Crime Causation and the Linkage Between Past and Future Criminal Offending

犯罪因果关系以及过去和未来刑事犯罪之间的联系

• 批准号: 9023109
• 负责人: Daniel Nagin
• 金额: $ 6.55万
• 依托单位: Carnegie-Mellon University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1991
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1991-07-01 至 1994-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9023109&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Crime; Causation; Linkage; Between; Past

Among the best documented empirical regularities in criminology is the positive association between past and future criminality. One interpretation of this association (termed state dependence) is that prior criminal involvement actually increases future criminal propensity. Another (termed population heterogeneity) is that the association is not a reflection of a causal relationship but rather is attributable to persistent differences across individuals in their propensity to engage in crime. One or the other of these interpretations is suggested by many competing general theories of crime. Yet there has been little research attempting to distinguish these two fundamentally different explanations. This project will statistically distinguish the relative importance of the two explanations for the observed positive correlation between past and future criminality. Two widely known panel data sets will be used for the research--the National Youth Survey of U.S. youths and the Farrington and West longitudinal survey of English males. Not only will this research address the relative contributions of state dependence and heterogeneity in explaining the positive association of past to future delinquency/criminality, but also it will illuminate the nature of the association of a variety of individual, familial, and behavioral factors to criminal involvement. Thus, the research will make important contributions to extant general theories of crime.

犯罪学中最有证据的经验性规则之一是过去和未来的犯罪行为之间的正相关。对这种关联(称为国家依赖)的一种解释是，以前的犯罪参与实际上增加了未来的犯罪倾向。另一个(称为群体异质性)是，这种联系不是因果关系的反映，而是由于个人从事犯罪倾向的持续差异所致。这些解释中的一种或另一种是由许多相互竞争的犯罪一般理论提出的。然而，很少有研究试图区分这两种根本不同的解释。该项目将在统计上区分这两种解释对观察到的过去和未来犯罪行为之间的正相关的相对重要性。这项研究将使用两组广为人知的小组数据--美国青年全国调查和英国男性的Farrington and West纵向调查。这项研究不仅将解决国家依赖和异质性在解释过去与未来犯罪/犯罪的正向关联方面的相对贡献，而且还将阐明各种个人、家庭和行为因素对犯罪参与的关联的性质。因此，这一研究将对现有的犯罪一般理论作出重要贡献。