by jesse on
Apr 15, 2008 at 10:58 am
Article: A Life-Course Perspective On Spirituality And Desistance From Crime. Criminology, Feb 2008
Summary: Many drug and alcohol treatment programs, as well as prison rehabilitation programs, are centered on the healing power of spirituality. Yet sociologists studying the life course usually emphasize the impact of other factors on delinquency, such as “marital attachment and job stability, or the criminality of the individual’s social ties. ” In this study, the authors follow over 150 people for 21 years to see what factors have the most influence on their criminality and find that religious belief and commitment had very little effect on criminal behavior.
by jesse on
Jan 24, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Article: The Labeling of Convicted Felons and Its Consequences for Recidivism. Criminology, August 2007
Summary: Florida law allows judges to withhold adjudication of quilt for people found guilty of a felony and sentenced to probation. In effect, these individual’s records do not reflect the felony at all; they lose no civil rights and may lawfully claim they have enevr been convicted of a felony. To test the power of the felony label, the authors looked at nearly 96,000 felony cases in Florida and compared those who were given adjudication and those who were not. Their study finds that those who receive the formal label of felon are significantly more likely to commit another crime in the next two years that those who do not, even when controlling for multiple location characteristics (crime rate, relative poverty rate, etc.). The effect of the label is found to be stronger for whites and females, as well as those who had reached the age of 30 with no prior convictions. The authors point to ways in which the judicious use of the adjucation process can reduce harm not only at the individual level, but at the societal level as well.