Criminology & Criminal Justice
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Item STRAIN EXPERIENCED IN PRISON AND ITS IMPACT ON PERCEPTION OF THE PRISON ENVIRONMENT AND THE RATE OF RECIDIVISM(2009) Smith-Kea, Nicola Denise; McKenzie, Doris L; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Agnew's General Strain Theory (GST) is unique in that it emphasizes individual relationships and focuses on negative relationship at the individual level. It claims that if people are not treated the way they want to be treated, then that will generate negative emotions, which would in turn lead to crime. Originally designed to explain adolescent delinquency and adolescent drug use, majority of empirical work testing GST has been done on juvenile populations. Using a sample of incarcerated adult males, this study examines the relationship between strain experienced while incarcerated and the inmates' perception of the prison environment, as well as its impact on recidivism. The present study uses secondary data from the "Experimental Study of the Maryland Correctional Boot Camp for Adults." OLS indicates that there is a weak relationship between strain and perception of the prison environment; while a logistic regression reveals no relationship between strain and recidivism.Item ROLE TAKING AND RECIDIVISM: A TEST OF DIFFERENTIAL SOCIAL CONTROL THEORY(2009) Mitchell, Fawn Ngo; Paternoster, Raymond; Mackenzie, Doris; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In 1994, Karen Heimer and Ross Matsueda collaborated and developed Differential Social Control (DSC) theory. Heimer and Matsueda posit that the proximate cause of crime is role-taking which encompasses five major processes: 1) reflected appraisals of self as a rule violator, 2) anti-social attitudes, 3) anticipated disapproval of deviant acts from family and friends, 4) criminal associations, and 5) prior experience with crime and delinquency. Taking these processes together, DSC argues that the likelihood of crime and delinquency increases when an individual believes that others view him as a rule violator, holds anti-social attitudes, anticipates limited disapproval of deviance from family and friends, associates with deviant peers, and has repeatedly solved prior problematic situations using criminal or delinquent behaviors. DSC also posits that more distal factors such as role commitment and structural locations affect crime and delinquency indirectly via role-taking. Unlike other theoretical perspectives also formulated in the 1990s, DSC has received scant theoretical discussion and empirical attention. To date, DSC has only been evaluated in a handful of empirical tests. The primary aim of this dissertation is to expand the body of empirical research assessing DSC. In particular, this dissertation examines DSC's ability to explain recidivism among a sample of adult offenders released from Maryland prisons. Overall, the results generated from this dissertation do not lend support for DSC's ability to account for recidivism. Specifically, the results revealed that only two of the five measures of role-taking, anti-social attitudes and number of prior arrests, were consistent significant predictors of recidivism. The results also indicated that measures of role-commitment were not generally related to recidivism and as a consequence, the hypothesized mediating effects of role-taking on the relationship between role commitment and recidivism by DSC were not supported. The results also showed that with the exception of age, social location measures generally were not related to recidivism and thus, definite statements on the mediating effects of DSC's central concepts on this relationship could not be drawn.Item An Exploration of the Effects of Mastery, Self-Esteem, and Religiosity on Recidivism among Ex-Prisoners(2009) Farrell, Jill Lynn; MacKenzie, Doris L; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)While prior research has highlighted the importance of social factors for reentry and recidivism, several criminologists have pointed out that an individual's subjective perspectives (e.g., cognitions and self-concepts) are often neglected when studying these processes. This study attempts to address this gap in our understanding of the effects of subjective perspectives on recidivism by focusing on the impact of mastery, self-esteem, and religiosity among ex-prisoners reentering the community. This analysis utilizes data from the Urban Institute's Returning Home, a longitudinal study of prisoners from three major U.S. cities as they return to their communities. This comprehensive study provides information on both social experiences and the relevant subjective perspectives both during incarceration and after release. The current study utilizes a subsample of 740 males and examines three potential effects for mastery, self-esteem, and religiosity: direct effects, change effects (from prison to the community), and interaction effects with social stressors after release. Overall, the findings suggest that religiosity, through change processes and its capacity to buffer social stressors, is an important subjective perspective for male prisoners. More specifically, ex-prisoners who experienced an increase in religiosity from prison to the community were less likely to be reincarcerated. Further, pre-release religiosity moderated the effect of post-release social stressors on reincarceration. In contrast, religiosity had a positive interaction with social stressors to affect illegal drug use after release. Mastery and self-esteem, on the other hand, do not appear to have noteworthy effects on recidivism for this group, nor do changes in these perspectives or their interactions with social stressors impact the likelihood of recidivism. The findings also demonstrate that social stressors have a robust positive effect on reincarceration and illegal drug use among sample members. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed.Item Factories with Fences: The Effect of Prison Industries on Female Inmates(2009) Richmond, Kerry Michele; Laub, John H; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Over the past thirty years, the number of women incarcerated has risen significantly and increased attention has been paid to the needs of female offenders. One area that has been frequently overlooked in this discussion is the issue of employment and skills training. While female offenders, similar to men, often lack the education and work experience to be competitive in the labor market, little attention is paid to whether the correctional work programs currently in place are effective for this population. Prison industries programs are a unique type of work program in that inmates are not simply offered vocational training, but also gain direct work experience in a specific industry. Initially developed to reduce inmate idleness and offset correctional costs, this program is also thought to have rehabilitative purposes by increasing inmates' likelihood of employment upon release and thus reducing recidivism. However, existing evaluations of prison industries programs are limited and often plagued with serious methodological concerns. This study examines whether employment in the federal prison industries program, UNICOR, reduces institutional misconduct and recidivism among female inmates. The study also seeks to establish whether there is an additional benefit based on length of employment. Data from a large sample of female inmates released from the federal prison system between January 1993 and December 2003 are used to create a matched sample of UNICOR participants and non-participants. Selection bias is addressed through the use of propensity score matching. Survival analysis is utilized to examine whether UNICOR employment affects institutional behavior and recidivism outcomes over a follow-up period of up to 13 years. This study finds that the benefits received through this work assignment are limited to the prison environment. UNICOR participants are slightly less likely to engage in institutional misconduct, however no significant differences emerge in terms of rearrest or recommitment to federal prison. There is also only a slight effect based on length of employment. Implications for correctional programming and areas of future research, including whether prison industries can affect post-release employment outcomes and whether there may be a differential effect based on the type of industry employed, are discussed.