NCJ Number
228396
Journal
Criminology Volume: 47 Issue: 3 Dated: August 2009 Pages: 657-698
Date Published
August 2009
Length
42 pages
Annotation
This study investigated the impact of quarterly adult arrest rates on later male serious delinquency prevalence rates in Philadelphia.
Abstract
Four theoretical perspectives considered in this study (community justice, ecological deterrence, ecological general strain theory, and procedural justice) each made a case for how local criminal justice actions could alter community delinquency prevalence rates. These four perspectives expected short-term impacts of changes in criminal justice coercion. A community justice or mass incarceration model, the ecological version of general strain theory, and an ecologized version of the procedural justice model, each anticipates more arrests lead to more delinquency later. Investigating quarterly lags from 3 to 24 months between adult arrests and later delinquency, results indicated a time-dependent relationship. Models with short lags showed the negative relationship expected by ecological deterrence theory. Models with lags of about a year and a half showed the positive relationship expected by the other three theories. The study of 23 Philadelphia police districts served as ecological units of analysis focusing first on shorter term changes: those taking place over months not decades; asking whether these shorter term shifts in delinquency prevalence reflect local shifts in justice agency dynamics, and second on testing the relative merits of each theoretical perspective, examining this relationship and observing its directionality and timing. Tables, figure, references, and appendix