Criminal Careers and "Career Criminals," Volume I (1986) / Chapter Skim
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5. Crime Control Strategies Using Criminal Career Knowledge
5. Crime Control Strategies Using Criminal Career Knowledge
Pages 109-154
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From page 109... ...
on Deterrent and Incapacitative Effects (Blumstein, Cohen, and Nagin, 1978) by examining the crime control effects of different sentencing policies from an incarceration perspective.
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From page 110... ...
As part of its work, this panel commissioned a reanalysis of recent Rand Corporation data on varia mate rehabilitation CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS lions in reporter] A among inmates and on the selective incapacitative effects of using longer sentences for the high-rate offenders among those inmates.
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From page 111... ...
Also, the follow-up periods have usually been 2 years or less: although these periods are probably adequate to assess the short-term effectiveness of the interventions in correcting antisocial behaviors, they are not Tong enough to show effectiveness in preventing later criminal activity. However, the panel clid identify some promising experimental studies of interventions oriented specifically toward!
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From page 112... ...
Preschool Programs The Perry Preschool Project, carried out in Michigan, was primarily directed at improving the school performance of disadvantaged black children through a Head Start program lectual stimulation CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS (Schweinhart and Weikart, 1980~. This Head Start program was unique because it also examined the impact of a preschool program in reducing later criminal activity.
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From page 113... ...
Social learning programs for families of antisocial preadolescents have sometimes shown short-term effectiveness in ameliorating the early antisocial behavior that frequently precedes delinquency, but these programs have not yet been evaluates! as effective in preventing clelinquency itself Future experiments of this type of intervention need to use longer follow-up periods, inclucle searches of juvenile justice system records, and compare results across alternative family arrangements, such as single- versus two-parent households.
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From page 114... ...
, children with conduct disorders often display different problem behaviors in different settings. The typical behavioral intervention, however, focuses on modifying behavior in one set CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS ting, with little or no transfer of program components such as behavioral contracts, reinforcements, or punishmentsinto other settings.
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From page 115... ...
Career Modification: Community-Based and Family Treatment Programs juveniles Inclividually oriented treatment programs for juvenile offenders are typically introducer] as altematives to regular juvenile court processing (either incarceration or probation)
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From page 116... ...
; this change has had no substantial effect on juvenile recidivism rates (see also Lundman, 1984~. CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS signed to the alternative parole program had lower recidivism rates, based on parole revocations, than those sent to an institution.
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From page 117... ...
Several evaTuations of these programs are currently in progress. Summary: Community-Base and Family Treatment Programs Experimental research suggests that for juvenile offenders, community-based treatment does no worse than routine juvenile justice system processing" including use of probation and training schools in affecting recidivism.
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From page 118... ...
However, even promising experimen CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS tat findings must be tested in practice because interventions that appear successful in a small short-term experiment may fait to have an effect once the program is implemented on a larger scale or in the context of the criminal justice system. Most career modification strategies (as well as preventive interventions)
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From page 119... ...
In addition to the criminal activity and drug results in the TOPS study, fulltime employment after treatment increased for outpatient cirug-free clients, but it declined somewhat for methadone clients (Hubbard et al., 19841. Less is known about the effect of residential treatment programs on criminal behavior for heroin or other drug users, but most of the available research concludes that residential treatment appears to reduce criminal behavior (see Coombs, 1981; DeLeon, 1984; Hubbard et al., 19841.
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From page 120... ...
or a rehabilitative impact on drug-using ot fenders. Career Modification: Interventions to Improve Employment Status The empirical association observed between chronic unemployment and frequent criminal activity suggests that in , ~ terventions that improve offenclers' employment status might also modify their criminal careers.
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From page 121... ...
. lends confidence to these conclusions." That evaluation covered criminal activity and found different program effects on the criminal career during the resiclential stay and the postresidential period.
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From page 122... ...
As described at the beginning of this chapter, there are two kinds of incapacitative effects: selective and collective. Incapacitative effects can be increased through collective incapacitation policies only by increasing the total level of incarceration; with selective incapacitation policies, the incapacitative effects might be increased by reallocating current capacity primarily to offenders who represent the greatest risk of offending.
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From page 123... ...
of this chapter. Collective Incapacitation Estimates of collective incapacitative effects focus on average consequences for crime reduction associated with incarceration.
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From page 124... ...
The estimates of incapacitative effects in Table 5-1 compare the crime rates actually reported by the FBI in the annual Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) to comparable estimates of the prevented crime rates attributable to inmates, i.e., the increment to the reported crime rate that would have occurred had the incarcerated inmates been free in the community.7 7To develop a "prevented crime rate" for inmates that is comparable with the reported crime rate, the "prevented crime rate" includes only those "prevented crimes" for inmates that would have been reported in the UCR.
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From page 125... ...
highlights some important considerations in estimating incapacitative effects. The procedure relies fundamentally on the product of the number of inmates who would be active if not in prison times an estimate of their individual crime rate, A
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From page 126... ...
Such career termination is of less concern when residual careers are much longer than average time served. On the basis of analyses of career length for robbery and burglary in Michigan, 10Inmates from three states California, Michigan, and Texas were surveyed.
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From page 127... ...
Incorporating career length, and the associated possibility that some criminal careers end during periods of incarceration, reduces estimates of the incapacitative effect and increases estimates of the prison population that would be required to achieve a 1 percent reduction from 1981 crime levels. This effect of career termination increases as time served by those incarcerated gets longer and as the fraction of offenders who have terminated their careers while incarcerated increases.
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From page 128... ...
The improvements in incapacitative effects for other cases shown in Table 5-1 are of similar magnitude. It is estimated that furler reductions in reported index crimes from 1981 levels would require at least 10 to 20 percent increases in inmate populations for each 1 percent reduction in crime.
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From page 129... ...
Selective incapacitation thus permits, and indeed encourages, different sentences for the same offense to accommodate the differences in crime potential among offenders. From a crime control perspective, such policies are attractive because of the promise they hoIct of preventing more crime for a given amount of prison space.
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From page 130... ...
Sentences Based on Offender Characteristics: The Rand Inmate Survey Scale Interest in exploring selective incapacitation policies was one stimulus for the seconc! Rand inmate survey, in which 2,190 incarcerated offenders from three states were asked for the information needed to estimate their indivi(lual crime rates for robbery and burglary.
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From page 131... ...
In the analysis of Policy 6, Greenwood suggested that a selective incapacitation policy of increasing the time served in prison for incarcerated robbers classified as high-rate offenders, while limiting the jai] terms of other incarcerated robbers to 1 year, would produce a more advantageous tradeoffbetween crime control and prison population effects than could be achieved by collective incapacitation policies.
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From page 132... ...
Slight differences in the methods used to calculate the crime reduction and prison population effects explain the differences in these results compared with those reported by Visher (Volume II:Figure 31. years by inmates classified as high-rate offenders, while reducing time served for all over inmates to 1 year, was estimated to reduce crime by 13 percent for California robbers, with an 8 percent decrease in the number of robbery inmates (Cohen, 1983:Figure 2; Visher, Volume II:Figure 31.
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From page 133... ...
Using Equations 5-1, 5-2, 5-3, and 5-5 of the technical note with Visher's parameter values, Cohen reestimated the effects on crime and prison population, assuming that residual careers average 5, 10, and 15 years (see Table 5-21. Properly accounting for career termination during periods of incarceration decreases the estimate of crime reduction through incapacitation because only a portion of total time served by inmates reduces time free for active offenders; some portion of incarceration time is served after careers have terminated.
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From page 134... ...
. , CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS than those that fail to adjust for these processes.
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From page 135... ...
Basec! on the estimates in Table 5-2, moclest crime reduction is possible from a selective incapacitation policy applier!
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From page 136... ...
The longer time served by each of the higher-risk groups would have selective incapacitative effects. Because offenders in higher-risk categories serve longer than those characterized as very good risks (Table 54)
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From page 137... ...
Time served as a result of subsequent commitments or career termination will increase the average monthly arrest rate reported here. SOURCE: Derived from data presented in Janus (198S:Tables 1 and 3~.
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From page 138... ...
. The average time to the first arrest in the follow-up period (for those ever arrested)
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From page 139... ...
The minimum sentence imposed would be selected from within the range of acceptable penalhes for the targeted offense type; whether the sentence is at the high or low end of that range would depend on the predictecI subsequent criminal activity associated with that offense type. While the offender-based selective incapacitation policies examined above have focusec!
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From page 140... ...
CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS pends on assumptions of arrest probabilities across different offender subpopulations: those arrested in a sampling year are assumed to have the same arrest risk per crime as those not arrested that year; and among arrestees, those with arrests averted are assumed to have the same arrest risk per crime as those without arrests averted. Violations of these assumptions will lead to biases in the estimates of crime reduction from chargebased policies: if offenders with prior records are more likely to be arrested for Weir future crimes (perhaps because they are better known to the police)
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From page 141... ...
Offenders are often diverse in their offending, engaging in several different offense types during their criminal careers. Thus, another consideration in choosing among alternative selective incapacitation policies might be the impact of a policy in preventing crimes other than the offense targeted for minimum prison terms.
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From page 142... ...
These differences in impact reflect differences in individual frequency rates, A, and in the prevailing levels of expected time served per crime, [S. for different subgroups: in general, the higher AJS is for any group under prevailing policy, the Tower wflT be the increases in prison population resulting from aTtemative selective incapacitation policies.
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From page 143... ...
The estimates also ignore any effects that incarceration might have on the future criminal careers of the incarcerated offenders; it is possible that it might lengthen or shorten those careers. Improving the estimates of incapacitative effects requires continued research characterizing individual criminal careers, particularly efforts to identify variations in those careers and in their interaction with the criminal justice system.
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From page 144... ...
CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS Equations 5-1 and 5-2 can be used to estimate the annual numbers of crimes committed by active offenders who are free and of crimes averted for active offenders who are incarcerated. Crimes committed, C, are calculated as C = N X A X (1 - 1)
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From page 145... ...
, which is less than or equal to C and which fails to take account 145 of spontaneous career terminations during incarceration, understates the number of crimes that are committed and so overstates the number of crimes that are avoided by incapacitation. Because of spontaneous career termination during incarcerations, only a portion of the total time served during a career can be counted as reducing crimes through incapacitation; the time spent incarcerated after a career ends has no incapacitative effect.
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From page 146... ...
. When career termination is ignored, all inmates are assumed to remain active in their criminal careers, ant!
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From page 147... ...
The differences in cost/benefit effects for different states are due to the considerable differences in the base levels of crime and prison populations for different values of.IS. At high values of IS, the system is operating effectively and presumably aIreacly has a sizable proportion of offenders in prison and a fairly low crime rate.
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From page 149... ...
149 _ ~ ~ _` ~ '_ ~ '_ ~ ~ _ _` ~ _ ~ oo o C~ C~ ~ ~ C]
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From page 150... ...
Note: Cost/benefit ratio with career length is derived using Equation 5-13 with A = 5 and TR = 10. end their criminal careers while incarcerated, the estimates of prison population increases for each 1 percent reduction in crime will always be larger (see Table 5-61.
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From page 151... ...
estimated Tower val ues for the mean individual crime rates in the three offender groups. Several other values of parameters for the incapacita tion model shifted slightly when she reestimated the incapacitative effects in Califomia (see Visher, Volume II:n.
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From page 152... ...
This variation across offender groups contributes to the much larger impact of career termination on the estimates of prison population than on crime reduction. In Greenwood's illustrative policy, high-rate offenders are assigned the longest time served.
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From page 153... ...
~] 82,437 95,920 95,367 273,724 Selective Policy No Career Terminationb Average time served in years (S)
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From page 154... ...
Because of the greater representation of high-rate robbers among inmates, their larger underestimates have more influence on the results for all inmates. The differences in the size of errors found across offender groups combine with differences in the contribution of different offender groups to total crimes and total inmates to result in finite careers having a larger effect on estimates of inmate populations than on crime reduction.
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