Do the adult criminal careers of African Americans fit the "facts"?

Cohort Profile: The Woodlawn Study

The Woodlawn Study is an epidemiologically- defined community cohort study of 1242 Black Americans (51% female and 49% male), who were in first grade in 1966-67 in Woodlawn, a neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. The study comprises extensive interview data over the life course including self-, mother-, and/or teacher-reported assessments at ages 6, 16, 32, 42, and 62 (in progress), administrative records (i.e., education, crime, and death records), and census data. These data cover a wide range of focal areas across the life course, including family environment, socioeconomic indicators, education, social integration (e.g., marriage, community engagement, religious involvement) and social support, employment, racial discrimination, substance use, crime/victimization, and mental and physical health, including mortality. Over the past 50 years, Woodlawn research has mapped cumulative disadvantage, substance use, and criminal offending and has identified key risk and protective factors of adversity, resilience, and success across the full life course. In turn, these findings have informed life course theory and policy for a population that experiences significant criminal and health disparities.

Offending and the Long-Term Risk of Death: An Examination of Mid-Life Mortality Among an Urban Black American Cohort

Research on the long-term relationship between offending and mortality is limited, especially among minorities who have higher risk of premature mortality and criminal offending, particularly arrest. Using Cox proportional hazard models, we estimate the relationship between young adult offending and later mortality (to age 58) among a community cohort of Black Americans (n = 1,182). After controlling for a wide range of covariates, results indicate that violent offenders are at heightened risk of mortality from young adulthood through midlife compared with both non-violent only offenders and non-offenders. Further analysis shows that this result is driven by the frequent, largely non-violent, arrests incurred among violent offenders. Criminal justice reform and collaboration with public health practitioners might be fruitful avenues to reduce mortality disparities.

Long-term Consequences of Criminal Justice System Intervention: The Impact of Young Adult Arrest on Midlife Health Behaviors

While there is a growing literature on the relationship between incarceration and health, few studies have expanded the investigation of criminal justice system involvement and health to include the more common intervention of arrest. This study uses a quasi-experimental design to evaluate the long-term effect of arrest in young adulthood on health behaviors in midlife for African Americans. We use propensity score matching methods and gender-specific multivariate regression analyses to equate those who did and did not incur an arrest in young adulthood from a subsample (n = 683) of the Woodlawn cohort, an African American community cohort followed from childhood into midlife. The results suggest that, for men, having been arrested in young adulthood has a direct effect on smoking, daily drinking, and risky sexual behaviors into midlife while young adult arrest does not seem to impact midlife health risk behaviors for women. This study adds health risk behaviors to the growing list of detrimental outcomes, such as crime, drug use, education, and mental health that are related to criminal justice contact for African American men, in particular.

What Protects Those at High Risk from Criminal Justice Contact Despite the Odds? A Negative Case Analysis

Criminal justice contact is a prevalent, if not expected, life event for many high-risk individuals with deleterious consequences; yet, many individuals at high risk are able to avoid this contact (i.e. negative cases exist). In this study, we draw on the life course framework and utilize negative case analysis to (1) estimate the prevalence of criminal justice avoidance within a sample of structurally high-risk Black men and (2) explore the individual, familial and contextual factors in childhood and adolescence that distinguish these negative cases. One's own 'on-time' and one's siblings' education emerge as particularly strong protective factors suggesting that the presence of unique protection, as opposed to the absence of risk, may be most salient. Theoretical implications are discussed.

What's drugs got to do with it? Examining the relationship between drug onset and duration with criminal outcomes in an African American cohort

BACKGROUND

The association of drug use onset and duration with criminal careers has rarely been studied over the life course among African Americans, who are disproportionately impacted by the criminal justice system.

METHODS

This study uses data from a community cohort of urban African Americans, first assessed at age 6 (n = 1242) and followed into midlife. Data come from both self-reports (n = 1053 in adulthood) and official crime records (n = 1217). Regression analyses among those who used marijuana, cocaine, and/or heroin and had complete arrest data (n = 614) assess the association between adolescent vs. adult initiation, short vs. long duration of use, and their interaction with the outcomes of arrest, incarceration, and criminal career length, as well as meeting criteria for a drug use disorder.

RESULTS

Findings show that onset and duration are highly related, but when independent effects of duration and onset are assessed, only duration is a statistically significant predictor of all four crime outcomes, as well as a predictor of meeting criteria for a drug use disorder in adjusted regression models. Associations of duration with arrests held for all crime types (i.e., drug, property, violence). Adolescent vs. adult drug onset only predicted meeting lifetime criteria for a drug use disorder. The interaction of onset and duration was not statistically significant in any models. No appreciable differences were observed in gender specific models.

DISCUSSION

Findings suggest that shortening drug use duration may have a greater impact on reducing the association of drug use with crime for African Americans than delaying onset.

Psychosocial Maturation, Race, and Desistance from Crime

Research on maturation and its relation to antisocial behavior has progressed appreciably in recent years. Psychosocial maturation is a relatively recent concept of development that scholarship has linked to risky behavior. Psychosocial maturation appears to be a promising explanation of the process of exiting criminal behavior, known as desistance from crime. However, to date, research has not examined whether psychosocial maturation is related to desistance in similar ways across race/ethnicity. Using the Pathways to Desistance Study which followed a mixed-race/ethnicity group of serious adolescent offenders for 7 years, this research tested growth in psychosocial maturation across race/ethnic groups. The sample (14.46% female, average age 15.97 at baseline) was composed of white (n = 250), black (n = 463), and Hispanic (n = 414) individuals. The results showed variation in trajectories of psychosocial maturation with blacks having higher initial levels but slower growth in maturation over time compared to whites. Psychosocial maturation was negatively related to crime across all racial/ethnic groups. Across all racial/ethnic groups, differences in the magnitude of the association between psychosocial maturation and desistance were small. Rather than needing distinct theories for specific groups, psychosocial maturation appears to be a general theoretical perspective for understanding desistance from crime across races/ethnicities. Policy formulation based on psychosocial maturation would, therefore, be applicable across racial/ethnic groups.

Explaining continuity in substance use: The role of criminal justice system involvement over the life course of an urban African American prospective cohort

BACKGROUND

African Americans are disproportionately burdened by substance use consequences and criminal justice system involvement, yet their interrelationship over the life course is not well understood. This study aimed to assess how substance use, crime, and justice system involvement may influence one another from adolescence to midlife.

METHODS

Data come from a community cohort of urban African Americans first assessed in childhood and followed up into midlife (n = 1242, 606 males, 636 females). We draw on interview data and local, state, and federal criminal records. Participants were assessed at ages 6, 16, 32, and 42, with additional record retrieval at age 52. Utilizing structural equation modeling, we estimate pathways between substance use, criminal behavior, and arrests over time by gender.

RESULTS

For males, significant paths were found between childhood behavioral problems and adolescent substance use, delinquency, and police interactions. For females, a significant path was found between childhood behavioral problems and only adolescent delinquency. We observed continuity between substance use and between arrest constructs from adolescence through midlife for men only. Direct paths were found between substance use and later arrests for both males and females. Paths were also observed between arrests and later substance use for both genders.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings of reciprocal relationships highlight the critical need to break the cycle of substance use and crime and point to specific times in the life course when intervention is necessary. Findings introduce the potential role of the criminal justice system as a key intervention agent in redirecting substance use careers.

Understanding the Role of Marriage in Black Women's Offending Over the Life Course

PURPOSE

Black women remain a traditionally understudied population in life course criminology and in studies of criminal desistance specifically. This work contributes to the desistance literature by focusing on within-group heterogeneity among black women, and examining whether variation in the structural position (measured at both distal and proximate points in the life course) conditions the relationship between a well-recognized correlate of desistance-marriage-and offending.

METHODS

The sample of 636 black females is drawn from the Woodlawn project, a longitudinal, interdisciplinary study of social adaptation, psychological well-being, and crime in a Chicago community cohort of black Americans who were in first grade in 1966. To test for potential moderating effects of structural position on the marriage-offending link, we employ hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to simultaneously estimate variation in crime within-individuals while accounting for between-individual differences in offending.

RESULTS

Findings suggest that both childhood and adult measures of structural position condition the marriage-offending link in important ways. Most notably, black women who are more socioeconomically disadvantaged reap greater benefits from marriage-in the form of a reduced probability of offending-than their more advantaged counterparts.

CONCLUSION

To the degree that women's pathways to offending are shaped by their socioeconomic marginalization, the practical benefits of marriage (e.g., economic improvement) might surpass other traditionally recognized mechanisms of desistance (e.g., social bonds) in their importance. Future life course research should highlight the complexity of lived experiences by explicitly considering one's race, gender, and social-structural position.

Young Adult Victimization and Midlife Consequences: Sensitization or Steeling Effects of Childhood Adversity?

The interrelationship between victimization, violence, and substance use/abuse has been well established, yet those who experience victimization do not necessarily respond with violence or substance use or escalate to experiencing substance abuse symptoms. Drawing on literature from both the syndemic research from medical anthropology and the resilience research from psychology, this study examines the interaction between early childhood adversity and young adult violent victimization on later substance use/abuse and violent offending to provide insight into conditional effects. Data are derived from the Woodlawn Study, an African American cohort of men and women from a socioeconomically heterogeneous community in the South Side of Chicago, who were followed from first grade through age 42. Results indicate that those with lower levels of childhood adversity are more likely to suffer the negative consequences of violent victimization than those with higher childhood adversity, providing support for a "steeling" effect.

Understanding the Mechanisms of Desistance at the Intersection of Race, Gender, and Neighborhood Context

OBJECTIVES

This study tests theorized mechanisms of desistance, and whether the process of desistance is conditioned by social structural position.

METHODS

We investigate how marriage promotes desistance from crime among urban African American males raised in the Woodlawn community, a disadvantaged neighborhood in Chicago. Using hierarchical linear modeling, we test the resiliency of the marriage effect by observing offending trajectories following marital dissolution; is the marriage effect conditional upon staying married, indicating situational effects? or does the effect persist when marriage is taken away, indicating enduring effects? Further, we test if the process of desistance is conditional upon contextual disadvantage.

RESULTS

While initial findings show an increase in violent and property offending upon divorce, further analysis shows evidence that this effect differs by neighborhood structural context; the increase in offending upon divorce is apparent only for African American men who experience continued disadvantage across the life course. Those who moved to relatively more advantaged areas by adulthood show no increase in offending upon marital dissolution.

CONCLUSIONS

How marriage matters for desistance is partially influenced by social structural position; context matters. These findings invigorate criminological research on the mechanisms driving the marriage effect and provide insight into the interactive nature of person and context.

Handgun carrying among White youth increasing in the United States: New evidence from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health 2002-2013

The objective of the present study was to examine trends and correlates of handgun carrying among adolescents ages 12-17 in the United States. Data was derived from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) involving non-Hispanic White, African American, and Hispanic respondents ages 12-17 (n=197,313) and spanning the years 2002-2013. Logistic regression was used to examine significance of trend year and correlates of previous 12-month handgun carrying. The overall self-reported prevalence of handgun carrying was 3.4%. The prevalence of handgun carrying during 2004-2005 was significantly higher for African-Americans (4.39%) compared to non-Hispanic Whites (3.03%). However, by 2012-2013, non-Hispanic Whites (4.08%) completely diverged and reported carrying handguns significantly more than both African-American (2.96%) and Hispanic (2.82%) youth. Male gender and a number of externalizing behaviors were significant correlates of handgun carrying; however, we also found evidence of differential correlates with regard to such factors as drug selling, parental affirmation, and income by race/ethnicity. To our knowledge, this is the largest study of handgun carrying among youth in the United States. Findings indicate that although at historically low levels handgun carrying is on the rise but only among non-Hispanic Whites. Differential correlates among racial/ethnic groups suggest prevention programming and policies may need modifications depending on group and geographic locale targeted.

Examining the Consequences of the "Prevalent Life Events" of Arrest and Incarceration among an Urban African-American Cohort

The life course perspective has traditionally examined prevalent adult life events, such as marriage and employment, and their potential to redirect offending trajectories. However, for African Americans, the life events of arrest and incarceration are becoming equally prevalent in young adulthood. Therefore, it is critical to understand how these "standard" criminal justice practices, which are designed to deter as well as punish, affect deviance among this population. This study evaluates the long-term consequences of criminal justice intervention on substance use and offending into midlife among an African American community cohort using propensity score matching and multivariate regression analyses. The results largely point to a criminogenic effect of criminal justice intervention on midlife deviance with a particularly strong effect of young adult arrest on rates of violent and property arrest counts into midlife. The theoretical and policy implications of the findings are discussed.