Friends With(out) Benefits: Co-Offending and Re-Arrest

• NCJ Number: 243501
• Journal: Global Crime Volume: 14 Issue: 2-3 Dated: May - August 2013 Pages: 141-154
• Author(s): Frederic Ouellet; Remi Boivin; Chloe Leclerc; Carlo Morselli
• Date Published: May 2013
• Length: 14 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United Kingdom

Annotation

Research shows that co-offending has contradictory effects on rates of re-arrest.

Abstract

Research shows that co-offending has contradictory effects on rates of re-arrest. On the one hand, group offending may be riskier: for example, co-offenders might be targeted by police or might snitch to protect themselves. Criminal networks may also have indirect effects: offenders embedded in criminal networks commit more offences and thus should have a higher risk of being arrested at some point. On the other hand, networks generate steady criminal opportunities with relatively low risk of arrest and high monetary benefits (e.g. drug trafficking). Few authors have empirically explored the relation between co-offending and re-arrest. This article does so using data from 7 years of arrest records in the province of Quebec, Canada. The analysis is designed to explore why some offenders are re-arrested after an initial arrest while others are not. It focuses on the factors involved in re-arrest, considering two distinct levels of measures of co-offending. The first level of analysis takes into account a situational measure that indicates whether a given offence was committed by co-offenders (group offence). The second level is used to examine whether being part of a criminal network influences re-arrest. For offenders embedded in such networks, two network features (degree centrality and clustering coefficient) show that the global position of individuals within the Quebec arrest network are analyzed. The results suggest that co-offending is a crucial factor that should be taken into account when looking at the odds of being caught again. The use of generalized linear mixed model brings interesting nuances about the impact of co-offending. The article adds to the recently growing literature on the link between networks and criminal careers. Abstract published by arrangement with Taylor and Francis.