Criminology & Criminal Justice
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Item Examining the Association Between Mental Illness and Victimization Risk in Community and Prison Settings(2018) Kozlowski, Meghan Michelle; Porter, Lauren C; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Research suggests that persons with mental illness are at risk for physical and sexual victimization both in the community and while incarcerated. However, there is less understanding of the risk factors that explain these relationships. Using data from the Survey of Inmates in State Correctional Facilities (2004), the current study tests the relationship between mental illness and victimization and explores possible risk factors that may contribute to victimization across groups and environments. Findings suggest that inmates with mental illness are more likely to be victimized than their counterparts without mental illness in community and prison settings. Results from stepwise regression models suggest that the mental health-victimization relationship is partially attributable to setting-specific risk factors such as homelessness or prison program involvement. Future research interested in better understanding the vulnerability of persons with mental illness should consider the salience of environmentally-specific risk factors in explaining victimization risk.Item Framing Imprisonment as a Turning Point in the Lives of Criminally-Involved Adults(2018) Frisch, Nicole; McGloin, Jean M.; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Turning points, or life events that trigger dramatic and sustained changes in behavior, are a central focus of life course criminology. Most empirical work in this domain focuses on positive turning points that decrease offending and promote desistance (e.g., marriage, employment, military service), yet there is good reason to suspect that offenders may also encounter negative turning points, which amplify rather than reduce offending. This possibility is worthy of consideration given that at least one potential negative turning point – imprisonment – is experienced by millions of offenders. This dissertation integrates the studies of imprisonment and the life course by critically assessing the joint experience of prison and parole (imprisonment) as a turning point in the criminal career, and unpacking heterogeneity in the extent to which imprisonment serves as either a positive or negative turning point. Using criminal records of adults released from Pennsylvania prisons, this work employs a dual trajectory model to assess whether, and to what degree, imprisonment is associated with a disruption in one’s offending pathway. This research also considers the life course principles of cumulative disadvantage and timing by assessing whether imprisonment functions as a different type of turning point for inmates of varying prison histories and ages. The results indicate that imprisonment may serve as a turning point in the criminal career. Evidence of discontinuity in pre- and post-prison criminal trajectories was observed in 49.03% of the full sample, 44.78% of first time prisoners, 75.48% of repeat prisoners. First-time imprisonment almost universally served as a positive turning point, while over one-third of repeat prisoners exhibited evidence of a negative turning point. Additionally, the number of prior prison terms significantly increased the odds of observing a negative turning point relative to a positive turning point or no turning point, suggesting that the criminogenic influence of imprisonment accumulates over time. The timing of imprisonment also matters. Older inmates were more likely to demonstrate discontinuity in offending consistent with a positive turning point, whereas younger inmates were more likely to exhibit evidence of a negative turning point. The theoretical and policy implications of these findings are discussed.Item SMART SENTENCING: A LOOK AT THE DIFFERENTIAL EFFECTS OF PRISONS AND JAILS(2018) Frey, Kathleen; Nakamura, Kiminori; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Criminological research has long explored the impact of incarceration on recidivism. However this line of research typically combines jail and prison as a single type of incarceration sentence and does not distinguish between these two different sentences. Judges often can choose between a prison or jail sentence for certain categories of offenders, but little research offers any perspective on potentially differential impacts of the two types of sentences on recidivism. The lack of understanding about the consequences of prison and jail sentences hampers the efforts to improve the criminal justice system. Using data from Pennsylvania, the current study examines the impacts of prison and jail, as two separate types of sentences, on recidivism. Pennsylvania offers a unique sample of offenders where jail inmates may be serving up to five years’ incarceration and prison inmates may be serving a sentence shorter than 1 year , compared to most other states where jail is typically a 1-year sentence or less and prison serves for sentences longer than 1 year. Propensity score matching was utilized to compare those with jail and prison sentences who are otherwise comparable, thus allowing balance on observables. In particular, the sentencing guidelines were utilized to ensure the comparability of offenders regarding the seriousness of the current offense and the prior record and to focus on offenders who could have received either prison or jail sentence based on judicial discretion. Results from a statewide sample indicate that within a short follow-up period following release from incarceration, there is largely a null effect of prison on rearrest. However, given longer recidivism follow-up periods, prison is shown to increase the probability of rearrest compared to jail. Although, using a county sample reveals a negative effect of prison on rearrest within a year of release, once reincarceration is accounted for and longer follow-up periods are used, there is largely a null effect of prison on recidivism. Several subsamples were examined revealing largely null effects. Findings indicated racial differences in recidivism based on confinement in prisons and jail. Additional tests were conducted to attempt to understand the differences within facilities that could affect recidivism by comparing across jails, although the results were largely null. Findings from this study reveal key policy implications regarding judicial decision making. In the long-term, once reincarceration is taken into account, there is no strong evidence to suggest that a difference in recidivism exists between prison and jail, suggesting that judge sentencing decisions can be guided by budgetary concerns and facility capacity.Item Exploring the Link between Prison Crowding and Inmate Misconduct: A Panel Data Analysis(2016) Glazener, Emily Morgan; Nakamura, Kiminori; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Research on the impact of prison crowding on inmate misconduct is mixed, with studies finding positive, negative, and null results. These inconsistencies may be due to the use of data restricted to one specific point in time as previous studies have heavily relied on cross-sectional methods. These cross-sections may or may not be representative of longer-term trends, and they do not allow for the examination of changes over time. To address this limitation, the current study utilizes state prison panel data to examine monthly within-institution changes. Using modern data gathered from January 2012 through December 2014 from a large state correctional system, this study demonstrates the utility of examining this research question longitudinally. Findings demonstrate that prison crowding leads to increases in misconduct rates, although this relationship diminishes after crowding reaches a certain threshold. However, our data did not support the expected relationship between crowding and violent misconduct specifically. Other time-varying factors were found to consistently predict misconduct and violence. Policy implications and future directions are discussed.Item Cost Matters: Application and advancement of economic methods to inform policy choice in criminology(2007-05-01) Bierie, David Miles; MacKenzie, Doris L; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This project develops and applies a cost-benefit analytic framework to evaluate a specific policy option facing the state of Maryland: To operate an early release program for adult inmates within a therapeutic boot camp facility, or a traditional prison that also emphasizes treatment. Drawing on a randomized experiment in which inmates were assigned to serve six-month terms at one of the two facilities, the study focuses on costs of administering programs and costs of recidivism during the observed 1 - 4 years after release. The data demonstrate the boot camp costs less to operate than the comparison site, and also generates significant reductions in the 'harm' incurred through recidivism. Thus, the data suggest the boot camp option generates a greater net social value for the state and community. These findings are robust to variation in assumptions and computational techniques, both standard to the cost-benefit literature as well as new approaches introduced in this dissertation.