Going Bad
Learning to Be Bad: Adverse Social Conditions, Social Schemas, and Crime
Ronald Simons & Callie Harbin Burt
Criminology, May 2011, Pages 553-598
Abstract:
In this article, we develop and test a new approach to explain the link between social factors and individual offending. We argue that seemingly disparate family, peer, and community conditions lead to crime because the lessons communicated by these events are similar and promote social schemas involving a hostile view of people and relationships, a preference for immediate rewards, and a cynical view of conventional norms. Furthermore, we posit that these three schemas are interconnected and combine to form a criminogenic knowledge structure that results in situational interpretations legitimating criminal behavior. Structural equation modeling with a sample of roughly 700 African American teens provided strong support for the model. The findings indicated that persistent exposure to adverse conditions such as community crime, discrimination, harsh parenting, deviant peers, and low neighborhood collective efficacy increased commitment to the three social schemas. The three schemas were highly intercorrelated and combined to form a latent construct that strongly predicted increases in crime. Furthermore, in large measure, the effect of the various adverse conditions on increases in crime was indirect through their impact on this latent construct. We discuss the extent to which the social-schematic model presented in this article might be used to integrate concepts and findings from several major theories of criminal behavior.
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Joseph Schwartz & Kevin Beaver
Journal of Criminal Justice, forthcoming
Purpose: The current study builds on a large body of research that has revealed that both genetic and environmental factors contribute to the development of antisocial behaviors. While a number of studies have indicated that stressful environments interact with specific genetic polymorphisms to create antisocial phenotypes, studies have not yet examined whether perceived prejudice and specific genetic polymorphisms combine together to predict criminal arrests over the life course.
Methods: The current study builds on the existing gene × environment literature by using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) to examine the effects of MAOA and perceived prejudice on the probability of being arrested.
Results: The results of the multivariate models reveal a statistically significant gene × environment interaction between MAOA and perceived prejudice in the prediction of arrest for males.
Conclusions: The results indicate that the presence of both perceived prejudice and MAOA increase the likelihood of being arrested. The implications of these results are discussed and limitations are noted.
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Men in Transit and Prostitution: Using Political Conventions as a Natural Experiment
Scott Cunningham & Todd Kendall
B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, June 2011
Abstract:
Approximately 100,000 visitors came to Denver, Colorado and Minneapolis, Minnesota to attend the 2008 Democratic and Republican National Conventions. Economic theory suggests that men in transit can shift demand for commercial sex work. We estimate the responsiveness of labor supply to these two conventions, focusing on a previously neglected but increasingly important segment of the prostitution market: indoor sex workers who advertise on the Internet. Using a differences-in-differences estimator of prostitution advertisements posted on a major classified ads website, we find that the conventions caused a 29-44 percent increase in advertisements in Minneapolis and a 47-77 percent increase in Denver. Given the key role prostitution plays in the transmission of STIs, these results imply that focusing public health resources on men in transit may be beneficial.
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William Harbaugh, Naci Mocan & Michael Visser
NBER Working Paper, May 2011
Abstract:
We report results from economic experiments of decisions that are best described as petty larceny, with high school and college students who can anonymously steal real money from each other. Our design allows exogenous variation in the rewards of crime, and the penalty and probability of detection. We find that the probability of stealing is increasing in the amount of money that can be stolen, and that it is decreasing in the probability of getting caught and in the penalty for getting caught. Furthermore, the impact of the certainty of getting caught is larger when the penalty is bigger, and the impact of the penalty is bigger when the probability of getting caught is larger.
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Serotonergic Contribution to Boys' Behavioral Regulation
Amélie Nantel-Vivier et al.
PLoS ONE, June 2011, e20304
Objectives: Animal and human adult studies reveal a contribution of serotonin to behavior regulation. Whether these findings apply to children is unclear. The present study investigated serotonergic functioning in boys with a history of behavior regulation difficulties through a double-blind, acute tryptophan supplementation procedure.
Method: Participants were 23 boys (age 10 years) with a history of elevated physical aggression, recruited from a community sample. Eleven were given a chocolate milkshake supplemented with 500mg tryptophan, and 12 received a chocolate milkshake without tryptophan. Boys engaged in a competitive reaction time game against a fictitious opponent, which assessed response to provocation, impulsivity, perspective taking, and sharing. Impulsivity was further assessed through a Go/No-Go paradigm. A computerized emotion recognition task and a staged instrumental help incident were also administered.
Results: Boys, regardless of group, responded similarly to high provocation by the fictitious opponent. However, boys in the tryptophan group adjusted their level of responding optimally as a function of the level of provocation, whereas boys in the control group significantly decreased their level of responding towards the end of the competition. Boys in the tryptophan group tended to show greater perspective taking, tended to better distinguish facial expressions of fear and happiness, and tended to provide greater instrumental help to the experimenter.
Conclusions: The present study provides initial evidence for the feasibility of acute tryptophan supplementation in children and some effect of tryptophan supplementation on children's behaviors. Further studies are warranted to explore the potential impact of increased serotonergic functioning on boys' dominant and affiliative behaviors.
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Legal Cynicism, Collective Efficacy, and the Ecology of Arrest
David Kirk & Mauri Matsuda
Criminology, May 2011, Pages 443-472
Abstract:
Ethnographic evidence reveals that many crimes in poor minority neighborhoods evade criminal justice sanctioning, thus leading to a negative association between the proportion of minority residents in a neighborhood and the arrest rate. To explain this finding, we extend recent theoretical explications of the concept of legal cynicism. Legal cynicism refers to a cultural orientation in which the law and the agents of its enforcement are viewed as illegitimate, unresponsive, and ill equipped to ensure public safety. Crime might flourish in neighborhoods characterized by legal cynicism because individuals who view the law as illegitimate are less likely to comply with it; yet because of legal cynicism, these crimes might go unreported and therefore unsanctioned. This study draws on data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods to test the importance of legal cynicism for understanding geographic variation in the probability of arrest. We find that, in neighborhoods characterized by high levels of legal cynicism, crimes are much less likely to lead to an arrest than in neighborhoods where citizens view the police more favorably. Findings also reveal that residents of highly cynical neighborhoods are less likely to engage in collective efficacy and that collective efficacy mediates the association between legal cynicism and the probability of arrest.
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Marije Nije Bijvank, Elly Konijn & Brad Bushman
Journal of Adolescence, forthcoming
Abstract:
This research focuses on low educational ability as a risk factor for aggression and violent game play. We propose that boys of lower educational ability are more attracted to violent video games than other boys are, and that they are also higher in trait aggressiveness and sensation seeking. Participants were Dutch boys in public schools (N = 830, age-range 11-17). In the Netherlands, standardized tests are used to place students into lower, medium, and higher educational ability groups. Results showed that boys in the lower educational ability group preferred to play violent, stand-alone games, identified more with video game characters, and perceived video games to be more realistic than other boys did. Lower levels of education were also related to higher levels of aggressiveness and sensation seeking. Higher educational ability boys preferred social, multiplayer games. Within a risk and resilience model, boys with lower educational ability are at greater risk for aggression.
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When ignorance is no excuse: Different roles for intent across moral domains
Liane Young & Rebecca Saxe
Cognition, forthcoming
Abstract:
A key factor in legal and moral judgments is intent. Intent differentiates, for instance, murder from manslaughter. Is this true for all moral judgments? People deliver moral judgments of many kinds of actions, including harmful actions (e.g., assault) and purity violations (e.g., incest, consuming taboo substances). We show that intent is a key factor for moral judgments of harm, but less of a factor for purity violations. Based on the agent's innocent intent, participants judged accidental harms less morally wrong than accidental incest; based on the agent's guilty intent, participants judged failed attempts to harm more morally wrong than failed attempts to commit incest. These patterns were specific to moral judgments versus judgments of the agent's control, knowledge, or intent, the action's overall emotional salience, or participants' ratings of disgust. The current results therefore reveal distinct cognitive signatures of distinct moral domains, and may inform the distinct functional roles of moral norms.
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Paige Harden & Jane Mendle
Journal of Abnormal Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Early pubertal timing places girls at elevated risk for a breadth of negative outcomes, including involvement in delinquent behavior. While previous developmental research has emphasized the unique social challenges faced by early maturing girls, this relation is complicated by genetic influences for both delinquent behavior and pubertal timing, which are seldom controlled for in existing research. The current study uses genetically informed data on 924 female-female twin and sibling pairs drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to (1) disentangle biological versus environmental mechanisms for the effects of early pubertal timing and (2) test for gene-environment interactions. Results indicate that early pubertal timing influences girls' delinquency through a complex interplay between biological risk and environmental experiences. Genes related to earlier age at menarche and higher perceived development significantly predict increased involvement in both nonviolent and violent delinquency. Moreover, after accounting for this genetic association between pubertal timing and delinquency, the impact of nonshared environmental influences on delinquency are significantly moderated by pubertal timing, such that the nonshared environment is most important among early maturing girls. This interaction effect is particularly evident for nonviolent delinquency. Overall, results suggest early maturing girls are vulnerable to an interaction between genetic and environmental risks for delinquent behavior.
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Gene Brody et al.
Development and Psychopathology, May 2011, Pages 617-627
Abstract:
This study examined the prospective relations of adolescents' perceptions of discrimination and their genetic status with increases in conduct problems. Participants were 461 African American youths residing in rural Georgia (Wave 1 mean age = 15.5 years) who provided three waves of data and a saliva sample from which a polymorphism in the SCL6A4 (serotonin transporter [5-HTT]) gene polymorphism known as the 5-HTT linked promoter region (5-HTTLPR) was genotyped. Data analyses using growth curve modeling indicated that perceived discrimination was significantly related to the slope of conduct problems. As hypothesized, interactions between perceived discrimination and genetic status emerged for male but not female youths. Compared with those carrying two copies of the long allele variant of 5-HTTLPR, male youths carrying one or two copies of its short allele variant evinced higher rates of conduct problems over time when they perceived high levels of racial discrimination. These findings are consistent with resilience and differential susceptibility propositions stating that genes can both foster sensitivity to adverse events and confer protection from those events.
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Child Maltreatment, Placement Strategies, and Delinquency
Deborah Baskin & Ira Sommers
American Journal of Criminal Justice, June 2011, Pages 106-119
Abstract:
The current study examined the criminal justice experiences of foster care youth living with relatives, foster families, and living in congregate care; dependents receiving in-home care; and non-dependent youth. Specific attention was directed at uncovering whether form of maltreatment, placement type, and/or placement instability were related to delinquency. A prospective analysis of official record data followed children in Los Angeles County from the time of a first admission to the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) to potential involvement in the criminal justice system (N = 1,235). The study also utilized a matched control design in which DCFS cases were compared to non-dependent controls (N = 1,235). The most consistent predictors of delinquency were placement instability and age at placement. Youth who were older at placement and youth with at least one placement change were more likely to be arrested for violent and non-violent crimes as well as be charged by the district attorney than younger youth with no placement changes.
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David Yeager et al.
Developmental Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Why do some adolescents respond to interpersonal conflicts vengefully, whereas others seek more positive solutions? Three studies investigated the role of implicit theories of personality in predicting violent or vengeful responses to peer conflicts among adolescents in Grades 9 and 10. They showed that a greater belief that traits are fixed (an entity theory) predicted a stronger desire for revenge after a variety of recalled peer conflicts (Study 1) and after a hypothetical conflict that specifically involved bullying (Study 2). Study 3 experimentally induced a belief in the potential for change (an incremental theory), which resulted in a reduced desire to seek revenge. This effect was mediated by changes in bad-person attributions about the perpetrators, feelings of shame and hatred, and the belief that vengeful ideation is an effective emotion-regulation strategy. Together, the findings illuminate the social-cognitive processes underlying reactions to conflict and suggest potential avenues for reducing violent retaliation in adolescents.
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Cheryl Maxson, Kristy Matsuda & Karen Hennigan
Crime & Delinquency, July 2011, Pages 516-543
Abstract:
This study investigates the effect of the threat of legal sanctions on intentions to commit three types of offenses with a representative sample of 744 officially adjudicated youth with varying histories of offenses and gang involvement. In a departure from previous research, the authors find small severity effects for property crimes that are not negated by past offending experience, morality, or anticipated loss of respect from adults or peers. Gang members appear to be vulnerable to the effects of certainty of punishment for vehicle theft. These results challenge the current crime policy of increased reliance on punishment to deter gang crime but suggest that increasing gang members' certainty of apprehension might hold some promise for reduction of some gang crime.
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Neo-Nazis and moral panic: The emergence of neo-Nazi youth gangs in Israel
Revital Sela-Shayovitz
Crime Media Culture, April 2011, Pages 67-82
Abstract:
The emergence of a neo-Nazi gang is an unprecedented manifestation of deviance in Israel. It has undermined the moral order and shaken the delicate nerves of Israeli society, which lives in the shadow of the Holocaust. Drawing principally on Israeli newspaper coverage, the study examines the dynamics of social discourse among policymakers, the press and pressure groups. The analysis shows that initial formulations of moral panic derived from a profound concern about changes in the social and moral order of society due to immigration. Moreover, conceptually situated within theorizations of moral risk, this moral panic was a temporary rupture in processes of moral regulation and served governing agents, which increased social control by constructing risks and dangers.