parent household and of having parents with low education, but values on psychosocial indicators were not extreme. Dating Violence Perpetrators were also more likely to come from a single-parent household, but their parents tended to have more education. This group was the most extreme on several psychosocial indicators that indicate low school and family bonds, and poor emotional regulation. The implications of these patterns in relation to interactional and strain theories, theories of cognitive maturation, and theories of social bonds and social control are discussed.

Shared residential placement for child welfare and juvenile justice youth: current treatment needs and risk of adult criminal conviction

BackgroundAlthough child welfare youth and juvenile offenders in residential care have different judicial placement reasons, there seems to be overlap in their demographic and psychosocial backgrounds. This could raise the question whether these adolescents should be placed in strictly separated institutions based on their judicial title (civil or criminal law) or together based on their needs. As systematic knowledge on the effects of shared placement of these groups is limited, the aim of the current paper is to examine the demographic, crime-related and psychosocial characteristics of child welfare and juvenile justice youths in shared residential care and subsequently examine its relationship with offending behavior in adulthood.MethodsThe sample was drawn from the Swiss study for clarification and goal-attainment in youth welfare and juvenile justice institutions (MAZ.) and consisted 354 juveniles (252 child welfare, 102 juvenile justice; 223 boys, 131 girls) between 10 and 18 years. Mental health problems were assessed with the Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument-Version 2 (MAYSI-2), official adult criminal conviction data up to 10 years later was obtained from the Swiss Federal Office of Statistics. Three sets of logistic regressions were conducted investigating any, violent and non-violent convictions.ResultsUnivariate results showed that that the child welfare sample included more females, more juveniles with the Swiss nationality, and was younger at the time of assessment and at first placement compared to the juvenile justice sample. Furthermore, child welfare youths showed less alcohol/drug use problems and offending behavior than their juvenile justice counterparts. Unadjusted models demonstrated that committing authority predicted adult criminal convictions, but that this distinction disappeared when it was controlled for demographic, crime-related and psychosocial factors. Gender and time at risk were found to be related to adult conviction in all three models. In addition, alcohol/drug use problems were risk factors for general, previous convictions for violent, and traumatic experiences for non-violent convictions in adulthood.ConclusionsOur results support the approach of placement in residential care institutions based on treatment needs instead of on judicial title. Special attention should be devoted to trauma informed care and substance use coping. However, more research is needed.

Psychopathy and the prospective prediction of adult offending through age 29: Revisiting unfulfilled promises of developmental criminology

PurposeThis study prospectively examines the assertion that early risk factors do not predict continuity in offending across the adolescence-adulthood transition as suggested by developmental criminology. Against such statements, psychopathy is asserted to be a pivotal risk factor for offending continuity. MethodsThe study is based on a sample of 326 incarcerated youth followed through age 29. Features of psychopathy were measured during adolescence using scores from the PCL:YV and adult convictions were modeled in various ways, including latent trajectories of convictions, adjusted for exposure. ResultsThe study findings provide evidence that chronic juvenile offenders and those with high psychopathy scores during adolescence are at a higher risk of being repeatedly convicted in adulthood. ConclusionsWhile the study findings showed that features of psychopathy predicted adult offending outcomes at the group level, individual-level prediction is more difficult and therefore caution should be exercised before using these findings in practical settings to make predictions about whether a specific youth will continue to offend at a particular rate in adulthood.

Making Schools Safer and/or Escalating Disciplinary Response: A Study of Police Officers in North Carolina Schools

The “defund the police” movement has recently called for the removal of police – or school resource officers (SROs) – from schools. This call is driven by concerns that SROs may heighten student contact with criminal justice or lead to disproportionately harsh disciplinary consequences. The current study uses linked disciplinary, academic, juvenile justice, and adult conviction data from North Carolina to estimate the effects of middle school SROs on a variety of student outcomes. Our findings indicate that SROs decrease the incidence of serious violence, but also increase the use of out-of-school suspensions, transfers, expulsions, and police referrals. This study provides new insights into the effects of police in schools, and implies new directions for policies, training, and accountability.

Juvenile stress disrupts the development of an exploration–boldness behavioural syndrome in convict cichlid fish

Early life experience may have lifelong influences on an individual's behaviour in ways that are either adaptive or maladaptive depending in part on whether these early experiences accurately foreshadowed conditions in later life. Stress coping style is one example of a suite of behaviours, or personality traits, that may be influenced by early exposure to stressful stimuli. Here we examine the effect of developmental stress exposure on behavioural syndromes in adult convict cichlids, Amatitlania nigrofasciata. We found that early life stress did not exert significant effects on personality traits in adulthood at the individual level, but that this stress exposure prevented the formation of an exploration–boldness syndrome that was present in the unstressed population. These results suggest that an exploration–boldness syndrome is present in this species in the absence of stress-related environmental constraints. However, greater plasticity may be selected for in response to early life cues that reflect high predator pressure.

Hubungan Dukungan Sosial dengan Kesepian pada Narapidana Dewasa Awal Lajang

This study aims to determine the relationship between social support and loneliness in early single adult prisoners. The subjects in this study was an early single adult convict of 30 people 18-40 years of age. Data were analyzed using correlation product moment from Karl Pearson. The calculation method is assisted by using the SPSS program. The results of this study indicate that there is a negative relationship between social support and loneliness (r = -0.357, p = 0.026). The magnitude of the influence of social support variables on loneliness is 12.8% while the remaining 87.2% is influenced by other variables. This means, the higher the social support, the lower the loneliness of early adult inmates, and vice versa, the lower the social support, the higher the loneliness of early adult prisoners to be single. Researchers are expected to be able to develop other factors that influence the variable loneliness inmates such as gender and socioeconomic status.

Using Early Childhood Behavior Problems to Predict Adult Convictions.

The current study examined whether teacher and parent ratings of externalizing behavior during kindergarten and 1st grade accurately predicted the presence of adult convictions by age 25. Data were collected as part of the Fast Track Project. Schools were identified based on poverty and crime rates in four locations: Durham, NC, Nashville, TN, Seattle, WA, and rural, central PA. Teacher and parent screening measures of externalizing behavior were collected at the end of kindergarten and 1st grade. ROC curves were used to visually depict the tradeoff between sensitivity and specificity and best model fit was determined. Five of the six combinations of screen scores across time points and raters met both the specificity and sensitivity cutoffs for a well-performing screening tool. When data were examined within each site separately, screen scores performed better in sites with high base rates and models including single teacher screens accurately predicted convictions. Similarly, screen scores performed better and could be used more parsimoniously for males, but not females (whose base rates were lower in this sample). Overall, results indicated that early elementary screens for conduct problems perform remarkably well when predicting criminal convictions 20years later. However, because of variations in base rates, screens operated differently by gender and location. The results indicated that for populations with high base rates, convictions can be accurately predicted with as little as one teacher screen taken during kindergarten or 1st grade, increasing the cost-effectiveness of preventative interventions.

Mass incarceration, race inequality, and health: Expanding concepts and assessing impacts on well-being

We explore race differences in how individuals experience mass incarceration, as well as in mass incarceration's impacts on measures of well-being that are recognized as major social determinants of health. We draw on baseline data from a sample of 302 men and women recently released from prison/jail or placed directly onto probation in New Haven, Connecticut (CT) for drug related offenses and followed at 6-month intervals for two years (2011–2014). We describe race differences in experiences of mass incarceration and in its impacts on well-being; and we conduct mediation analyses to analyze relationships among race, mass incarceration, and well-being. Blacks reported fewer adult convictions than whites, but an average of 2.5 more adult incarcerations. Blacks were more likely to have been incarcerated as a juvenile, spent time in a juvenile facility and in an adult facility as a juvenile, been on parole, and experienced multiple forms of surveillance. Whites were more likely to report being caught by the police doing something illegal but let go. Blacks were more likely to report any impact of incarceration on education, and dropping out of school, leaving a job, leaving their longest job, and becoming estranged from a family member due to incarceration. Whites were more likely to avoid getting needed health or social services for fear of arrest. Overall, Blacks reported a larger number of impacts of criminal justice involvement on well-being than whites. Number of adult incarcerations and of surveillance types, and being incarcerated as a juvenile, each mediated the relationship among race, mass incarceration, and well-being. Though more research is necessary, experiences of mass incarceration appear to vary by race and these differences, in turn, have implications for interventions aimed at addressing the impacts of mass incarceration on health and well-being.

Family Centered Treatment, Juvenile Justice, and the Grand Challenge of Smart Decarceration

Purpose: Responding to social work’s grand challenge of smart decarceration, this study investigated whether Family Centered Treatment (FCT), a home-based service for juvenile court-involved youth, is more effective than group care (GC) in reducing recidivism. Outcomes are juvenile readjudication and commitment to placement, and adult conviction and sentence of incarceration. Method: Data were drawn from service provider and state administrative databases. Propensity score matching was used to create a sample of 1,246 FCT youth and 693 GC youth. Cox proportional hazard models estimated time to the four outcomes. Results: FCT participants had a significantly lower risk of adult conviction and adult incarceration relative to youth who received GC. The findings for juvenile outcomes were nonsignificant. Discussion: FCT shows more favorable adult criminal justice outcomes than GC, making it a potentially effective community-based service to support smart decarceration for juvenile court-involved youth.

Running away from child welfare placements: Justice system entry risk

A growing body of research indicates that running away from foster care increases the probability of subsequent involvement in the juvenile and/or adult justice system, especially for males. Using administrative data from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, this study examined the characteristics and behavior of a sample of 371 child welfare youth in Wayne County who ran away from foster care with a propensity scored matched sample of youth who did not run away. Youth were followed in administrative records of the MDHHS and justice system for eight years. The correlates of involvement in the juvenile and/or the adult justice systems included age at first child welfare placement, years in placement, number of placements, total length of time in residential care, running away from placement, as well as gender and legal status. Overall, 42% had at least one juvenile and/or adult conviction. Running away from foster care had the largest effect on subsequent justice system contact.

The role of juvenile adjudications in the disproportional incarceration of African-American and Hispanic defendants

Prior research has demonstrated the mediating role of criminal history in incarceration decisions involving black and Hispanic men. Juvenility also plays a role in differential punishment. Our study examines juvenile adjudications as a component of criminal history, and the extent to which such adjudications are a potential source of disproportional incarceration of black and Hispanic men. Drawing from the focal concerns model of punishment decisions, we investigate juvenile adjudications in criminal history as they might mediate racial and ethnic differences in incarceration. We also examine whether judges give different weight to adjudications depending on how long ago they occurred, and whether juvenile adjudications heighten the incarceration chances of minority men more than others. We analyze Pennsylvania sentencing data from 2006 to 2010 that allow for the decomposition of criminal history into juvenile adjudications and adult convictions, and examine incarceration and guideline departure decisions.

Sex Differences in Risk Factors and Conditions of Incarcerated Violent Offenders

Background: Violence is widely recognized as a major public health problem requiring public policy intervention. Previous studies have not adequately addressed possible sex differences in risk factors and risk conditions of incarcerated violent offenders. Using a large, nationally representative sample of state and federal prisoners, this study tested if sex moderated the association between risk (factors and conditions) and type of adult crime conviction (violent versus nonviolent crime). Methods: Using the 2004 Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities, self-reported socioeconomic and mental health-related risk factors and background factors were obtained for a cross-section of N=16,152 incarcerated adults in stratified sample state and federal prisons located in the United States. The sample was weighted to reflect the population of prisoners. Results: Parental substance abuse, a history of physical abuse or sexual abuse, depression symptoms, and psychosis symptoms all distinguished incarcerated violent offenders from incarcerated non-violent offenders regardless of sex. A history of sexual abuse was particularly high in men compared to women among incarcerated violent offenders but not among non-violent offenders. Conclusion: This study highlights the fact that regardless of sex, childhood background, reports of abuse, and select mental health disorders predicted the type of crime that resulted in incarceration as an adult. Findings support path dependence of type of criminal incarceration of adults. The predictors distinguishing violent and non-violent crime incarceration are almost identical for males and females. The risk factor distinguishing non-violent crime incarceration is adult drug use. The risk factors distinguishing adults incarcerated for violent crime indicate more social and environmental vulnerability as children, increased likelihood of abuse, and greater burden of psychosis and depression. This study supports that the treatment foci for violent and nonviolent prisoners should differ by type of crime but not by sex given type of crime.

Criminal Records Create a Second-Class Citizenry: Changing the Way Adult Convictions are Vacated in Washington State

This article principally focuses on the ability of a convicted person to remove or “vacate” his adult criminal records from non-Court entities in Washington State. Ultimately, Washington should remove the limit currently prohibiting a record holder from vacating more than one misdemeanor in his or her lifetime. A convicted person in Washington State is theoretically allowed to vacate an unlimited number of felonies in his or her lifetime. In contrast, he or she may not vacate a misdemeanor if any other conviction, misdemeanor or felony, has been vacated in his or her lifetime. I will posit that, for the purposes of vacating criminal records in Washington, at minimum, misdemeanors should generally be treated the same as felonies by allowing a convicted person to theoretically be able to vacate an unlimited number of misdemeanors. Employment, housing, and public safety factors, among others, tend to favor this prescription.

Problem coping skills, psychosocial adversities and mental health problems in children and adolescents as predictors of criminal outcomes in young adulthood

The purpose of this study was to test child and adolescent psychosocial and psychopathological risk factors as predictors of adult criminal outcomes in a Swiss community sample. In particular, the role of active and avoidant problem coping in youths was analysed. Prevalence rates of young adult crime convictions based on register data were calculated. Univariate and multivariate logistic regressions were used to analyse the prediction of adult criminal convictions 15years after assessment in a large Swiss community sample of children and adolescents (n=1,086). Risk factors assessed in childhood and adolescence included socio-economic status (SES), migration background, perceived parental behaviour, familial and other social stressors, coping styles, externalizing and internalizing problems and drug abuse including problematic alcohol consumption. The rate of any young adult conviction was 10.1%. Besides externalizing problems and problematic alcohol consumption, the presence of any criminal conviction in young adulthood was predicted by low SES and avoidant coping even after controlling for the effects of externalizing problems and problematic alcohol use. The other predictors were significant only when externalizing behaviours and problematic alcohol use were not controlled. In addition to child and adolescent externalizing behaviour problems and substance use, low SES and inadequate problem-solving skills, in terms of avoidant coping, are major risk factors of young adult criminal outcomes and need to be considered in forensic research and criminal prevention programs.

The Relationship Between Parental Imprisonment and Offspring Offending in England and The Netherlands

This article examines whether prisoners' children have more adult convictions than children whose parents were convicted but not imprisoned. This is investigated in England and the Netherlands from 1946 to 1981 using two prospective longitudinal datasets: the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development and the NSCR Transfive Study. In the Netherlands, no significant relationship was found between parental imprisonment and offspring offending. In England, a relationship was found for sons only. This association can be partly explained by parental criminality. However, after controlling for number of parental convictions and other childhood risk factors, a significant relationship remained between number of parental imprisonments and sons' offending. When parental imprisonment at different ages is examined, parental imprisonment only significantly predicted sons' offending when it happened after the sons' seventh birthday.

Criminal-justice and school sanctions against nonheterosexual youth: a national longitudinal study.

Nonheterosexual adolescents are vulnerable to health risks including addiction, bullying, and familial abuse. We examined whether they also suffer disproportionate school and criminal-justice sanctions. The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health followed a nationally representative sample of adolescents who were in grades 7 through 12 in 1994-1995. Data from the 1994-1995 survey and the 2001-2002 follow-up were analyzed. Three measures were used to assess nonheterosexuality: same-sex attraction, same-sex romantic relationships, and lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) self-identification. Six outcomes were assessed: school expulsion; police stops; juvenile arrest; juvenile conviction; adult arrest; and adult conviction. Multivariate analyses controlled for adolescents' sociodemographics and behaviors, including illegal conduct. Nonheterosexuality consistently predicted a higher risk for sanctions. For example, in multivariate analyses, nonheterosexual adolescents had greater odds of being stopped by the police (odds ratio: 1.38 [P < .0001] for same-sex attraction and 1.53 [P < .0001] for LGB self-identification). Similar trends were observed for school expulsion, juvenile arrest and conviction, and adult conviction. Nonheterosexual girls were at particularly high risk. Nonheterosexual youth suffer disproportionate educational and criminal-justice punishments that are not explained by greater engagement in illegal or transgressive behaviors. Understanding and addressing these disparities might reduce school expulsions, arrests, and incarceration and their dire social and health consequences.

Extending the Study of Continuity and Change: Gender Differences in the Linkage Between Adolescent and Adult Offending

Recently, Paternoster et al. used data from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development, a longitudinal study of 411 South London boys mostly born in 1953, to investigate the linkage between adolescent and adult offending and found that variations in adult offending were consistent with a random process after conditioning on adolescent offending. In this paper, we test the robustness of this early study across data sources and genders. Here, we use data from the Dunedin New Zealand 1972 birth cohort study to replicate previous findings regarding stability and change in criminal offending between the adolescent and adult years. In particular, our interest centers on the stochastic properties of the adolescent and adult conviction distribution in the cohort and whether the structure of this distribution is similar for males and females. This replication and extension of prior work is especially important since criminologists have little understanding of the pattern of female adolescent offending or how the patterns are linked to adult offending for women. The analysis reveals that variation in adult offending after conditioning on adolescent offending is consistent with a random (Poisson) process. Furthermore, this pattern is evident for both the males and the females in the Dunedin New Zealand 1972 birth cohort.