Summary of Research
This work will investigate criminal behaviour and its relationship with social exclusion. Wilkinson and Pickett (2009) hypothesize that “reckless, even violent behaviour comes from young men at the bottom of society, deprived of all markers of status, who must struggle to maintain face and what little status they have” (p134). The research will draw on a number of existing studies looking into social exclusion and poverty and relate these deprivation findings to inform what should be the focus of the analysis of crime related datasets.
This proposal is necessarily only partial defined at this point; the exact nature of the investigation is highly dependent on the datasets available, and the exact variables contained in them. Fundamentally the work shall be a quantitative study of criminal behaviours set in the context of social exclusion.
A major strength is the anticipated availability of new longitudinal Ministry of Justice (MoJ) datasets which contain unique information on offenders’ lives, from detailed questionnaires, offending reduction programme information and administrative data such as Police National Computer (official) criminal records and benefit receipts. Offenders serving a custodial sentence, by their very nature, are a specific group and an investigation using this dataset could provide a unique insight into the relationship between social exclusion and offending.
Farrington (2007) reviews a number of previous works that identify childhood criminogenic risk factors from a variety of different studies and forms a list of the most well defined including individual risk factors such as empathy and impulsiveness and family factors such as large family size and child-rearing methods. A different investigatory focus, dependent on the availability of appropriate variables and datasets, could be into social exclusion and offending careers. This (secondary and to some extent fall back) criminal career focused strand would require secondary analysis of existing, established datasets such as the British Crime Survey and the Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime.
Some of the starkest economic differentials uncovered in the recently published An Anatomy of Economic Inequality in the UK by the National Equality Panel (2010) concerned area deprivation whilst Bottoms (2007), citing work by Wikström and Loeber (2000), states that “individual [criminogenic] risk factors almost certainly themselves incorporate significant ‘hidden’ neighbourhood effect”. Analysis related to area characteristics is one possible region where significant overlaps between the offender and criminal career investigations could tie together.
Potential Questions
1. How does social exclusion affect criminal behaviour, or does criminal delinquency impact on social exclusion?
2. From the MoJ dataset, what can said about the unique characteristics of offenders who have served custodial sentences in terms of social exclusion?
3. How can secondary analysis of existing datasets be used to try to link social exclusion to criminal delinquency from a criminal career perspective?
4. How do existing theories such as Farrington’s (2005) Integrated Cognitive Antisocial Potential Theory (ICAP), Gottfredson & Hirschi’s (1990) general theory of offending, Moffitt’s (1993) developmental theory of offending explain relationships between social exclusion and offending?
5. More specifically and if available: how does area affect criminal behaviour?
o How do crime/offender rates systematically alter with area characteristics?
o To what extent do individual risk factors incorporate ‘hidden’ neighbourhood effects?
o How important is area of upbringing in relation to more recent areas of residence?
Datasets and Methodology
Alongside a detailed review of theoretical approaches and consideration of areas factors from existing, established sources such as the Labour Force Survey and the British Crime Survey (to name but two), existing criminological datasets shall be examined to assess their suitability for addressing the primary research questions. This could include the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development (Farrington, 1999), the Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime, the Offending, Crime and Justice Survey and the Arrestee Survey.
The major strength of this work however will be the access available to new Ministry of Justice cohort studies; the Juvenile Cohort Study (JCS), Offender Management Community Cohort Study (OMCCS) and the Surveying Prisoner Crime Reduction (SPCR). All three of these surveys give unprecedented national detailed information about offenders’ lives, using extensive questionnaires, and matched to administrative data such as the Police National Computer and offending reduction programme records.
Concentrating mainly on the most robustly developed of these, the SPCR project is a longitudinal cohort study of approximately 4,000 prisoners, of which approximately 1,500 form the “core” sample and 2,500 form the “booster” sample. The maximum sentence length included in the samples is four years, with the booster sample being exclusively made up of longer-term (sentenced from 18 months to four years) prisoners. Each prisoner is interviewed using a questionnaire with hundreds of items, up to four times as follows:
Wave: | 1 | 1 & 2 Combined | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| Stage of Imprisonment | Reception | Reception & Pre-Release | Pre-Release | Post-Release 1 | Post-Release 2 |
| Sample | Core & Booster | Core (very short sentence only) | Core & Booster | Core & Booster | Booster Only |
Alongside the personal details of each prisoner (previous address, age, gender etc.) the reception questionnaire collect questions on the current sentence, contact with the Criminal Justice System, relationship and children, employment, smoking/alcohol/drug use, health, self reported offending and family and other background information. These ‘background’ indicators include a number of questions about how the individual grew up, periods in care homes, their families, their perceptions of the area in which they live and details of the people in that area with whom they associate. The pre-release wave builds on this with questions about the prison regime, contact with friends/family, interventions, education and health care whilst in prison and release arrangements – including the area to which the person intends to reside. This part also repeats a standard set of attitude and motivation questions that are repeated in each wave. The 1-2 month and 6 month post release questionnaires carries forward many themes from the initial two waves and goes on to probe the same areas focusing on the post prison period (Stewart 2008 and a review of the unpublished questionnaires). This dataset offers a fascinating and uniquely detailed appreciation of the circumstance of offenders who have served custodial sentence.
Comparing the self-reported criminal behaviours to the Police National Computer (PNC) official histories could form a further study looking at this longstanding theme of criminal behaviour investigation (Davies et al. 2005 p46 – 53, Snyder and Sickmund 1999 Tracy, Wolfgang and Figlio 1990). It is hard to know exactly what the dataset will provide at this early stage; however the expected additions of administrative data from the Department for Work and Pensions on incomes an benefits, and other central government data sources, which would greatly increase possibilities. This data is due to be added to the dataset by the MoJ, although the exact specification of the additions is still under discussion.
Theoretical and Policy Background
Theory
During his explanation of Integrated Cognitive Antisocial Potential (ICAP) Theory, Farrington (2005) states: “The main problem with the risk factor paradigm is that, while the most important risk factors are well established, there is a great deal of controversy about the intervening causal mechanisms that influence offending” (p81). Catalano et al.(2005) hypothesize “that an individuals behaviour, norms, and values held by those to whom the individual is bonded” (p97). How does social exclusion, poverty, area, the area’s deprivation levels, and consideration of the individuals who inhabit these areas affect these aspects, especially in the case of offenders who have served custodial sentences?
Causes of criminal or delinquent behaviour can be seen in the theories of Gottfredson & Hirschi (1990) and Moffitt (1993). Gottfredson & Hirschi propose a general theory of offending, which hypothesises that an offender’s self-control will be the principle deciding factor to an individual’s involvement in crime and incorporates elements such as self-centeredness, impulsivity, perseverance, and an inclination to thrilling or risky activities. How variation in the level of self-control are affected by exclusion, both during adolescence and at the time of later offending effects this self-control is not explicitly stated.
Moffitt (1993) provides a more developmental theory of offending (as reviewed by Loeber and Leblanc 1990). Whilst she identifies a small percentage (between approximately 5% and 10% of the offending population) as “life course persistent offenders” who are tied into offending from very early ages, triggered by maternal failure such as poor nutrition and parental substance abuse, the majority of offenders are “adolescence-limited”. This second group are generally well-socialised and adjusted, and their delinquency is adaptive to reinforce certain stages of the maturing process. Laub and Sampson (2003) argue against this identification of life course persistent offenders, finding that it is ‘life turning points’ such as military service, marriage, periods of employment and moving away from peer groups/areas of previous criminal involvement.
Policy
In March 2003, the British Home Secretary and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury asked Patrick Carter (now Lord Carter of Coles) to review correctional services in England and Wales. The report proposed three radical changes to the current system. Firstly, that there should be 'end-to-end management' of each offender from first contact with the correctional services to full completion of the sentence. Secondly, that there should be a clear division between the commissioners of services and their providers, and thirdly that there should be contestability amongst these providers. By these means, he argued, efficiency would be increased, unit costs reduced, and innovation encouraged (Carter 2003).
Following from this, on the 1st of June 2004, the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) was formed. The stated goals of NOMS are to protect the public, transform the way offenders are punished and managed, reduce re-offending and to cut crime (NOMS website, 2007) through commissioning of correctional services and effective interventions.
In the Home Office Research Study The Impact of Corrections on Re-offending: A Review of ‘What Works’, Harper and Chitty (2005) identify dynamic factors, or criminogenic needs, which affect (re-) offending behaviour as “education, employment, accommodation, drugs and alcohol, mental health and social networks”. They state that offending intervention programmes must target the specific needs of each offender for them to be effective. A better understanding of how individual risk factors incorporate or are affected by social exclusion will allow better offending reduction policies. Similarly a clearly picture of the positions of prisoners (or ex-prisoners) will help define policies explicit to that group.
Previous Research and Relevant Experience
In my most recent position I lead the statistical team of the Secretariat for the National Equality Panel, chaired by Prof. John Hills. The report An Anatomy of Economic Inequality in the UK was published in January 2010. I was responsible for producing the statistics on this major work, including those using the LFS, FRS, HBAI and the new Wealth and Assets survey. I also managed the commissioned research and liaised with a number of government departments/academic researchers.
More specifically, I defined the area measures used in the report. I researched many different options (various Index of Multiple Deprivation techniques, census area characteristics, Experian’s MOSIAC methodology, ward and parliamentary constituencies’ level analysis); discussed my recommendations with the Panel and once they were satisfied with my proposal, contacted various data source holders to get the correct details matched for our analysis. After presenting my final analyses to the Panel, they were incorporated in to the report, and showed “profound differences at neighbourhood level, between those with higher and lower levels of deprivation” (National Equality Panel 2010, p248).
From mid-June I have a position at the Ministry of Justice to work on the SPCR dataset, looking to solve the problem surrounding the wave 3 attrition. This shall give me valuable access to the dataset before starting any research. It is expected that I shall carry on my position at the Ministry of Justice, either part time, full time or in a contractor capacity to help facilitate this work. During this period I shall also be managing the data matching to both administrative DWP sources and, with access to the detailed personal level data, to area deprivation measures. As I have not yet started in this position, and due to the recent change of government, is in part responsible for the less than entirely clear focus of the investigation outlined above.
In my role as a statistician in the Research and Development Statistics Directorate of the National Offender Management Service in Home Office (RDS NOMS) I was the lead author assessing the government progress against 2000 Re-Offending Reduction Public Service Agreement (PSA) 10 (Cunliffe, 2007). This report used PNC data to analyses the two-year proven re-offending rates of adults, comparing actual rates to predicted rates using logistic regression models.
During my time in RDS NOMS I was regularly involved with various crime reduction strategy programme evaluations and played a leading role in the formulation of the new PSA measures (Ministry of Justice 2009). This incorporated correspondence analysis (Francis and Soothill 2007 and Francis, Soothill, Fligelstone R. 2004), supplemented with a range of techniques incorporating discussions around the cost of crime, maximum sentences awardable, average sentences awarded, offence volumes and public perception issues
My MSc dissertation, “Investigating Criminality Patterns and Specialisation using the Police National Computer” was comprised of two distinct sections of work. The first strand used Principle Component Analysis to investigate offence, the second offending specialisation.
Contact with LSE Academic Staff
I have discussed this project in person with Robert Reiner and Tim Newburn. I have also talked with John Hills about fitting this within project within the spheres of both the Mannheim Centre for Criminology and the Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion.
Bibliography
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