Rational Choice, Deterrence, and Identity: Modeling Life Course Transitions and Desistance, Study Guides, Projects, Research of Criminology

Download Rational Choice, Deterrence, and Identity: Modeling Life Course Transitions and Desistance and more Study Guides, Projects, Research Criminology in PDF only on Docsity! The author(s) shown below used Federal funding provided by the U.S. Department of Justice to prepare the following resource: Document Title: Rational Choice, Deterrence, and Identity: Modeling Life Course Transitions and Desistance Author(s): Ross L. Matsueda Document Number: 251546 Date Received: February 2018 Award Number: 2014-R2-CX-0018 This resource has not been published by the U.S. Department of Justice. This resource is being made publically available through the Office of Justice Programs’ National Criminal Justice Reference Service. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. NIJ GRANT: FINAL SUMMARY OVERVIEW NIJ Grant #2014-R2-CX-0018 Project Title: Rational Choice, Deterrence, and Identity: Modeling Life Course Transitions and Desistance Project Period: January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2017 Principal Investigator: Ross L. Matsueda Project Purpose and Goals Using longitudinal survey data, we specify models of life course transitions, offender decision-making, and crime, to answer four research questions: (1) Under what conditions do high-risk young adults undergo life course transitions, such as high school graduation, transitioning to work, becoming a parent, cohabiting, and marrying? (2) Do the effects of life course transitions constitute turning points in criminal careers, and if so, under what social conditions? (3) What are the causal mechanisms—changing peers and gangs, changing perceived costs and returns to crime, changing perceived opportunities, or changing criminal identities—that explain why life course transitions affect desistance. (4) Can we identify, from our empirical models, the specific conditions under which a treatment intervention is likely to succeed? Aspects of the theoretical framework we adopt for this project were published in two Encyclopedia articles. The first reviews a rational choice theory of criminal behavior, which specifies a utility function from the work of Gary Becker, and shows how that implies policy implications for deterrence, and modifying the returns to crime. Matsueda and Grigoryeva (2014) then contrast this utility theory with a limited rationality perspective popularized by Clarke and Cornish. They then review macro and micro research on rational choice and deterrence and conclude by discussing negative externalities from sanctioning, including This resource was prepared by the author(s) using Federal funds provided by the U.S. Department of Justice. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. Matsueda Final—Page 4 socializing with friends in situations in which alcohol and marijuana are used. Furthermore, they find that initiation into marijuana smoking is driven by marijuana-smoking peers, being seen as cool by peers for smoking marijuana, and reduced by high self-esteem and having a parent who has never been arrested for drug offenses. Attitudes toward marijuana are irrelevant for initiation, but as Becker argues, are important for continuation and regular use, as youth require justifications for future use. The transition to regular use is affected by access to a dealer, impulsivity, and expectations from excitement. The transition out of regular use is less likely for users with marijuana using friends and those who exhibit impulsivity. Motherhood and Desistance: Exploring Causal Mechanisms This analysis builds on earlier work by Kreager, Matsueda, and Erosheva (2010), which found that theft, violence, and drug use were less likely for women after they became mothers. This paper uses fixed-effects panel models to find that, unlike the transition to motherhood, the transition to fatherhood exerted no effect on desistance from crime. The analysis then turns to testing hypotheses about the causal mechanisms by which motherhood reduces criminality. Drawing from ethnographic research on inner-city motherhood, Matsueda et al. (2014) hypothesized that motherhood causes changes in their reference groups—from partying and drug using delinquents—to non-delinquents, such as other young mothers. They also hypothesize that motherhood may change identities away from identities as a rule-violator or “bad” kid, and may increase self-esteem, both of which may be associated with less crime and drug use. The fixed effects models find that nearly three-quarters of the effect of motherhood on crime is explained by the joint effects of delinquent peers, reflected appraisals, and self-esteem. Gang Organization and Gang Identity: An Integrated Theory of Disengagement from Gangs This resource was prepared by the author(s) using Federal funds provided by the U.S. Department of Justice. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. Matsueda Final—Page 5 This analysis uses discrete-time complementary log-log event history models of the hazard of disengaging from gangs. It tests the hypothesis that, controlling for low self-control, disengagement from gangs is less likely when the gang is strongly-organized and the gang member has a strong gang identity. A total of 226 DYS individuals eleven years of age and older report gang membership. Leverso and Matsueda (2018) use data from waves 3 to 10, which results in a sample of 200 persons and 361 person-years. The study uses multiple indicators of gang organization, gang identity, and low self-control, consistent with previous research. Confirmatory factor models reveal that gang organization, gang identity, and self- control are each unidimensional constructs. The analysis, which includes time-varying covariates, finds that low self-control is related to violent offending and drug sales by active gang members, but is not associated with leaving the gang. Instead, disengagement from the gang is explained by weak gang organization and weak gang identity. Adolescence, Empathy, and the Gender Gap in Juvenile Offending In this analysis, the central thesis is that women are encouraged to develop greater empathic ability than men, which helps explain gender differences in offending. In gender and social psychological studies, research finds gender differences in empathy: Traditionally, women tend to be more oriented to relationships with others and tend to be more empathic, whereas men tend to be more oriented to individualism and achievement. O’Neill (2018) argues that such differences may help explain why men commit more crimes than women. However, she takes a life course perspective in arguing that gender differences in empathy arise in the transition from childhood to adolescence. O’Neill finds that empathy is the same for boys and girls at age seven, but for both boys and girls, empathy increases from age seven to ten—at a greater rate for girls. From age 10-15, This resource was prepared by the author(s) using Federal funds provided by the U.S. Department of Justice. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. Matsueda Final—Page 6 empathy continues to increase slightly for girls, but decreases for boys. After age 15 empathy levels off for both boys and girls, leaving girls with substantially higher empathy scores by age 18. O’Neill then models this in a multivariate model using non-linear quadratic and cubic terms to fit the trend. To test whether empathy has different effects on different offense types, in particular, victimless crimes versus other offenses, O’Neill uses four lagged indices of self- reported crime: victimless crimes, fraud, theft, and violent crime. She finds that, in bivariate negative binomial models, lagged empathy is negatively and significantly related to all four crimes types—victimless crime, fraud, theft, and violent crime. However, in multivariate models that control for age, income race, family structure, and previous grade point average, empathy still has a negative and significant effect on fraud and theft, but not on victimless crime or violent crime. The null effect on victimless crime was expected: since there is no victim, using empathic ability to consider the consequences of the crime on others is rendered moot. The null effect on violence is interesting. Kate speculates that it could be that violence is often victim- precipitated and impulsive acts, which short-circuit the role of empathy and role taking. Finally, she tests the extent to which gender differences in empathy help explain the gender gap in offending. As expected, empathy explains little of the gap in violence or victimless crime. It does explain a substantial portion of the gender gap in theft (40%), and a nontrivial portion of the gender gap in fraud (18%). Work and Crime: A Causal Treatment Effects Survival Model This analysis uses panel data from the National Supported Work Demonstration Project (NSW), an $82.4 million study that randomly assigned 5,005 chronically unemployed addicts, drop-outs, and offenders to Supported Work or a control group. The original evaluation failed to find an overall treatment effect. Some evidence was found for treatment heterogeneity: This resource was prepared by the author(s) using Federal funds provided by the U.S. Department of Justice. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. Matsueda Final—Page 9 exerts the strongest effects on future drug use. These results suggest that policies for reducing drugs may want to focus more on reducing opportunities for using drugs—perhaps by reducing the supply and availability of drugs—and perhaps less on the threat of punishment. Finally, our results suggest that the risk of arrest has a stronger deterrent effect on drug intentions than risk of jail, which is consistent with previous work showing that certainty is more important than severity in the deterrence process. Finally, our analyses of work and crime, which control for non-compliance in the National Supported Work Demonstration data, suggests that non-compliance does not appreciably alter results. We find, like previous research, that Supported Work jobs overall did not reduce self-reported crime, and that treatment reduced crime for older offenders. Recall that Supported Work jobs were primarily low-wage jobs in the secondary sector of the labor market in the mid-to-late 1970s—such as washing cars, digging ditches, working construction—this positive treatment effect suggests that work programs may be a viable way of reducing crime when administered to older offenders. This resource was prepared by the author(s) using Federal funds provided by the U.S. Department of Justice. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. Matsueda Final—Page 10 Project Papers Completed and In-Progress Grigoryeva, Maria S., and Ross L. Matsueda. 2014. “Deterrence, Rational Choice, and Crime: Sociological Contributions." In Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice, edited by G. Bruinsma and D. Weisburd. New York: Springer-Verlag. Kreager, Derek A., and Ross L. Matsueda. 2014. “Bayesian Updating and Crime.” In Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice, edited by G. Bruinsma and D. Weisburd. New York: Springer-Verlaag. Matsueda, Ross L., Maria Grigoryeva, Richard Callahan, and Derek A. Kreager. 2014. “Motherhood and Desistance: Exploring Causal Mechanisms.” Presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Society of Criminology, Atlanta, GA. Leverso, John, and Ross L. Matsueda. 2017. “Gang Organization and Gang Identity: An Integrated Theory of Disengagement from Gangs.” Submitted to Journal of Quantitative Criminology. Martin, Bryan D., Ross L. Matsueda, and Elena A. Erosheva. 2014. “Trajectory Models Revisited: Assessing Recent Simulation Studies.” Presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Society of Criminology. Matsueda, Ross L., Derek Kreager, and Charles C. Lanfear. 2018. “A Rational Choice Model of Deterrence, Intentions, and Drug Use.” O’Neill, Kate K. 2018. “Adolescence, Empathy, and the Gender Gap in Juvenile Offending. Submitted to Criminology. Matsueda, Ross L., and Derek Kreager. 2018. “An Acquired Taste: Context and Cognition in a Sequential Model of Marijuana Use.” Hwang, Jun, Ross L. Matsueda, Elena A. Erosheva, and Christopher Uggen. 2016. “Work and Crime: A Causal Treatment Effects Survival Model.” Paper presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Society of Criminology. Matsueda, Ross L. 2018. “Rational Choice, Identity and Decision-Making.” Paper prepared for presentation at the Indiana University Identity Conference, Department of Sociology, University of Indiana, Bloomington, April 13-14. This resource was prepared by the author(s) using Federal funds provided by the U.S. Department of Justice. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.