NCJ Number
236932
Journal
Journal of Criminal Justice Volume: 39 Issue: 6 Dated: November/December 2011 Pages: 499-508
Date Published
December 2011
Length
10 pages
Annotation
This is the first multi-level testing of the validity of social support theory, with a focus on individual-level offending in terms of recidivism.
Abstract
According to social support theory, communities (neighborhoods, States, nations) that are less supportive or have less supportive structures (social welfare programs, health care, and public education agencies) will have higher crime rates. The current study used multi-level modeling to explore the effects of both private and public sources of social support on recidivism among recently released inmates. The study controlled for many of the same individual-level and aggregate-level factors that previous research has shown to be linked to inmate recidivism. The study findings provide mixed support for the prospect that social support, whether governmental or nongovernmental, is associated with offending, specifically recidivism among recently released inmates. On the one hand, the measure of private social support was significantly and positively linked to reconvictions for property offenses. On the other hand, the study found that a combination of private and public social support may reduce the likelihood of reconviction for drug offenses. Although this investigation does not apparently provide support for social support theory, it is only the first empirical attempt to assess the theory in a multi-level context. This approach can serve as a useful framework for other researchers who continue to test the theory by collecting the requisite data needed to refine and test social support theory in a multi-level context. In the current study, multi-level modeling was used to examine whether the two varieties of county-level social support - the presence of charitable organizations and government expenditures through Aid for Families With Dependent Children (AFDC) - were associated with recidivism among 49,420 Florida State prison inmates released to Florida counties between January 1998 and June 2001. 4 tables, 16 notes, and 74 references