Since 2008 is rounding down, I thought I'd post a list of my favorite journal articles that were published this year in top crim journals. At first I thought I'd just post my top ten articles and rank order them, but I quickly realized that I had so many favorite pieces this year and couldn't possible put them in any kind of order. The journals I'm including are Criminology, Criminology & Public Policy, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Crime and Delinquency, Crime & Justice: A Review of Research, Justice Quarterly, Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Journal of Experimental Criminology, Journal of Criminal Justice, Criminal Justice & Behavior, The Prison Journal, and Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. So here goes my top 20 in 2008:
1. "On The Relationship Between Family Structure and Antisocial Behavior: Parental Cohabitation and Blended Households" by Robert Apel and Catherine Kaukinen in Criminology (46,1).
2. "Targeted Enforcement and Adverse System Side Effects: The Generation of Fugitives in Philadelphia" by John Goldkamp and Rely Vilcica in Criminology (46, 2).
3. "Policing Crime and Disorder Hot Spots: A Randomized Controlled Trial" by Anthony Braga and Brenda Bond in Criminology (46, 3).
4. "The Victimization-Termination Link" by Scott Jacques and Richard Wright in Criminology (46, 4).
5. "Self Control Theory and the Concept of Opportunity: The Case for a More Systematic Union" by Carter Hay and Walter Forrest in Criminology (46, 4).
6. "Can and Should Criminological Research Influence Policy? Suggestions for Time-Series Cross-Section Studies" by Thomas Marvell and Carlisle Moody in Criminology & Public Policy (7, 3).
7. "Analyzing Criminal Trajectory Profiles: Bridging Multilevel and Group-Based Approaches Using Growth Mixture Modeling" by Frank Kreuter and Bengt Muthen in Journal of Quantitative Criminology (24, 1).
8. "Estimating Mean Length of Stay in Prison: Methods and Applications" by Evelyn Patterson and Samuel Preston in Journal of Quantitative Criminology (24, 1).
9. "Specifying the Relationship Between Crime and Prisons" by William Spelman in Journal of Quantitative Criminology (24, 2).
10. "Were Wolfgang's Chronic Offenders Psychopaths? On The Convergent Validity Between Psychopathy and Career Criminality" by Michael Vaughn and Matt Delisi in Journal of Criminal Justice (36, 1).
11. "Economists' Contribution to the Study of Crime and the Criminal Justice System" by Shawn Bushway and Peter Reuter in Crime & Justice (vol. 37).
12. "How Well Do Criminologists Explain Crime? Statistical Modeling in Published Studies" by David Weisburd and Alex Piquero in Crime & Justice (vol. 37).
13. "Inmate Social Ties and the Transition to Society: Does Visitation Reduce Recidivism?" by William Bales and Daniel Mears in Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency (45, 3).
14. "Evidence of Negligible Parenting Influences on Self-Control, Delinquent Peers, and Delinquency in a Sample of Twins" by John Wright, Kevin Beaver, Matt Delisi, and Michael Vaughn in Justice Quarterly (25, 3).
15. "Genetic Influences on the Stability of Low Self-Control: Results from a Longitudinal Sample of Twins" by Kevin Beaver, John Wright, Matt Delisi, and Michael Vaughn in Journal of Criminal Justice (36, 6).
16. "The Deterrent Effect of Executions: A Meta-Analysis Thirty Years after Ehrlich" by Bijou Yang and David Lester in Journal of Criminal Justice (36, 5).
17. "Offender Coercion in Treatment: A Meta-Analysis of Effectiveness" by Karen Parhar, J. Stephen Wormith, Dena Derkzen, and Adele Beauregard in Criminal Justice & Behavior (35, 9).
18. "Projecting Prison Populations Starting With Projected Admissions" by Pablo Martinez in The Prison Journal (88, 4).
19. "Estimating The Impact of Incarceration on Subsequent Offending Trajectories: Deterrent, Criminogenic, or Null Effect?" by Avinash Bhati and Alex Piquero in Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (Fall 2008)
20. "Scholarly Influence in Criminology and Criminal Justice Journals in 1990-2000" by Ellen Cohn and David Farrington in Journal of Criminal Justice (36, 1).
I haven't sat down to think about a top list of books that came out this year, but two edited volumes come to mind that I particularly enjoyed this year: "Out Of Control: Assessing The General Theory of Crime" (edited by Erich Goode) and "The Long View of Crime: A Synthesis of Longitudinal Research" (edited by Akiva Liberman).
Hey, before I go, check out the below video. It's completely unrelated to this post but anyone who enjoys statistics will find this hilarious. It's been circulating the web for a while. I still laugh every time I watch it though:
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Monday, December 8, 2008
A Minority Report and Clockwork Orange
I recently borrowed the movie "A Clockwork Orange" from my brother-in-law and watched it over the Thanksgiving break. I also recently rented the movie "Minority Report" at Blockbuster and was watching that movie the other night. Both of these movies got me to thinking. If we were actually able to develop and combine the futuristic criminal justice "tools" created in these two movies, wouldn't we have an absolutely perfect criminal justice system and a crime rate near zero? Maybe or maybe not. 
The PA Department of Corrections (where I currently work) uses a three-pronged approach for maximizing our correctional resources in order to prepare offenders for successful return to the community: (1) assessment, (2) treatment, and (3) reentry. With a "precrime" unit like in Minority Report, we would have a perfect risk assessment tool with an error rate of zero. Our risk assessment process would leave nothing to chance. We would have no false positives or false negatives. We would know exactly who would and would not re-offend after serving their term in prison. So you might say at that point, "well then there's no need to go any further since we can perfectly predict who will re-offend and can just lock those offenders up permenantly". No need for our second our third prong (i.e., treatment or reentry), right? But wait, what if we had a "rehabilitation program" like in Clockwork Orange. This program would be perfectly successful and would have a recidivism rate of 0%. All participants in this program would be reformed. So now we're in even better shape because we have both a perfect assessment system and a perfect treatment system. At that point I can offer you a criminal justice system that will virtually eliminate crime and come at a bargain price to the taxpayers.
Here's how it works. Arrest rates go way down since all crimes are "foreseen" by the precrime unit and are thus quickly prevented. The need for an extensive police force goes way down since investigation is no longer a needed police tool. Some criminals will still get away with their crime though, since the police may simply not get there in time to prevent it (after all, the police are still human). Those who actually pull one off will get arrested and will go straight to prison to serve their sentence. "Wait", you say, "don't they have to go to court first"? Nope, we already know with 100% certainty that they did it. So criminal courts get eliminated. The only criteria necessary for determining guilt has already been foreseen by the precrime unit. So once they get to prison they receive another "precog assessment" from the precrime unit to determine if they will commit other crimes in the future after prison. If not, they get to serve out their time in a cheap, low-security community corrections center. We gotta punish them still (retribution won't go away), but no need for fancy security options since we know they're no risk of going anywhere or hurting anyone. For those who are going to re-offend, they spend their prison term in a Clockwork Orange-style "Ludovico Technique" treatment program. At the end of the program they're cured. In addition to their time served in prison for the treatment program, we tack on some additional retributive sentence for them to serve and then let them out of prison too. The average length of stay in prison goes way down and a large percentage of our would-be prison population are now in community correction centers, so we need a lot less prisons. We achieve a 0% recidivism rate so there's no need for a parole board or a community supervision period after prison. Just imagine the cost savings. One big state like Pennsylvania alone could save billions of dollars each year, all the while reducing crime at an exponential rate.
Is this system perfect though? Remember that both Minority Report and A Clockwork Orange ended on a sour note. In Minority Report, the pre-crime unit is corrupted by such an exceeding power. Tom Cruise's character is predicted to commit a crime, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy, with the prediction actually driving his act. The movie ends with the pre-crime unit being permenantly shut down. In Clockwork Orange, the movie ends with the main character so beaten down by his unsuccessful return to the community that he begins to fantasize of returning to crime (ah ha, so that third prong of reentry may still matter in the equation). The Anthony Burgess book (from which the Clockwork Orange movie is based on) actually goes into more detail about the main character's return to his life of crime. As an aside, interestingly enough near the end of the book the main character Alex runs into an old criminal friend Pete who is now a reformed married man. Maybe marriage is a better formula for success than the aversion therapy Ludovico Technique (criminologists Robert Sampson and John Laub would certainly agree with this).
So we should be careful what we wish for. Several criminologists have already written about the ethical dangers of criminal prediction (see Bernard Harcourt's work for example). And I believe that one of the things that the whole reentry literature implicitly points out is that we may be successful to a certain degree at rehabilitating individual offenders but have little power to control or change the community and inter-personal dynamics for which individual offenders return to after prison. Humans are social creatures who don't act in a vacuum.
It is an interesting thought experiment to take to its logical conclusion what would happen if the goals we work towards every day in the criminal justice system were actually realized. I could obviously spend a lot longer expounding on the themes of these two movies and envisioning that utopian criminal justice system, but I'm interested in others' thoughts. Or, just share your favorite scenes/lines from these two great movies. If you haven't seen them, go see them. I'm waiting to see the journal article entitled "A Minority Report, A Clockwork Orange, and the Ethics of Utopia in Criminology".
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Desistance
Desistance. This is a word that consumes much of my thinking. It's a fancy word for stopping or quitting, and when referenced in criminology it refers to the process of stopping or quitting criminal behavior. Various frameworks within criminology, including lifecourse criminology, developmental criminology, and the criminal career paradigm, attempt to provide explanations for desistance.
So what factors lead to desistance among active criminal offenders? Typical answers that have been expounded upon in the desistance literature to date include factors such as a quality marriage, employment, military service, or a cognitive transformation. I read two recent articles that explore interesting new factors that may be related to desistance. These two articles currently have me excited.
The first article was published this year in Social Science Research and is entitled "Desistance from Delinquency: The Marriage Effect Revisited and Extended". This piece by Kevin Beaver et. al. explores whether there is a genetic component to desistance. Sounds like a crazy idea at first glance doesn't it? Kevin Beaver and colleagues have been championing biosocial explanations for criminal behavior (and now quitting criminal behavior), and they generally find that the interaction between biological and sociological factors are the strongest predictors. So each has a small impact in and of itself, but the interaction between the two often demonstrates a larger impact. In this particular article they confirm previous findings that marriage in and of itself does significantly influence desistance. But they also find that some genetic polymorphisms also predict desistance and that the interaction between marriage and these genetic polymorphisms also predicted desistance. Thanks to Beaver and colleagues biology is back in criminology, and I think this is a good thing!
The second article I recently read on desistance was in my new issue of Criminology that came in the mail a couple of days ago. This piece is by Scott Jacques and Richard Wright and is entitled "The Victimization-Termination Link". What they basically find here is that some offenders desist from criminal behavior when they eventually become a victim themselves. This victimization in a sense causes them to rethink their criminal lifestyle. This is very interesting to me. We've know for some time that offenders are more likely to also be victims, primarily because of their lifestyles or routine activities (see Hindelang, Gottfredson, and Garofalo, 1978). It's interesting though to think of this victimization risk in a longitudinal perspective, as a factor potentially leading to desistance.
Of course neither of these findings lend themselves to any real policy implications. I'm no medical scientist but I don't believe we can change people's genetic makeup. I don't think we want to implement a policy that makes offenders become victimized either. But from a risk factor/prediction approach, these two factors might at least improve our understanding of criminal desistance. I don't think we should just limit our independent variables to dynamic factors that we can change or manipulate (neither do I think that there is any serious movement to suggest this, since age has always been on the table as an important predictor of offending). I'll end with one last thought. It occurs to me that particularly harsh, deterrence-based punishment in a sense might generate a victimization effect among offenders. What implications does the piece on the victimization-termination link have for the deterrence literature?
Happy Thanksgiving!
So what factors lead to desistance among active criminal offenders? Typical answers that have been expounded upon in the desistance literature to date include factors such as a quality marriage, employment, military service, or a cognitive transformation. I read two recent articles that explore interesting new factors that may be related to desistance. These two articles currently have me excited.
The first article was published this year in Social Science Research and is entitled "Desistance from Delinquency: The Marriage Effect Revisited and Extended". This piece by Kevin Beaver et. al. explores whether there is a genetic component to desistance. Sounds like a crazy idea at first glance doesn't it? Kevin Beaver and colleagues have been championing biosocial explanations for criminal behavior (and now quitting criminal behavior), and they generally find that the interaction between biological and sociological factors are the strongest predictors. So each has a small impact in and of itself, but the interaction between the two often demonstrates a larger impact. In this particular article they confirm previous findings that marriage in and of itself does significantly influence desistance. But they also find that some genetic polymorphisms also predict desistance and that the interaction between marriage and these genetic polymorphisms also predicted desistance. Thanks to Beaver and colleagues biology is back in criminology, and I think this is a good thing!
The second article I recently read on desistance was in my new issue of Criminology that came in the mail a couple of days ago. This piece is by Scott Jacques and Richard Wright and is entitled "The Victimization-Termination Link". What they basically find here is that some offenders desist from criminal behavior when they eventually become a victim themselves. This victimization in a sense causes them to rethink their criminal lifestyle. This is very interesting to me. We've know for some time that offenders are more likely to also be victims, primarily because of their lifestyles or routine activities (see Hindelang, Gottfredson, and Garofalo, 1978). It's interesting though to think of this victimization risk in a longitudinal perspective, as a factor potentially leading to desistance.
Of course neither of these findings lend themselves to any real policy implications. I'm no medical scientist but I don't believe we can change people's genetic makeup. I don't think we want to implement a policy that makes offenders become victimized either. But from a risk factor/prediction approach, these two factors might at least improve our understanding of criminal desistance. I don't think we should just limit our independent variables to dynamic factors that we can change or manipulate (neither do I think that there is any serious movement to suggest this, since age has always been on the table as an important predictor of offending). I'll end with one last thought. It occurs to me that particularly harsh, deterrence-based punishment in a sense might generate a victimization effect among offenders. What implications does the piece on the victimization-termination link have for the deterrence literature?
Happy Thanksgiving!
Sunday, November 16, 2008
ASC 2008
I just got back from the American Society of Criminology's (ASC) Annual Meeting in St. Louis. This is my fifth year attending ASC. It was another exciting conference. I always look forward to this time of year. This is one of the most exciting and intellectually stimulating part of my year. I still remember the first year that I went to ASC. I was like a kid in the candy store as I stood in awe of all of the famous criminologists that I had read about in textbooks and now was seeing and hearing in person. I still get as excited as I was my first year there.
Several themes/sessions stuck out this year. The first session I attended was one on biosocial predictors of crime. I attended a session on this last year. Kevin Beaver and John Wright were the presenters. They have really been championing this topic among criminologists. I think it's important because biological factors have long been ignored within the discipline. I like what one of the presenters on this panel said (can't remember which one) when he said that "we are building a mythical knowledge base in criminology by ignoring biological factors". It's clear from their research that biological factors don't have a large impact when observed alone but do have a large impact when they interact with sociological factors.
I went to an "author meets critic" session on a new book by Rolf Loeber on the Pittsburgh Youth Study. I'm looking forward to reading this book. It appears that they spend some time in this book trying to sort out risk factors from protective factors. I think it is an interestng concept that protective factors don't have to necessarily be just the opposite of risk factors. I'll probably put this book on my Christmas list.
The "criminal career paradigm" is alive and well. I went to a session on that. Shawn Bushway gave a presentation on "late bloomers", which I remember John Laub saying in my 'Crime & The Life Course' class that this is an ignored group of offenders. There was also a presentation on youth and employment. Dan Nagin gave a very informative review of the literature on the relationship between imprisonment and crime.
Steve Belenko gave an interesting presentation on the relationship between drugs and crime, which I just caught the tail end of. Based in inmate records, he was able to recreate a blood-alcohol content (BAC) level at the time at which the offender's crime was created. Congrats too to Steve Belenko for becoming a fellow of the Academy of Experimental Criminology at ASC. I'm glad we're partnering with Steve on future AOD evaluations at the PA Dept. of Corrections; I think he's a top-notch researcher.
Speaking of the Academy of Experimental Criminology, David Weisburd gave the Joan McCord lecture in which he argued for the use of experimental designs in criminal justice evaluations. He suggested that many researchers try to make the case that quasi-experimental designs are "good enough" but laid out several reasons why this is not the case. Very interesting.
I went to two sessions on the "origins of American criminology". Apparently Frank Cullen is putting some sort of book on the subject. Several presenters during these sessions described the personal and professional lives and development of several important American criminologists across different theoretical traditions. You know I'm a big fan of the history of our field so I really enjoyed these sessions.
Speaking of the history of criminology, I thought Bob Bursik gave an excellent presidential address this year in which he talked about resurrecting the "dead sea scrolls" of important yet forgotten older criminological works. He criticized the field for being selectively biased towards the work of more recent and "popular" criminologists. He also criticized the idea of having the number of publications being a measure of success for academics in the field. Give me a research with just four important publications, he says, and I'll take that person any day over one who pumps several out each year. The way I'd interpret it is that he was calling for criminologists to temper their egos and remember the Biblical words that "there is nothing new under the sun". He talked about several examples of forgotten criminologists such as Solomon Kobrin, Herbert Bloch (for whom he says actually anticipated most of the ideas of Sampson and Laub interestingly enough), and Ruth Shonle Cavan. I can't wait to read his speech when it appears in the issue of Criminology.
Again, another successful year of ASC. It was intellectually stimulating, exciting, tiring, and fun all at the same time. I have many more thoughts and there were several other interesting sessions and topics that I heard but time permits me from going on tonight. I may write more on my thoughts on this year's ASC in another blog. I'm looking forward to ASC 2009 in Philadelphia!
Several themes/sessions stuck out this year. The first session I attended was one on biosocial predictors of crime. I attended a session on this last year. Kevin Beaver and John Wright were the presenters. They have really been championing this topic among criminologists. I think it's important because biological factors have long been ignored within the discipline. I like what one of the presenters on this panel said (can't remember which one) when he said that "we are building a mythical knowledge base in criminology by ignoring biological factors". It's clear from their research that biological factors don't have a large impact when observed alone but do have a large impact when they interact with sociological factors.
I went to an "author meets critic" session on a new book by Rolf Loeber on the Pittsburgh Youth Study. I'm looking forward to reading this book. It appears that they spend some time in this book trying to sort out risk factors from protective factors. I think it is an interestng concept that protective factors don't have to necessarily be just the opposite of risk factors. I'll probably put this book on my Christmas list.
The "criminal career paradigm" is alive and well. I went to a session on that. Shawn Bushway gave a presentation on "late bloomers", which I remember John Laub saying in my 'Crime & The Life Course' class that this is an ignored group of offenders. There was also a presentation on youth and employment. Dan Nagin gave a very informative review of the literature on the relationship between imprisonment and crime.
Steve Belenko gave an interesting presentation on the relationship between drugs and crime, which I just caught the tail end of. Based in inmate records, he was able to recreate a blood-alcohol content (BAC) level at the time at which the offender's crime was created. Congrats too to Steve Belenko for becoming a fellow of the Academy of Experimental Criminology at ASC. I'm glad we're partnering with Steve on future AOD evaluations at the PA Dept. of Corrections; I think he's a top-notch researcher.
Speaking of the Academy of Experimental Criminology, David Weisburd gave the Joan McCord lecture in which he argued for the use of experimental designs in criminal justice evaluations. He suggested that many researchers try to make the case that quasi-experimental designs are "good enough" but laid out several reasons why this is not the case. Very interesting.
I went to two sessions on the "origins of American criminology". Apparently Frank Cullen is putting some sort of book on the subject. Several presenters during these sessions described the personal and professional lives and development of several important American criminologists across different theoretical traditions. You know I'm a big fan of the history of our field so I really enjoyed these sessions.
Speaking of the history of criminology, I thought Bob Bursik gave an excellent presidential address this year in which he talked about resurrecting the "dead sea scrolls" of important yet forgotten older criminological works. He criticized the field for being selectively biased towards the work of more recent and "popular" criminologists. He also criticized the idea of having the number of publications being a measure of success for academics in the field. Give me a research with just four important publications, he says, and I'll take that person any day over one who pumps several out each year. The way I'd interpret it is that he was calling for criminologists to temper their egos and remember the Biblical words that "there is nothing new under the sun". He talked about several examples of forgotten criminologists such as Solomon Kobrin, Herbert Bloch (for whom he says actually anticipated most of the ideas of Sampson and Laub interestingly enough), and Ruth Shonle Cavan. I can't wait to read his speech when it appears in the issue of Criminology.
Again, another successful year of ASC. It was intellectually stimulating, exciting, tiring, and fun all at the same time. I have many more thoughts and there were several other interesting sessions and topics that I heard but time permits me from going on tonight. I may write more on my thoughts on this year's ASC in another blog. I'm looking forward to ASC 2009 in Philadelphia!
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Criminology Through The Eyes of Faith
The idea that knowledge can come from any place other than science is anathema to many within the modern intellectual community. This particular blog may even place me in bad standing among some of my future intellectual peers in academia, but I think it is an important and interesting topic to discuss (or at least for me). The fundamental question is "how can I rectify the ideas of criminological theory with my personal spiritual faith and worldview?"
To those who would point to science as the pinnicle of all knowledge and require that God be proven scientifically, I ask them to consider the deeper epistemology of their scientific knowledge. How do we really know what we know? Even if one does not believe in God, are there not common fundamental principles of logic that form a foundation for discovering any kind of knowledge, whether it be scientific knowledge or knowledge of God? I believe in the importance of people having a unifying worldview that they are able to articulate and apply to every area of their lives. So, I want to use this particular post to inject some thoughts stemming from my personal faith/worldview into this blog on the topic of criminology. As always, I'm looking for discussion and people to engage me on these topics.
When I was working on my undergraduate degree in sociology at a small Christian liberal arts school, I came across a series of books in my coursework that have always stuck in the back of my mind. I'm not sure if this is the correct title for the series of books, but I refer to them as the "through the eyes of faith" series. Each book in the series examined a different academic subject "through the eyes of faith". For example, as a sociology major I was required to read the "Sociology Through The Eyes of Faith" book. But I never came across a "Criminology Through The Eyes of Faith" book. In one of my last blogs, I mentioned that I've often wondered what my first book will be when I finish my Ph.D. work. I already talked about what may be my first book idea. My second book idea, though, would be a contribution to the "through the eyes of faith" series with a new book entitled "Criminology Through The Eyes of Faith". Here's some preliminary thoughts on how I would tie in ideas from criminological theory with ideas from my faith.
First, I believe that my faith is most consistent with the classical school of criminology (my affinity to social control theory will probably become more and more obvious as I blog more on this site). Specifically, many of the modern theories in criminology that grow out of the classical school tradition in criminology begin by turning the fundamental questions of positive criminology on their head. Positive school criminologists ask how individuals become criminal, or how one is "pressured into crime" (Agnew, 2006). Classical school criminologists reverse the important questions and ask why individuals obey the law or behave, given a natural human tendency to maximize pleasure over pain. This is consistent with the Biblical worldview that all humans are born with a sinful nature. Under the Biblical worldview, a person is not born as a clean slate, as is suggested by positivist criminology. The gravitation of the human will is towards "sin" from day one. This worldview is empirically supported implicitly in the work of Nagin and Trembley on childhood aggression. In their work, they find that when aggression is used as the dependent variable instead of state-defined criminal behavior, aggression does not peak in the late teens to early twenties like criminal behavior tends to do, but instead peaks at around two years old. So two year olds are the most aggressive in our society! This would be very difficult to observe if behavior like this must be learned in life instead of being part of an inherited universal human tendency. It seems from Nagin and Tremblay's findings that we have to explain the downside of that aggression curve after age two (i.e., why do most children decline in aggression after age two?).
This is where I think theories like routine activities theory, deterrence/rational choice theory, and social control theory come in. These theories all avoid looking for predictors of some positive compulsion towards criminal behavior. Instead they examine what keeps anyone from committing crimes. Routine activities theory suggests that something within the situation deters or prevents a criminal event from occuring(i.e., the lack of a suitable target or the defense provided by a "capable guardian"), even though the motivation for criminal behavior is always there as a constant. Deterrence/rational choice theory suggests that crime is prevented when the costs of a particular criminal event outweigh the benefits to a would-be offender. Social control theory suggests that the human "sin" tendency is contained by social institutions (both formal and informal) that carry some level of attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief on the part of the individual, for which he or she does not wish to jeoporadize losing through criminal behavior.
One theory that I particularly like is Gottfredson and Hirschi's Self-Control theory (Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990). Recall from their theory that criminal propensity is analagous to low self-control, which is a character trait that all possess originally in life but that is contained by most, primarily through good parenting, by around the age of ten. Those who do not develop self-control after that age generally possess a fixed criminal propensity for the remainder of their lives (I do not like this aspect of their theory, since it denies the Biblical concept of redemption). Their definition of self-control (although I know this definition is debatable and has evolved even for Gottfredson and Hirschi) is something along the line of discounting future costs for short term gain. Does this not basically squarely fit with modern secularism. I was listening just today to a lecture by noted Presbyterian theologian R.C. Sproul on the topic of secularism. Secularism denies that there is any reality outside of our existence here and now on earth. This is the ultimate discounting of the future. Could a measure of a secularist worldview identify an association between this worldview and criminal behavior? Would this not in part fit with self-control theory? To me, the opposite of true self-control is self-worship, and self-worship is the hallmark of secular humanism.
Here's another concept that I think fits with my worldview. I was also reading a piece by Cook and Laub (2002) today on the downturn of the youth violence epidemic after 1993/1994. They examine period and cohort explanations for these macro-crime trends. Of course they are not the only to do so. My mentor Al Blumstein has done the same in his book on the crime drop. But I find the whole categorizaton of explanations by the label of "period" and "cohort" interesting. From my worldview, since the "sinful human nature" is universal, the only cohort effect that could ever really be expected to impact macro-crime trends in any meaningful way is simply the size of the cohort. One cohort should not be expected to be more or less "sinful" than another. Thus, I think period explanations for macro-crime trends, many of which are "routine activity" in nature, fit more clearly with a Biblical worldview.
I could continue this blog but let me just wrap up by suggesting one other thing. I don't like when I hear Christians basically say that criminology is a simple discipline because the explanation for crime is just "sin". I do indeed believe that sin is the root explanation for criminal behavior. But it is also the root explanation for health problems. And yet why do some sinners commit crimes while others don't and why do some sinners get cancer while others don't. We don't say to medical scientists that they should just accept "sin" as the answer to their inquiry. We don't hear Christians going around saying that sin causes cancer either; instead they say things like "smoking causes cancer". So to me the interesting thing for a Christian criminologist to figure out is why sin plays itself out in criminal behavior for some but plays itself out for others in other areas that are not criminally related.
To those who would point to science as the pinnicle of all knowledge and require that God be proven scientifically, I ask them to consider the deeper epistemology of their scientific knowledge. How do we really know what we know? Even if one does not believe in God, are there not common fundamental principles of logic that form a foundation for discovering any kind of knowledge, whether it be scientific knowledge or knowledge of God? I believe in the importance of people having a unifying worldview that they are able to articulate and apply to every area of their lives. So, I want to use this particular post to inject some thoughts stemming from my personal faith/worldview into this blog on the topic of criminology. As always, I'm looking for discussion and people to engage me on these topics.
When I was working on my undergraduate degree in sociology at a small Christian liberal arts school, I came across a series of books in my coursework that have always stuck in the back of my mind. I'm not sure if this is the correct title for the series of books, but I refer to them as the "through the eyes of faith" series. Each book in the series examined a different academic subject "through the eyes of faith". For example, as a sociology major I was required to read the "Sociology Through The Eyes of Faith" book. But I never came across a "Criminology Through The Eyes of Faith" book. In one of my last blogs, I mentioned that I've often wondered what my first book will be when I finish my Ph.D. work. I already talked about what may be my first book idea. My second book idea, though, would be a contribution to the "through the eyes of faith" series with a new book entitled "Criminology Through The Eyes of Faith". Here's some preliminary thoughts on how I would tie in ideas from criminological theory with ideas from my faith.
First, I believe that my faith is most consistent with the classical school of criminology (my affinity to social control theory will probably become more and more obvious as I blog more on this site). Specifically, many of the modern theories in criminology that grow out of the classical school tradition in criminology begin by turning the fundamental questions of positive criminology on their head. Positive school criminologists ask how individuals become criminal, or how one is "pressured into crime" (Agnew, 2006). Classical school criminologists reverse the important questions and ask why individuals obey the law or behave, given a natural human tendency to maximize pleasure over pain. This is consistent with the Biblical worldview that all humans are born with a sinful nature. Under the Biblical worldview, a person is not born as a clean slate, as is suggested by positivist criminology. The gravitation of the human will is towards "sin" from day one. This worldview is empirically supported implicitly in the work of Nagin and Trembley on childhood aggression. In their work, they find that when aggression is used as the dependent variable instead of state-defined criminal behavior, aggression does not peak in the late teens to early twenties like criminal behavior tends to do, but instead peaks at around two years old. So two year olds are the most aggressive in our society! This would be very difficult to observe if behavior like this must be learned in life instead of being part of an inherited universal human tendency. It seems from Nagin and Tremblay's findings that we have to explain the downside of that aggression curve after age two (i.e., why do most children decline in aggression after age two?).
This is where I think theories like routine activities theory, deterrence/rational choice theory, and social control theory come in. These theories all avoid looking for predictors of some positive compulsion towards criminal behavior. Instead they examine what keeps anyone from committing crimes. Routine activities theory suggests that something within the situation deters or prevents a criminal event from occuring(i.e., the lack of a suitable target or the defense provided by a "capable guardian"), even though the motivation for criminal behavior is always there as a constant. Deterrence/rational choice theory suggests that crime is prevented when the costs of a particular criminal event outweigh the benefits to a would-be offender. Social control theory suggests that the human "sin" tendency is contained by social institutions (both formal and informal) that carry some level of attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief on the part of the individual, for which he or she does not wish to jeoporadize losing through criminal behavior.
One theory that I particularly like is Gottfredson and Hirschi's Self-Control theory (Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990). Recall from their theory that criminal propensity is analagous to low self-control, which is a character trait that all possess originally in life but that is contained by most, primarily through good parenting, by around the age of ten. Those who do not develop self-control after that age generally possess a fixed criminal propensity for the remainder of their lives (I do not like this aspect of their theory, since it denies the Biblical concept of redemption). Their definition of self-control (although I know this definition is debatable and has evolved even for Gottfredson and Hirschi) is something along the line of discounting future costs for short term gain. Does this not basically squarely fit with modern secularism. I was listening just today to a lecture by noted Presbyterian theologian R.C. Sproul on the topic of secularism. Secularism denies that there is any reality outside of our existence here and now on earth. This is the ultimate discounting of the future. Could a measure of a secularist worldview identify an association between this worldview and criminal behavior? Would this not in part fit with self-control theory? To me, the opposite of true self-control is self-worship, and self-worship is the hallmark of secular humanism.
Here's another concept that I think fits with my worldview. I was also reading a piece by Cook and Laub (2002) today on the downturn of the youth violence epidemic after 1993/1994. They examine period and cohort explanations for these macro-crime trends. Of course they are not the only to do so. My mentor Al Blumstein has done the same in his book on the crime drop. But I find the whole categorizaton of explanations by the label of "period" and "cohort" interesting. From my worldview, since the "sinful human nature" is universal, the only cohort effect that could ever really be expected to impact macro-crime trends in any meaningful way is simply the size of the cohort. One cohort should not be expected to be more or less "sinful" than another. Thus, I think period explanations for macro-crime trends, many of which are "routine activity" in nature, fit more clearly with a Biblical worldview.
I could continue this blog but let me just wrap up by suggesting one other thing. I don't like when I hear Christians basically say that criminology is a simple discipline because the explanation for crime is just "sin". I do indeed believe that sin is the root explanation for criminal behavior. But it is also the root explanation for health problems. And yet why do some sinners commit crimes while others don't and why do some sinners get cancer while others don't. We don't say to medical scientists that they should just accept "sin" as the answer to their inquiry. We don't hear Christians going around saying that sin causes cancer either; instead they say things like "smoking causes cancer". So to me the interesting thing for a Christian criminologist to figure out is why sin plays itself out in criminal behavior for some but plays itself out for others in other areas that are not criminally related.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Parole Moratorium
If anyone out there follows Pennsylvania criminal justice news stories, you're probably aware that we currently have a parole moratorium in our state (i.e., no parole releases are permitted from our state Dept. of Corrections). This was the result of an unfortunate recent situation in which a parolee who had only been out of prison for about a month shot and killed a Philadelphia police officer. This is the latest in a series of cop shootings in Philadelphia. Everybody is asking "what could have been done differently?" and "why did this happen?" We can't probe Mr. Giddings (the parolee in this incident) for answers because he was shot and killed in the subsequent gunfight with the police. Giddings fit the perfect mold for Moffitt's "lifecourse persistent" offender typology though. He had a criminal career that began at age 10 with a strong-arm robbery of a mentally ill person (sounds like Stanley in Shaw's "Jack-Roller" huh?). He most likely was a psychopath. In retrospect, all indications were that he was going to act out violently again. The problem is that these types of individuals are very difficult to identify prospectively. Is there any risk prediction tool for early identification of an individual like this? Is there any correctional treatment program that stands any chance of being effective with such an offender? I'm interested in any thoughts/discussion on this situation, either from a policy perspective or a theoretical perspective.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Criminology In The Making (Part 2)
Has anyone read the book Criminology In The Making: An Oral History by John Laub? In this book, John presents his personal interviews with several pioneer criminologists including Edwin Lemert, Donald Cressey, Thorsten Sellin, Al Cohen, Lloyd Ohlin, and Daniel Glaser. I love this book. I think we need more students of the history of our discipline. So I often ask myself "what is my first book going to be once I'm finished this whole Ph.D. thing?". I have this idea of doing a follow-up to John's book which will include interviews with another generation of "giants" in criminology (a Criminology In The Making: Part II if you will). Particularly I'd love to do an extended interview with Al Blumstein and Travis Hirschi. John already did an interview with Travis Hirschi (who by the way was John's dissertation chair) in the introduction to the Craft of Criminology. NIJ also recently did an interview with Al Blumstein. But I'd like to explore these two in more detail and specifically get a perspective from each on looking back at the "great debate" in criminology. For those who don't know what the "great debate" is, Vold, Bernard, and Snipes coined this phrase in reference to a very heated debate in the mid to late 1980s between the Blumstein camp and the Hirschi camp on the nature of the all-too-familiar age-crime curve.
So who else would be good to interview for such a book? Oh, and don't anybody go stealing my book idea.
So who else would be good to interview for such a book? Oh, and don't anybody go stealing my book idea.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Outlaws and Deviants
Ok, so I finally got around to posting my first blog on this site. Between work, school, and raising three little daughters, my time is booked solid. By way of introduction, I work full-time for the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections as Chief of Projections and Population Statistics in the Bureau of Planning, Research, Statistics, and Grants. At the same time, I'm working on my Ph.D. in Criminology & Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland (#1 Crim program in the country I might add). But more importantly, my wife and I are raising our three daughters who are all currently under the age of three (yeah, I know, we have our hands full).
But enough about me. I want to move on to my blog. I set up this blog in hopes of stimulating discussion with other brilliant minds out there on issues related to what we study in the discipline of criminology. I couldn't find a similar blog out there (let me know if you know of one), and I thought it would be both fun and intellectually stimulating to set this up. So join me.
For this first blog on this site, I'm actually gonna cheat a little bit and re-post a blog that I posted last night on another site. Yesterday there was a piece on the New York Time's Freakonomics blog entitled "Who Are The Outlaws? A Freakonomics Quorum" (http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/16/who-are-the-outlaws-a-freakonomics-quorum/). In this post, a few individuals who "know a bit about outlaws" were asked to answer the following three questions: (1) Does America still have an outlaw group, (2) If so, why do you consider them outlaws, and (3) Does society need outlaws? One of the "experts" who responded was Chris Uggen, a professor from the University of Minnesota who should be familiar to criminologists. Here's what I wrote in response to his piece:
"I’m writing in response to Chris Uggen’s section in this piece on “outlaws”. As a Ph.D. student in Criminology at the University of Maryland, I’m obviously familiar with Uggen’s work and was both excited to see him writing here on this blog and interested to see what he had to say. His answer clearly demonstrates an affinity to the “status characteristic” hypothesis of labeling theory (e.g., the writings of Tannenbaum, Erickson, Becker, etc.). The part of his response that piqued my curiosity was his statement that “our standards for outlaws are relative, not absolute; they change over time and social space”. I agree that this is the case. However I’m more interested in the “should”. In other words, should this be the case? Is there a definitive standard outside of our time and space from which to we should define deviancy, where does this standard come from, and should we as a society move from our current relativistic definitions of deviancy to such an absolute standard if it exists? The problem with our relativistic definitions of deviancy (or outlaws), as I believe Uggen hints around, is that some are considered deviants (or outlaws) in their own time but are viewed down the corridors of history as heroes and saints. Some of my own personal heroes were considered outlaws during their own time. I do believe that there is an absolute standard of deviancy that separates from our human, relativistic definitions of deviancy and would be interested in engaging in discussion with anyone interested in the topic. I also believe, as Durkheim did, that deviancy is normal to a society. I believe that human nature is towards deviancy as opposed to conformity. In true “social control” fashion, I believe the question to be answered by theorists/researchers is why we’re not all deviants (or delinquents/criminals, as is the question most often addressed by social control theorists in the field of criminology).
The second concept that I believe is a natural extension of a discussion of “outlaws” (or deviancy) is the concept of redemption. Uggen makes a brief mention of redemption in his last paragraph. This is a concept that is making a come-up in our field, especially in the area of what is referred to as restorative justice and prisoner reentry. I believe we as a society need to better understand and embrace the concept of redemption. As Thomas Hill put it, how can we as a society promote moving one from “hell-raiser to family man”? Some of my mentors in the field discuss this in terms of “desistance” from delinquency/criminal behavior. I wonder, can one go through a process of desistance from deviancy and what does that look like? This is a topic that I’m fairly certain Uggen would be interested in based on his publications. Again, I’d enjoy engaging in a discussion on the topic."
So who wants to discuss this with me? Any outlaws out there? What do you think of the concept of an absolute standard of deviancy? What about the concept of redemption?
But enough about me. I want to move on to my blog. I set up this blog in hopes of stimulating discussion with other brilliant minds out there on issues related to what we study in the discipline of criminology. I couldn't find a similar blog out there (let me know if you know of one), and I thought it would be both fun and intellectually stimulating to set this up. So join me.
For this first blog on this site, I'm actually gonna cheat a little bit and re-post a blog that I posted last night on another site. Yesterday there was a piece on the New York Time's Freakonomics blog entitled "Who Are The Outlaws? A Freakonomics Quorum" (http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/16/who-are-the-outlaws-a-freakonomics-quorum/). In this post, a few individuals who "know a bit about outlaws" were asked to answer the following three questions: (1) Does America still have an outlaw group, (2) If so, why do you consider them outlaws, and (3) Does society need outlaws? One of the "experts" who responded was Chris Uggen, a professor from the University of Minnesota who should be familiar to criminologists. Here's what I wrote in response to his piece:
"I’m writing in response to Chris Uggen’s section in this piece on “outlaws”. As a Ph.D. student in Criminology at the University of Maryland, I’m obviously familiar with Uggen’s work and was both excited to see him writing here on this blog and interested to see what he had to say. His answer clearly demonstrates an affinity to the “status characteristic” hypothesis of labeling theory (e.g., the writings of Tannenbaum, Erickson, Becker, etc.). The part of his response that piqued my curiosity was his statement that “our standards for outlaws are relative, not absolute; they change over time and social space”. I agree that this is the case. However I’m more interested in the “should”. In other words, should this be the case? Is there a definitive standard outside of our time and space from which to we should define deviancy, where does this standard come from, and should we as a society move from our current relativistic definitions of deviancy to such an absolute standard if it exists? The problem with our relativistic definitions of deviancy (or outlaws), as I believe Uggen hints around, is that some are considered deviants (or outlaws) in their own time but are viewed down the corridors of history as heroes and saints. Some of my own personal heroes were considered outlaws during their own time. I do believe that there is an absolute standard of deviancy that separates from our human, relativistic definitions of deviancy and would be interested in engaging in discussion with anyone interested in the topic. I also believe, as Durkheim did, that deviancy is normal to a society. I believe that human nature is towards deviancy as opposed to conformity. In true “social control” fashion, I believe the question to be answered by theorists/researchers is why we’re not all deviants (or delinquents/criminals, as is the question most often addressed by social control theorists in the field of criminology).
The second concept that I believe is a natural extension of a discussion of “outlaws” (or deviancy) is the concept of redemption. Uggen makes a brief mention of redemption in his last paragraph. This is a concept that is making a come-up in our field, especially in the area of what is referred to as restorative justice and prisoner reentry. I believe we as a society need to better understand and embrace the concept of redemption. As Thomas Hill put it, how can we as a society promote moving one from “hell-raiser to family man”? Some of my mentors in the field discuss this in terms of “desistance” from delinquency/criminal behavior. I wonder, can one go through a process of desistance from deviancy and what does that look like? This is a topic that I’m fairly certain Uggen would be interested in based on his publications. Again, I’d enjoy engaging in a discussion on the topic."
So who wants to discuss this with me? Any outlaws out there? What do you think of the concept of an absolute standard of deviancy? What about the concept of redemption?
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