Crime & Delinquency 60(8)

Crime & Delinquency, December 2014: Volume 60, Issue 8

Restorativeness, Procedural Justice, and Defiance as Predictors of Reoffending of Participants in Family Group Conferences
Natalie Kroovand Hipple, Jeff Gruenewald, and Edmund F. McGarrell

Prior research has suggested that family group conferences (FGCs), a particular form of restorative justice, hold promise in reducing reoffending among youths, at least for some types of offenses. Most prior research, however, has simply assessed whether participation in a FGC resulted in reduced rates of reoffending compared with control or comparison groups in court or diversion programs. These prior recidivism studies have largely left unaddressed the characteristics of the FGCs that may produce differences in reoffending. The exceptions are two studies, from New Zealand and Australia, respectively, that relied on variation analyses to assess whether differences in the FGC processes affected future offending. This research builds on these two studies and tests as to whether FGC characteristics derived from reintegrative shaming, procedural justice, and defiance theory account for variations in reoffending. The data have been obtained from a sample of youths (N = 215) who participated in a FGC as part of the Indianapolis Juvenile Restorative Justice Experiment (IJRJE). The findings suggest that the more the FGC appeared to follow principles of restorativeness and procedural fairness and avoided defiance, the less reoffending occurred. Specifically, offense type and conference restorativeness influenced the probability of recidivism at 6 months, whereas offense type and race influenced the probability of recidivism at 24 months.

Toward a Comprehensive Model on Stalking Acknowledgment: A Test of Four Models
Fawn T. Ngo

Using a sample of national stalking victims, this study draws from four general models applied in previous works on sexual harassment acknowledgment to propose a comprehensive model of stalking acknowledgment. The results indicate that the type of stalking behaviors, personal characteristics of victims, negative emotions experienced by victims, and changes in perceptions due to the intrusive behaviors are significant correlates of stalking acknowledgment. Implications of findings relating to the qualification of legal definitions of stalking and stalking reportage are also discussed.

Things Change: An Intergenerational Examination of the Correlates of Police Contact
Wendi Pollock

From demographics, to technology, to attitudes, the U.S. population has changes since the 1970s. Over the past 40 years, policing has also changed to include more individuals who are female and non-White. Despite all of the changes, no study has yet been conducted to determine whether predictors of police contact, including factors such as race and gender, are consistent over time. The current study used multilevel Bernoulli models and logistic regression to examine two generations of respondents from the National Youth Survey Family Study. Results indicate some consistency in predictors of police contact between the two generations, with two notable exceptions: gender and socioeconomic status. Implications for police policy and practice are discussed.

Criminality and Family Formation: Effects of Marriage and Parenthood on Criminal Behavior for Men and Women
Mioara Zoutewelle-Terovan, Victor van der Geest, Aart Liefbroer, and Catrien Bijleveld

In this article, the authors study the effects of family formation on criminal careers for 540 high-risk men and women in the Netherlands. In a prospective design, spanning 21 years, the authors analyzed complete data on offending, marriage, parenthood, and a large set of background information. Random effects were used to model the relation between family-life events and offending, controlling for possible confounders. Findings for men support the hypothesis that marriage promotes desistance from serious offending. Males additionally benefit from parenthood, and from having a first child in particular. Furthermore, although parenthood reduces offending more strongly than marriage, the “full family package” brings the most benefit. Female offending patterns were not significantly influenced by marital status or motherhood.

Probation Supervision and the Control of Crime Opportunities: An Empirical Assessment
Joel Miller

Mainstream accounts of community corrections supervision emphasize rehabilitation on the one hand, and surveillance and control on the other.This article, however, examines whether probation supervision is used to reduce the exposure of offenders to crime opportunities. Using data from a national community corrections survey, it finds that opportunity-focused supervision (OFS) practices are, to varying degrees, common. Most OFS activities coalesce around a distinct strategy that involves harnessing efforts of potential handlers, place managers, and capable guardians to help steer offenders away from crime opportunities, deployed somewhat independently of conventional supervision strategies. Predictors of the OFS strategy are different from other supervision approaches, and include low caseloads, juvenile supervision, and working in an office serving a rural area.

The Effect of Sanctions on Police Misconduct
Christopher J. Harris and Robert E. Worden

Police disciplinary systems are predicated on the notion of deterrence, particularly that officers more severely sanctioned for misconduct will be less likely to repeat those behaviors compared with less severely or unsanctioned officers. Using retrospective, longitudinal data from a large police department in the northeastern United States, we explore whether this fundamental assumption of police disciplinary systems is supported. Specifically, we examine both the likelihood and timing of complaints filed against officers who had obtained at least one complaint in their career that was sustained (i.e., upheld in an investigation), and compare outcomes of sanction severity on future sustained complaints. The results demonstrate that while a few demographic and complaint characteristics significantly affect the likelihood and timing of future misconduct in expected ways, officers who received more severe sanctions were actually more likely to obtain an additional sustained complaint when compared with nonsanctioned officers. Why this is the case is unclear from the data, but the most plausible explanation is that the perceived injustice of the disciplinary system may actually promote officer deviance.