How Punishment Affects Crime:An Integrated Understanding of the Behavioral Mechanisms of Punishment

Legal punishment, at least in part, serves a behavioral function to reduce and prevent offending behavior. The present paper offers an integrated review of the diverse mechanisms through which punishment may affect such behavior. It moves beyond a legal view that focuses on just three such mechanisms (deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation), to also include other socializing, delegitimizing, compliance obstructing, and offence adapting mechanisms in how punishment may influence offending. The paper assesses the quality of existing empirical knowledge about the different effects of punishment and the conditions under which these effects exist. It concludes that punishment has at least thirteen different influences on crime prevention, five positive and eight negative. It shows that such effects are conditional, depending on the offender, offence, punishment, and jurisdiction. Furthermore, it shows that the effects vary in their directness, proximity, onset and longevity. It concludes that our current empirical understanding does not match the complex reality of how punishment comes to shape crime. In light of this, the paper develops a research agenda on the integrated effects of punishment moving beyond limited causal mechanisms to embrace the fuller complexity of how sanctions shape human conduct by adopting a complexity science approach

Disproportionate minority contact

For many years, notes Alex Piquero, youth of color have been overrepresented at every stage of the U.S. juvenile justice system. As with racial disparities in a wide variety of social indicators, the causes of these disparities are not immediately apparent. Some analysts attribute the disparities to "differential involvement"--that is, to differences in offending by minorities and whites. Others attribute them to "differential selection"--that is, to the fact that the justice system treats minority and white offenders in different ways. Still others believe the explanation lies in a combination of the two. Differential involvement may be important earlier in the judicial process, especially in youths' contacts with police, and may influence differential selection later as individuals make their way through the juvenile justice system. Adjudicating between these options, says Piquero, is difficult and may even be impossible. Asking how much minority overrepresentation is due to differences in offending and how much to differences in processing no longer seems a helpful way to frame the discussion. Piquero urges future research to move beyond the debate over "which one matters more" and seek to understand how each of the two hypotheses can explain both the fact of minority overrepresentation in the juvenile justice system and how best to address it. Piquero cites many sizable gaps in the research and policy-relevant literature. Work is needed especially, he says, in analyzing the first stage of the justice system that juveniles confront: police contacts. The police are a critical part of the juvenile justice decision-making system and are afforded far more discretion than any other formal agent of social control, but researchers have paid surprisingly little attention to contacts between police and citizens, especially juveniles. Piquero notes that some states and localities are undertaking initiatives to reduce racial and ethnic disparities. He urges researchers and policymakers to evaluate such initiatives, especially those using strategies with a track record of success. Researchers should also examine empirically the far-reaching consequences of disproportionate minority representation in the juvenile justice system, such as poor outcomes in education, labor force participation, and family formation. Finally, Piquero emphasizes that one critical research area involves updating justice system data systems and repositories, which have failed to track changes in U.S. demographic and immigration patterns

How Punishment Affects Crime:An Integrated Understanding of the Behavioral Mechanisms of Punishment

Legal punishment, at least in part, serves a behavioral function to reduce and prevent offending behavior. The present paper offers an integrated review of the diverse mechanisms through which punishment may affect such behavior. It moves beyond a legal view that focuses on just three such mechanisms (deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation), to also include other socializing, delegitimizing, compliance obstructing, and offence adapting mechanisms in how punishment may influence offending. The paper assesses the quality of existing empirical knowledge about the different effects of punishment and the conditions under which these effects exist. It concludes that punishment has at least thirteen different influences on crime prevention, five positive and eight negative. It shows that such effects are conditional, depending on the offender, offence, punishment, and jurisdiction. Furthermore, it shows that the effects vary in their directness, proximity, onset and longevity. It concludes that our current empirical understanding does not match the complex reality of how punishment comes to shape crime. In light of this, the paper develops a research agenda on the integrated effects of punishment moving beyond limited causal mechanisms to embrace the fuller complexity of how sanctions shape human conduct by adopting a complexity science approach

Is It Dangerous to Live in Neighborhoods with More Immigrants? Assessing the Effects of Immigrant Concentration on Crime Patterns

The immigration-crime nexus has been the subject of much empirical attention and research findings consistently indicate that neighborhoods with large immigrant populations exhibit comparatively lower crime rates. However, it is still imperative to explain how these effects take place in different contexts of structural circumstances of communities. This study aims to examine the effects of immigrant concentration as well as its conditioning effects for racial/ethnic segregation and concentrated disadvantage in Dallas, Texas. Results show that immigrant concentration is negatively associated with crime counts and, most importantly, that immigrant concentration moderates the effect of structural conditions on crime. Generally, immigration has crime-reducing effects and helps ameliorate the negative effects of structural conditions on crime

Does incapacitation reduce crime?

Questions and answers about incapacitation abound in all discussions about criminal justice policy. They are among the most pressing of all research issues, yet estimates about the incapacitation effect on crime vary considerably, and most are based on very old and incomplete estimates of the longitudinal pattern of criminal careers. This paper provides an overview of the incapacitation issue, highlights information on recent estimates of criminal careers that are useful to the incapacitation model, and outlines an ambitious research agenda for continued and expanded work on incapacitation and crime that centers on developing better estimates of the characteristics of criminal careers and their relevance to policy choices

Identifying the Most Successful Formula 1 Drivers in the Turbo Era

Background: Formula 1 is the world’s fastest auto racing circuit and one that is among the most-watched of all televised sports. With its international flair and glamor and the glitz it brings to viewers and spectators, it is no surprise that fans, commentators, and media covering the races enjoy ranking the most successful teams and especially the most successful drivers of all time. Yet, there are few empirical studies that have developed and/or applied rigorous methodological techniques to examine which drivers are the most successful within the recent turbo-hybrid era. Objective: This study uses novel group-based trajectory methods to rank the most successful drivers within the turbo area, 2014-2019. Methods: Group-based trajectory methods are used to identify distinct groups of drivers according to accumulated points. Results: Using total points accumulated during each respective season as our measure of success, results showed that the 45 drivers who competed during this time period could be classified into three groups, with the top-performing group of drivers being Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg. A second better-performing group of six drivers followed and included Bottas, LeClerc, Räikkönen, Ricciardo, Verstappen, and Vettel. The remaining 37 drivers were classified into a third low-performing group, a great number of which scored zero points during the time period. Conclusion: The most successful Formula 1 drivers during the turbo era were able to be identified using group-based trajectory modeling, with Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg identified as the best drivers based on accumulated points

Perceptions of discrimination and justice in New York City

Purpose There has been limited analysis on the intersections of race, gender, inequality e.g. education, income, and proceduraldistributive justice and the perceived prevalence of racially biased policing. Using data from a sample of New York City residents who were asked to judge the New York City Police Department on measures related to racially biased policing and to proceduraldistributive justice, this paper builds a perception of discrimination composite tied to perceived personal experience with officer bias and to beliefs regarding the perceived prevalence and justification for such behavior. Designmethodologyapproach First, the bivariate relation between race and the perception of discrimination composite is examined. Then, logistic regression is employed to explain the composite with the complement of demographic and attitudinal variables. Finally, split sample analyses are conducted to examine demographic and attitudinal variables separately for blacks and nonblacks. Findings Blacks were three times more likely than nonblacks to perceive that racially biased policing was widespread, unjustified, and personally experienced, and this finding held after controlling for demographic and attitudinal variables. It suggests that the black effect operates independently of income and education, raising questions about the claim that race has made way for class in key aspects of social life. Originalityvalue By focusing on issues of power and control, the police define their interactions with members of the public in very specific ways, and such power orientations may lead to increased conflict. The present study suggests that a disproportionate subset of NYC residents perceive general and specific discriminatory action related to racially biased policing and procedural injustice

Self-Control at 220 Miles per Hour: Steering and Braking to Achieve Optimal Outcomes During Adolescence

Adolescence is a developmental period characterized by heightened attraction to rewards and risk-taking propensities. Dual-systems models portray the adolescent brain in terms of a maturational mismatch whereby brain systems involved in sensitivity to incentives become potentiated before impulse-control systems have matured. That perspective implies that relying on impulse inhibition to overcome temptation is likely to yield uneven success during adolescence. Using the analogy of practice driving a race car, we propose another process that leads to achieving healthy outcomes: steering aimed at limiting or preventing motivational conflict and thereby lessening reliance on impulse control (termed braking). The focal idea is that the more adolescents can avoid troublesome contexts, the less they will need to depend on their relatively weak impulse-control abilities to avert problems and danger. Recent work links dispositional differences in self-control to indicators of steering, such as situation selection, habit cultivation, and proactive responding. Steering to curb or avoid motivational conflict could be key to promoting healthy outcomes during adolescence, a developmental period characterized by vulnerability to risk, and could have lasting importance given that enduring patterns of unhealthy, dangerous, and self-defeating behaviors often start during this period