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Document Title: Rational Choice, Deterrence, and
Identity: Modeling Life Course
Transitions and Desistance
Author(s): Ross L. Matsueda
Document Number: 251546
Date Received: February 2018
Award Number: 2014-R2-CX-
This resource has not been published by the U.S. Department of
Justice. This resource is being made publically available through the
Office of Justice Programs’ National Criminal Justice Reference
Service.
Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and
do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S.
Department of Justice.
NIJ GRANT: FINAL SUMMARY OVERVIEW
NIJ Grant #2014-R2-CX- Project Title: Rational Choice, Deterrence, and Identity: Modeling Life Course Transitions and Desistance Project Period: January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2017 Principal Investigator: Ross L. Matsueda
Project Purpose and Goals Using longitudinal survey data, we specify models of life course transitions, offender decision-making, and crime, to answer four research questions: (1) Under what conditions do high-risk young adults undergo life course transitions, such as high school graduation, transitioning to work, becoming a parent, cohabiting, and marrying? (2) Do the effects of life course transitions constitute turning points in criminal careers, and if so, under what social conditions? (3) What are the causal mechanisms—changing peers and gangs, changing perceived costs and returns to crime, changing perceived opportunities, or changing criminal identities—that explain why life course transitions affect desistance. (4) Can we identify, from our empirical models, the specific conditions under which a treatment intervention is likely to succeed? Aspects of the theoretical framework we adopt for this project were published in two Encyclopedia articles. The first reviews a rational choice theory of criminal behavior, which specifies a utility function from the work of Gary Becker, and shows how that implies policy implications for deterrence, and modifying the returns to crime. Matsueda and Grigoryeva (2014) then contrast this utility theory with a limited rationality perspective popularized by Clarke and Cornish. They then review macro and micro research on rational choice and deterrence and conclude by discussing negative externalities from sanctioning, including
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intentions as a mediating variable in the deterrence process. Using a random-effects Tobit model, they find support for a Bayesian learning model of the perceived risk of arrest for drug offenses: the ratio of arrests to drug offenses is positively and monotonically related to perceived risk; for those never arrested, number of drug offenses is negatively and monotonically related to perceived risk. Furthermore, in Tobit models of intentions to use drugs in the future measured on probability scales, both perceived risk of arrest and psychic returns to drug use (excitement and being seen as cool by friends) are significantly related to intentions to use drugs. The effects of returns to crime (excitement and being seen as cool) have stronger effects than the costs of crime (perceived risk). Finally, using random effects negative binomial models with lagged regressors, the authors find that, holding drug intentions constant, psychic returns and perceived criminal opportunities predict future self-reported drug offenses. That is future drug use is increased by perceived excitement from using drugs, unaffected by perceived risk of arrest, and strongly increased by perceived opportunities to use drugs and get away with it. Thus, deterrence works at the intentions stage, whereas psychic returns operate both at the intentions stage and the actual drug use stage.
An Acquired Taste: Context and Cognition in a Sequential Model of Marijuana Use In this analysis, Matsueda and Kreager (2018) test an integrated rational choice model of addiction with a symbolic interactionist theory of becoming a marijuana user derived from Howard Becker. Following Becker, the authors specify a four-stage model of marijuana use: initiation, continuation, transition to regular use, and leaving regular use. They estimate discrete- time complementary log-log event history models of the hazard to each transition with time- varying covariates. In general, they find, like previous research, that the peer context is key for each stage of marijuana decisions, including associating with friends who smoke marijuana and
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socializing with friends in situations in which alcohol and marijuana are used. Furthermore, they find that initiation into marijuana smoking is driven by marijuana-smoking peers, being seen as cool by peers for smoking marijuana, and reduced by high self-esteem and having a parent who has never been arrested for drug offenses. Attitudes toward marijuana are irrelevant for initiation, but as Becker argues, are important for continuation and regular use, as youth require justifications for future use. The transition to regular use is affected by access to a dealer, impulsivity, and expectations from excitement. The transition out of regular use is less likely for users with marijuana using friends and those who exhibit impulsivity.
Motherhood and Desistance: Exploring Causal Mechanisms This analysis builds on earlier work by Kreager, Matsueda, and Erosheva (2010), which found that theft, violence, and drug use were less likely for women after they became mothers. This paper uses fixed-effects panel models to find that, unlike the transition to motherhood, the transition to fatherhood exerted no effect on desistance from crime. The analysis then turns to testing hypotheses about the causal mechanisms by which motherhood reduces criminality. Drawing from ethnographic research on inner-city motherhood, Matsueda et al. (2014) hypothesized that motherhood causes changes in their reference groups—from partying and drug using delinquents—to non-delinquents, such as other young mothers. They also hypothesize that motherhood may change identities away from identities as a rule-violator or “bad” kid, and may increase self-esteem, both of which may be associated with less crime and drug use. The fixed effects models find that nearly three-quarters of the effect of motherhood on crime is explained by the joint effects of delinquent peers, reflected appraisals, and self-esteem.
Gang Organization and Gang Identity: An Integrated Theory of Disengagement from Gangs
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empathy continues to increase slightly for girls, but decreases for boys. After age 15 empathy levels off for both boys and girls, leaving girls with substantially higher empathy scores by age
- O’Neill then models this in a multivariate model using non-linear quadratic and cubic terms to fit the trend. To test whether empathy has different effects on different offense types, in particular, victimless crimes versus other offenses, O’Neill uses four lagged indices of self- reported crime: victimless crimes, fraud, theft, and violent crime. She finds that, in bivariate negative binomial models, lagged empathy is negatively and significantly related to all four crimes types—victimless crime, fraud, theft, and violent crime. However, in multivariate models that control for age, income race, family structure, and previous grade point average, empathy still has a negative and significant effect on fraud and theft, but not on victimless crime or violent crime. The null effect on victimless crime was expected: since there is no victim, using empathic ability to consider the consequences of the crime on others is rendered moot. The null effect on violence is interesting. Kate speculates that it could be that violence is often victim- precipitated and impulsive acts, which short-circuit the role of empathy and role taking. Finally, she tests the extent to which gender differences in empathy help explain the gender gap in offending. As expected, empathy explains little of the gap in violence or victimless crime. It does explain a substantial portion of the gender gap in theft (40%), and a nontrivial portion of the gender gap in fraud (18%).
Work and Crime: A Causal Treatment Effects Survival Model This analysis uses panel data from the National Supported Work Demonstration Project (NSW), an $82.4 million study that randomly assigned 5,005 chronically unemployed addicts, drop-outs, and offenders to Supported Work or a control group. The original evaluation failed to find an overall treatment effect. Some evidence was found for treatment heterogeneity:
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Supported Work appeared to reduce offending among early referrals to the program, drug addicts, and older participants. During the course of the experiment, there were substantial departures from randomization as some experimentals quit their jobs, while some controls got jobs on their own. This paper uses an instrumental variable approach to modeling departures from randomization within survival models of desistance, which raises challenging statistical and methodological issues. Some members of the treatment group quite their Supported Work jobs and some members of the control groups obtained jobs on their own. Using the new model, Jun et al. (2016) reevaluate the substantive results of the experiment on offending. The preliminary results largely replicate previous research on the NSW dataset: Overall, there is no significant treatment effect, but the treatment did appear to work for offenders age 35 and older. Given the age-crime curve shows that crime peaks in late adolescence and early adulthood, and then slowly declines throughout the remainder of the life course, our results suggest that providing jobs to ex- offenders and drug addicts speeds up the desistance process for older offenders.
Trajectory Models Revisited: Assessing Recent Simulation Studies With the importance of life course criminology, criminologists have been recently preoccupied with different ways of modeling latent group trajectories of offending. A controversy in the literature has developed over the use of group-based trajectory models, growth mixture models, and growth curve models, including leading methodologists such as Nagin, Land, Sampson, Raudenbush, Curran, and Muthén. A number of simulation studies have attempted to adjudicate among such models. The most prominent simulation study was published by Warren et al., in the American Journal of Sociology , which found that different trajectory models produced different results for the same simulated dataset. In this analysis,
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exerts the strongest effects on future drug use. These results suggest that policies for reducing drugs may want to focus more on reducing opportunities for using drugs—perhaps by reducing the supply and availability of drugs—and perhaps less on the threat of punishment. Finally, our results suggest that the risk of arrest has a stronger deterrent effect on drug intentions than risk of jail, which is consistent with previous work showing that certainty is more important than severity in the deterrence process. Finally, our analyses of work and crime, which control for non-compliance in the National Supported Work Demonstration data, suggests that non-compliance does not appreciably alter results. We find, like previous research, that Supported Work jobs overall did not reduce self-reported crime, and that treatment reduced crime for older offenders. Recall that Supported Work jobs were primarily low-wage jobs in the secondary sector of the labor market in the mid-to-late 1970s—such as washing cars, digging ditches, working construction—this positive treatment effect suggests that work programs may be a viable way of reducing crime when administered to older offenders.
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Project Papers Completed and In-Progress Grigoryeva, Maria S., and Ross L. Matsueda. 2014. “Deterrence, Rational Choice, and Crime:Sociological Contributions." In Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justic e, edited by G. Bruinsma and D. Weisburd. New York: Springer-Verlag. Kreager, Derek A., and Ross L. Matsueda. 2014. “Bayesian Updating and Crime.” In Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice New York: Springer-Verlaag. , edited by G. Bruinsma and D. Weisburd.
Matsueda, Ross L., Maria Grigoryeva, Richard Callahan, and Derek A. Kreager. 2014. “Motherhood and Desistance: Exploring Causal Mechanisms.” Presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Society of Criminology, Atlanta, GA. Leverso, John, and Ross L. Matsueda. 2017. “Gang Organization and Gang Identity: An Integrated Theory of Disengagement from Gangs.” Submitted to Journal of Quantitative Criminology. Martin, Bryan D., Ross L. Matsueda, and Elena A. Erosheva. 2014. “Trajectory Models Revisited: Assessing Recent Simulation Studies.” Presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Society of Criminology. Matsueda, Ross L., Derek Kreager, and Charles C. Lanfear. 2018. “A Rational Choice Model ofDeterrence, Intentions, and Drug Use.”
O’Neill, Kate K. 2018. “Adolescence, Empathy, and the Gender Gap in Juvenile Offending. Submitted to Criminology. Matsueda, Ross L., and Derek Kreager. 2018. “An Acquired Taste: Context and Cognition in a Sequential Model of Marijuana Use.” Hwang, Jun, Ross L. Matsueda, Elena A. Erosheva, and Christopher Uggen. 2016. “Work and Crime: A Causal Treatment Effects Survival Model.” Paper presented at the AnnualMeetings of the American Society of Criminology.
Matsueda, Ross L. 2018. “Rational Choice, Identity and Decision-Making.” Paper prepared for presentation at the Indiana University Identity Conference, Department of Sociology, University of Indiana, Bloomington, April 13-14.
Department of Justice. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do notThis resource was prepared by the author(s) using Federal funds provided by the U.S.
