Criminal Careers and "Career Criminals," Volume II (1986) / Chapter Skim
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5. The Rand Inmate Survey: A Reanalysis
5. The Rand Inmate Survey: A Reanalysis
Pages 161-211
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From page 161... ...
, is highly skewed. Most of the inmates in the Rand survey reported small values of A, about five crimes per year, for most crime types.
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From page 162... ...
examinec3 the possibilities and consequences CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS of using this strategy selective incapacitation as a specific policy in sentencing convicted offenders. Using a simple scale of seven variables that correlated with high annual offending frequencies, Greenwood estimated that a particular selective incapacitation policy could reduce robbery rates by 20 percent without increasing the prison population in California.
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From page 163... ...
THE SECOND RAND INMATE SURVEY The Rand Corporation's 1978 survey of inmates extended previous work at Rand on studies of incarcerated offenders. In an exploratory study Petersilia, Greenwood,
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From page 164... ...
Re TABLE Type CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS placement procedures were used to reduce the usual problems of nonresponse bias. ESee Peterson et al.
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From page 165... ...
About 83 percent of the inmates "passed" the internal quality test, whereas only 56 percent achieved a similar level of external reliability.) Scattered evidence suggested that respondents who gave consistent and reliable answers were less likely to report very high offending frequencies and less likely to deny committing crimes.
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From page 166... ...
The specific wording of the questions is available in Chaiken and Chaiken (1982a:19-201. CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS characteristics than can typically be found in official records.
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From page 167... ...
. inmates who committed robbery or burglary in the measurement period dic3 so at rather Tow rates about five crimes per year.
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From page 168... ...
This pattern is consistent for robbery in the other states and for burglary, but the group differentials are widest in CaTifomia. CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS Variables Used in Scale to Distinguish Inmates by Individual Crime Rates Convicted previously for same charge (official criminal record; prison inmates only)
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From page 169... ...
Employment status, drug use, and juvenile criminal history account for five of the seven variables. Retributivists and others have pointed out that using these criteria as a basis for sentencing is contrary to the widely accepted "just deserts" philosophy, whereby differences in sentences are based on the seriousness of the conviction offense.
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From page 170... ...
Some critics were concerned about the availability of necessary information if predictions regarding future criminal behavior were to CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS be made (Blumstein, 1983; Cohen, 19831. Of course, Greenwoocl's scale, basecl on self-reportec3 information, was only suggestive of the kinds of factors that may be predictive of high-rate offending.
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From page 171... ...
This is particularly important because a selective sentencing policy wouIc3 be applied to convicted offenclers, and predictive information in that population may be different from that in a sample of inmates (Cohen, 19831. Other research has shown that predictive accuracy for the initial sample for which a prediction scale is constructed tends to be greater than for a separate validation sample (GottEredson and Got~redson, 1980; Farrington and TarTing, 1985~.
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From page 172... ...
Estimating A from the Rand Data Ideally, estimates of A for a group of offenders coulcI be obtained by having a CRIMINaL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS representative sample of"active" criminals keep daily logs of their criminal activities for an entire year. In the expected absence of that level of cooperation, a number of alternative methods for measuring unobservable behaviors have been clevelopecI.
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From page 173... ...
(203) NOTE: Active convicted robbers are those who admitted committing robbery during the measurement period, whereas "inactives" denied committing any robberies; the same distinction applies for convicted burglars.
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From page 174... ...
Of the inactive convicted burglars (N = 149) , 11 reported committing robbery.
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From page 175... ...
be cause of missing data. 175 TABLE 6 Cross-Tabulation of Rand s Average Estimate of Street Months for Robbers and Burglars by the Difference Between Rancl's Maximum and Minimum Estimates (percentages; N= 1,235)
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From page 176... ...
Review of Ranks procedures raised concerns that the strategy of using minimum and maximum estimates for street months could result in misTeacling estimates of A, especially when the minimum was exceptionally Tow. For the reanalysis, the following set of rules was establishe for choosing a single estimate of an in CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS mate's street months from the four available sources of informational 1.
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From page 177... ...
Determining Crimes Committed The numerator of A is the number of crimes of a specific type that the inmate reported committing cluring the months he was on the street, according to the calendar he filled in. Questions were asked about 10 crime types.
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From page 178... ...
The possible distortions introduced by Rand's procedure of using minimum and maximum estimates rather than a single estimate are discussed in a later section. The "average" or "typical" Tow-frequency offender, however, clid not report committing five or six crimes during his measurement period but more often admitted to only two or three crimes.
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From page 179... ...
The two groups with missing information, however, are essentially identical since missing data were already coded on the public-use tape of the inmates' responses. simulated the distribution of the responses to the follow-up question for the larger sample.10 In Table 8 the mean for inmates who answerer!
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From page 180... ...
CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS The procedures adopted in the reanalysis for dealing with missing data and other ambiguous responses were conservative. If inmates reported ranges for their answers, the midpoint was taken as the estimate.
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From page 181... ...
~ he annual o~ending frequencies for Me active robbers in Me CaTifomia and Michigan samples are ~/ ~ ~\ ~' TABLE 9 Distribution of A: Rand Minimum and Maximum Estimates and Estimate from the Reanalysis for Inmates Who Reported Committing Robbery or Burglary Robbery Burglary Rand Rand Reanalysis Rand Rand Reanalysis Statistic Minimum Maximum (Rand Avg.) Minimum Maximum (Rand Avg.)
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From page 182... ...
Biases are introduced because convicted persons are incarcerated selectively rather than randomly, that is, more serious, high-frequency offenders are incarcerated in greater numbers and for longer CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS periods than other offenders. California appears to be especially selective, limiting its available prison space to serious repeat offenders, and Texas appears to operate much less selectively.
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From page 183... ...
Moreover, respondents for whom the numerators or denominators are ambiguous and those with short street times do have higher A estimates than respondents with unambiguous responses. The values ofthe summary statistics for the unambiguous cases are much Tower than the values for all cases, as inclicatecI by the percentage change in column 6.
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From page 184... ...
analyzed the inmates' self-report crime ciata and found that some respondents committed crimes CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS in "spurts." However, the questionnaire design and the technique used to estimate A (especially for high-frequency offenders) in the Rand study assume stable monthly rates of criminal activity.
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From page 185... ...
with a logarithmic function before analysis. Such procedures preserve the orclering of inmates according to the frequency of their criminal activity but eliminate the need to rely on specific estimates of individual offending frequencies.
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From page 186... ...
in sentenc CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS ing, crime reduction, and controlling prison populations. Identifying the Seven Variables Greenwood initially iclentified 13 candiciate predictors of high-rate offenders on the basis of prior research and possible relevance.
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From page 187... ...
Because of interstate differences in Me indivi(lual items, however, the mean ranges from 3.12 in the CaTifomia sample to only 2.17 in Texas. Relationships Among Variables The conceptual and empirical relationships among the seven variables are not discussed in the Rand report.
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From page 188... ...
However, when the chi-square test is adjusted for missing ciata on the past-conviction variable, it is not significant at the .05 level.~4 Thus, the only official record information in Greenwood's scale is a poor predictor of high rates of robbery and burglary. Inclividually the seven variables show moderate to fairly strong associations with A (statistically significant at least at i4Greenwood tested the hypothesis that the percentage of inmates with the attribute in the three groups would be different from the marginal distribution of cases (50 percent low rate, 25 percent medium rate, 25 percent high rate)
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From page 189... ...
(292) NOTE: The sample is all convicted robbers or burglars; 36 cases were omitted because of missing data on A
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From page 190... ...
The questionnaire was CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS long, the skip patterns were complicated, and a few questions probably were confusing to some inmates; hence, respondents left some questions blank. As discussed above, Rand analysts used a variety of ways to deal with missing data for questions about number of crimes committed.
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From page 191... ...
Unfortunately, this variable is also the only official record measure in the scale, but it is not strongly related to high offending frequencies. In some ofthe following analyses, especially the tests of predictive accuracy, a sixpoint scale, which excludes the pastconvictions variable, is tried and the sensitivity of the results to this change is assessed.l5 Accuracy of Scale To simplify his analysis, Greenwooc!
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From page 192... ...
The large differences in the two estimates of mean offense rates reflect the lower, recomputed estimates of A and the redefinition of active burglars.~7 i7In addition, it was learned that the estimates of A for all the analyses concerning the seven-point These results confimn Mat estimates of A, especially the mean, are very sensitive to alternate me~ocls of computation. The scale were actually Rand's maximum estimates of A, ~ , ~ _ not the average of the minimum and maximum estimates, which was used by Chaiken and Chaiken.
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From page 193... ...
and three groups based on selfreports of crimes committed. fRecall that actual offense rates are partitioned into Tow-, medium-, and high-rate categories using the 50th (meclian)
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From page 194... ...
On the other hand, 54 to 55 percent of the convicted robbers and burglars are miscIassifiec3. However, these overall rates mask differences across states and offense types, which were not discussed in the the basis of their reported offending rates resulted in a distribution of 30 percent (low rate)
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From page 195... ...
Prediction scale without one variable past conviction for robbery or burglary- and using same cut points. BIncludes only respondents for whom A could be unambiguously calculated, and respondents with only slight ambiguity in responses to questions about number of crimes committed (N = 568)
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From page 196... ...
Convicted robbers (and burglars, but to a lesser extent) in California prisons and jails appear to be quite different from other respondents in the Rand inmate sample.
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From page 197... ...
Incapacitative Effects Using a Prediction Scale The primary objective of the Greenwood report was to identify high-rate offenders in the Rand sample and to deter mine whether targeted or "selective" incarceration could lead to decreases in crime, decreases in the prison population, or both. In this last phase of the reanalysis, Greenwood's procedures are used to estimate these incapacitation effects for robbers in California, and the sensitivity of his results to alternate estimates of A and to the reconstruction of his prediction scale are assessed.
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From page 198... ...
CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS d) , and the average time served for those incarcerated (S)
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From page 199... ...
The graph that is supposed to depict this relationship is live effects of a selective sentencing policy in Texas. As shown earlier, California and Texas inmates are very different in their individual offending frequencies and in their values on the predictor variables (especially juvenile criminal history and use of illegal drugs)
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From page 200... ...
The full set of revised parameters for the incapacitation model is given in Appendix Table A.4. Figure 3 shows two estimates of the potential incapacitative effects of a highly selective sentencing policy for convicted robbers in California; the dashed line represents a corrected interpretation of Greenwood's data and the solid line represents the reanalysis.
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From page 201... ...
Further details about estimating the potential incapacitative effects of a selective sentencing policy for robbers in Michigan are available from this author.
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From page 202... ...
Other analyses of the Rand data reveal that when career length is included in the model for CaTifomia, estimates of crime reduction Mat could be achieved by a selective sentencing policy drop to about 5 to 10 percent (Cohen, 1984a; Spelman, 19841. In a recent report on the duration of criminal careers, Blumstein, Cohen, and Hsieh (1982:55)
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From page 203... ...
Surprisingly, changing the cut points did not alter the average high rate A, which highlights the difficulty of dis tinguishing between medium-rate and high-rate offenders with the prediction scale. With the alternative scale cut points and resulting changes in the model's parameter values, the California robbery rate would actually increase about 6 percent under Greenwood's selective sentencing policy, although the imprisoned population would decrease about 20 percent.
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From page 204... ...
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS The single most important contribution of Ranc3's second inmate survey is the highlighting of the extreme skewness of CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS the distribution of A for a sample of known serious criminals. Although the technique used to elicit this information an(1 the Rand sample of incarcerated offenders may have introcluced errors into these estimates, the Rand study has significantly advanced our unclerstanding of individual patterns of criminal behavior.
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From page 205... ...
However, the scale used to identify high-rate offenders is more sensitive to the attributes of those offenders in California than to the attributes of high-rate offenders elsewhere. If the same sentencing policy and prediction scale were appliecl in Michigan and Texas, the crime rate would probably increase because of differences in current criminal justice practices and offender populations in the three states.
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From page 206... ...
. 12.1 26.5 35.8 46.0 52.2 65.7 73.1 77.0 79.1 80.4 83.9 99.9 (1982a:206, Variable CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS TABLE A.2 Regressions of Estimates of A on the Seven Variables in Greenwood's Scale: Inmates Convicted of Robbery or Burglary Unstandardized Coefficients Robbery Burglary I
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From page 207... ...
Low193 4122 Medium193 10988 High65 67108 California Robbers (N = 166) Low26 20 Medium35 139 High23 2632 Michigan Robbers (N = 142)
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From page 208... ...
1. Prior Conviction Official records for most prison inmates contained information on the number of past convictions for several crime types.
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From page 209... ...
(30.8) Under the current sentencing policy, the estimated incarcerated population is 13,930 (Table 5.1, p.
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From page 210... ...
1973 Preventive confinement: a suggested frame CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS work for constitutional analysis. Texas Law Review 51:1277-1324.
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From page 211... ...
Spelman, B 1984 A Sensitivity Analysis of the Rand Inmate Surveys.
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