Suchergebnisse

This paper offers a cross-country analysis of street-level corruption. In line with earlier studies on general corruption (where data did not allow a distinction between street-level and high-level corruption, e.g. Treisman 2000 and La Porta et al . 1999), nine hypotheses based on general economic theories of law enforcement are tested using data from the International Crime Victims Survey (ICVS) held in forty countries (N = 27,456). The analyses employ multilevel logistic regression models. The results show that citizens living in countries with (a) high levels of economic development, (b) high levels of economic freedom, (c) long exposure to democracy, (d) a non-federal structure, (e) Protestant traditions, and (f) a British legal culture, experience less corruption. A relation between corruption levels and economic development, economic freedom, long democratic traditions, and a British legal culture, however, is found only when no distinction is made between industrialized and developing countries. As for individual characteristics, a higher risk of being victimized by corruption is correlated with a lower age and higher levels of education and income.

Abstract
Instead of focusing on the transition to work as an indicator of social integration after imprisonment, this study approaches reintegration as a process. The labour market paths of Dutch men were mapped using the number and type of transitions, their duration and order in the first four post-prison years. To identify seven clusters with diverse labour market paths, a distinction was made between various active labour market statuses (in school, employed) and passive labour market statuses (regular benefits, disability benefits, no formal income, detained). Characteristic of most clusters is that individuals experienced few transitions during the follow-up and spent little time in employment or in prison. These findings raise the question whether popular definitions of successful reintegration after imprisonment are realistic and point towards alternative definitions.

The incapacitation effect of first-time imprisonment: A matched samples comparison .One sure way that imprisonment prevents crime in the community is by incapacitating offenders. We used official criminal records data of all individuals convicted in the Netherlands in 1997 to provide
estimates of the incapacitation effect of first-time imprisonment. Two different analytical strategies were applied for the estimation of the incapacitation effect. First, the incapacitation effect was estimated based on the offending rate individuals imprisoned in 1997 showed prior to their
confinement. Second, imprisoned offenders were paired with comparable non-imprisoned offenders using the method of propensity score matching. Our best estimate is that between 0.17 and 0.21 registered offenses are prevented per year of incarceration.

Empirical investigations of criminal sentencing represent a vast research enterprise in criminology. However, this research has been restricted almost exclusively to U.S. contexts, and often it suffers from key data limitations. As such, an examination of more detailed international sentencing data provides an important opportunity to assess the generalizability of contemporary research and theorizing on criminal punishment in the United States. The current study investigates little‐researched questions about the influence of prosecutorial sentencing recommendations, victim/offender relationships, and extralegal disparities in sentencing by analyzing unique data on the punishment of homicide offenders in the Netherlands. The results indicate that offender, victim, and situational offense characteristics all exert important independent effects at sentencing and that prosecutorial recommendations exert powerful influences over judicial sentences. The article concludes with a discussion of future directions for comparative sentencing research across international contexts.

Partners in crime? The impact of criminal behaviour on marriage formation and partner selection .Although it is well established that marriage has the potential to foster desistance from crime, little attention has been paid to offenders' marital chances. The few studies examining
the effects of criminal behaviour on marriage formation, have not taken into account the criminal behaviour of spouses. We employ data from the Criminal Career and Life-Course Study (N = 4,615) to examine the marital and criminal careers of both offenders and their marriage partners far into
adulthood. The results show that a criminal history is strongly related to outcomes in the marriage market. The higher the number of offenses, the lower the odds of marrying and the higher the odds of marrying a criminal partner.

The authors test several hypotheses about the impact of intergerational class mobility on political party preferences. Test using cross-national data sets representing Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, and the United States over the period 1964-90 suggest a process of acculturation to the class of destination. The authors hypothesized that a class with a high degree of demographic identity influences newcomers more than a class with low demographic identity does and that, the more left-wing inflow there is into a class, the more likely the immobile members are to have left-wing political preferences. The data did not confirm these hypotheses. A macro analysis does, however, show that the level of class voting is weakened by a compositional mobility effect.

AbstractScholars frequently characterize incarceration as a possible turning point in criminal activity. This implies a two‐stage process: 1) change in life‐course mechanisms around confinement and reentry result in 2) subsequent change in criminal activity relative to preconfinement. Following this model, we examine change in criminal activity, criminal identity, and social/structural challenges using data from the Prison Project, a cohort of adult males with short‐term confinement in the Netherlands in 2010–2011. Results of a novel test for within‐individual change in arrests from preconfinement to post‐reentry show that most individuals are stable—yet there is a substantial group who go down meaningfully and a much smaller group who go up. Even though changes in criminal identity from the intervening period do not predict these change groups, increases in social/structural challenges predict those who go up in criminal activity. We build from prior work on desistance and reentry, contrasting our findings and highlighting the unique insight gained from, as well as challenges of, measuring individual change within our two‐stage turning point model. Although life‐course mechanisms often correspond with changes in criminal activity concurrently, identifying individual changes that are predictors of subsequent shifts in criminal offending remains elusive.

Empirical literature has revealed that social isolation can affect the rehabilitation of sex offenders after serving their sentence. This process of social isolation can already start during incarceration due to strained relationships with fellow prisoners and correctional staff. The current study examined to what extent sex offenders felt socially isolated during incarceration, using survey and registered conviction data on a large sample of male adult prisoners from the Prison Project. It was found that support from and relationships with correctional officers and fellow prisoners were perceived less positive by sex offenders than nonsex offenders. No evidence was found for higher levels of loneliness in sex offenders compared with prisoners convicted for a nonsexual offense. In sum, although the effects were small, sex offenders reported more social isolation during imprisonment compared with nonsex offenders.

Knowledge about the employment history of prisoners prior to incarceration is lacking. Such knowledge is essential in order to establish if and to what extent incarceration worsens employment. In addition, such insights can direct policy on the (re)integration of ex-prisoners into the
labour market. In this study we describe the employment history of prisoners prior to incarceration (n = 1909) and compare it to the employment history of the general population (n = 2078). The results indicate that prisoners occupy a marginal position. Starting with a low educational level,
their subsequent employment career is characterized by long periods of unemployment, 'off the books' employment, dismissals and job shifts. Eventually, this results in a weak labour market position while entering prison. These findings stress the necessity of including pre-detention
employment information in effect studies. Also, they point at the potential role of penitentiaries in gathering information about employment history and handing job assistance to prisoners.

We examine the level of overlap between offenders' criminal networks (i.e., those with whom they discuss criminal activities and exchange criminal knowledge and skills) and offenders' core discussion networks (i.e., those with whom they discuss important personal matters). We formulate four hypotheses based on social capital and focus theory. Empirical data from 1,904 Dutch pretrial detainees reveal that one third of the criminal network members also function as core discussion partners and that half of the criminal network members know at least one core discussion partner. This implies that offenders do not completely separate their criminal network from their core discussion network. Multilevel analyses show that this network overlap is larger if criminal network members live close to the offender and/or if they share multiple social settings. Our findings have implications for policies regarding the prevention of recidivism and the reintegration of offenders into society.