Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Ahead of Print. Objectives: The changing nature and timing of adult role acquisition during the transition to adulthood over the past several decades may hold implications for criminal offending as adult roles are fundamental to theories of desistance. This research explores whether changes in adult role attainment during young adulthood are associated with the changes in the level and slope of the age-arrest trajectory over the past half-century. Methods: Combining US Census and Uniform Crime Report data, we map the average rate of adult role atta ..read more

Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Ahead of Print. Objectives: Despite abundant evidence of deviant peer influence, it remains unclear precisely how adolescents try to exert such influence. What do adolescents do or say to actively encourage or discourage deviance among their peers? The aim of the current study is to explore the different ways in which adolescents talk each other into—or out of—such behaviors. Methods: We analyzed narratives about delinquency (N = 37), substance use (N = 131), and other deviance (N = 107), which were written by adolescents (ages 14–18) in secondary ..read more

Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Ahead of Print. Objectives: To examine whether the likelihood of guilty dispositions and the manner of sanctioning prison misconduct differs across racial/ethnic groups, with emphasis on sanctions other than solitary confinement. Methods: A random sample of men incarcerated in a large Northeastern state prison system is analyzed. Propensity weights are estimated by Black–White and Hispanic/Latino-White prehearing characteristics. Weighted logistic regression is used to examine guilty verdict, weighted multinomial logistic regression is used to exam ..read more

Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Ahead of Print. Objectives: We draw from prior theory and research to advance theoretical arguments for how self-control may operate as a collective concept in addition to being a powerful individual quality. Next, we empirically examine hypotheses regarding the potential effects of collective self-control on offending. Methods: We use data from the 2018 Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey, a statewide survey of Florida middle school and high school students nested within more than 400 schools. Hierarchical Linear Modeling was used to estimate eff ..read more

Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Ahead of Print. ObjectivesExtend foundational work on the structural covariates of homicide (concentrated disadvantage in particular) by examining the differential effects of context across distinct types of incidents.MethodsUsing data on 31,513 incidents nested within 4,598 places from the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) from 2003 to 2018, multilevel latent class analysis (MLCA) classified homicides into types. Two-level negative binomial regression models subsequently examined the place-level correlates of homicide counts disaggre ..read more

Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Ahead of Print. ObjectivesThe decision to impose consecutive incarceration sentences, rather than concurrent, is an important discretionary decision that is often not structured by guidelines. We develop and test expectations, guided by the focal concerns framework, regarding case and defendant characteristics that are likely to evoke heightened perceptions of blameworthiness and danger, and thus should be more likely to result in consecutive incarceration.MethodsWe use data on individuals sentenced in Pennsylvania from 2015 to 2019 to predict the ..read more

Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Ahead of Print. ObjectivePolice officers’ use of force (UoF) has traditionally been understood vis-à-vis subject resistance, but researchers have recently argued for a greater emphasis on subject threat. We examine the role of static and dynamic threat measures, consisting of indicators for ability, opportunity, and intent, in police UoF while accounting for subject resistance.Data and MethodsWe use data from a large multiagency sample of coded police force narratives and a series of multilevel models that nest temporally ordered force sequences (d ..read more

Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Ahead of Print. Objective: We investigate the role that neighborhood socioeconomic contexts and defendant mobility patterns play in prosecutorial charge reductions. Methods: Using data from a large sample of criminal defendants prosecuted during 2010 to 2011 in New York County (N = 68,113), we analyze differences in charge reductions for defendants who reside and offend in low- and high-income areas, and for those who traverse socioeconomically divergent neighborhoods when committing crime. Results: Net of individual defendant characteristics, like ..read more

Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Ahead of Print. Objectives: Accumulating research finds that immigrants are less likely to offend compared to their native-born counterparts in the United States. Less understood are the factors that help account for this disparity in offending. Because there are reasons to believe that immigrants weigh the costs and benefits of crime differently than their U.S.-born peers, we explore the utility of a rational choice perspective to explain the disparity in offending across immigrant generations. Methods: Utilizing data from the Pathways to Desistan ..read more

Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Ahead of Print. Objectives: While extant research has largely framed prejudicial attitudes as a precursor to hate crime offending, the current research considers the possibility that negative outgroup attitudes may also be an important consequence of hate crime victimization as well. Methods: Using survey data from 3,183 respondents across the United States, this research employs a series of regression models to examine the relationship between hate crime victimization and three different types of prejudicial attitudes: anti-Asian xenophobia, anti ..read more