Lyle W. Shannon

Risk assessment vs real prediction: The prediction problem and public trust

Confusing risk assessment and the prediction of individual behavior has led to false claims which, if translated into juvenile court or adult sentencing policies (selective incapacitation, for example), may lead to further erosion in public confidence in the justice system. Considerable emphasis has been placed on the consequences of false positives in the literature and in this paper. The false negative has different but equally damaging effects because the impression may be given that increasing the severity of sanctions for selected serious offenders is the solution to juvenile delinquency and adult crime. Analysis of official police records for three birth cohorts from Racine, Wisconsin, reveals that, although high-risk groups produce a disproportionate share of the delinquent and criminal behavior recorded in police reports and juveniles in high-risk groups continue into adult crime disproportionately to others, serious juvenile offenders still account for only a portion of the serious offenses that will ultimately be committed by adults. Therefore, selective incapacitation of early offenders may take only a small bite out of crime. When referrals rather than police contacts were utilized as the predictor variable, there was little difference in predictive efficiency.

The Justice System

Whether the justice system is effective or not has been debated longer than it has been carefully researched. Many of us have grown up on accounts of specific events that support one view or another of the effectiveness of quick, stern, harsh, or whatever justice. Persons more recently aware of the issues have been informed, or more likely misinformed, about the merits of this or that policy at various stages of the justice process (Shannon, 1961).

Measuring Changes in Occupation and Income: Some Problems with a Cohort of Mexican-Americans, Negroes, and Anglos.

Analysis of a set of longitudinal data on a cohort of Mexican-Americans, Negroes, and Anglos reveals.that MexicanAmericans were relatively more mobile occupationally between 1960 and 1971 than were Negroes, but that Negroes continued to have better jobs than did Mexican-Americans as measured by either of two levels of occupational parity. On the other hand, Mexican-American total family income had risen disproportionately to that of Negroes and now exceeded it. But neither groups occupational distribution or total family income approached that of the Anglos. Most of this paper is devoted to a discussion of the problems that one encounters in attempting to formulate a judgement of what the data show, considering their shortcomings, and the relative instability of families, whether they be Anglo, Negro, or Mexican-American.

Minority Migrants in the Urban Community

Interesting! Toward a Phenomenology of Sociology and a Sociology of Phenomenology,&dquo; in a British journal, Philosophy of Social Science (Volume 1, pages 309-344, 1971 ). Davis asks, &dquo;How do theories which are generally considered interesting differ from theories which are generally considered noninteresting?&dquo; He answers, &dquo;Interesting theories are those which deny certain assumptions of their audience.&dquo; The article itself is an analysis of social science literature in terms of the twelve main types of propositions that deny audience assumptions.

The Economic Absorption aud Cultural Integration of Immigrant Workers: Characteristics of the Individual Versus the Nature of the System

reasons related to their positions in various groups or segments of the larger society, people decide to migrate, to change their spatial and social places. When migrants make such a move or series of moves they are more or less faced with the task of becoming absorbed into the economy and integrated into the culture of either the larger society of the host community or into a subsociety with its own more or less distinctive subculture. Whatever their decision, the new social spaces they occupy will initially be based to some extent on their individual

Change in the Economic Absorption of a Cohort of Inmigrant Mexican Americans and Negroes between 1960 and 1971

Survey research and other data were obtained on 280 Mexican Americans, 280 Negroes, and 413 Anglos in Racine, Wisconsin in 1960. Interviews were conducted with 75% of the original respondents and surviving spouses or children for data on an additional 20% in 1971. During the 11-year period economic differences between Anglos on the one hand and Negroes and Mexican Americans on the other hand remained essentially the same or slightly increased on the most crucial measures of occupation and income, whereas measured differences in level of living and home conditions tended to either remain fairly stable or to decrease. Differences between Mexican Americans and Negroes tended to decrease in all areas.

Narrowing the Focus to Increase Predictive Efficiency

We have previously concluded that, although a sizable proportion of Racine’s most serious offenders, particularly as adults, had also had police contacts for drug offenses or had admitted drug involvement on their self-reports, this does not equate serious offender careers and involvement in drugs.- The ecology of Racine and the changing spatial distribution of more serious types of street offenders vs. drug offenders and self-reported drug offenders will now be examined in order to better understand the relationship of drug involvement to delinquent and criminal careers.

Career Continuity in Delinquency and Crime and the Prediction Problem

Thus far, whether describing the extent and nature of changes in delinquency and crime or presenting our early attempts to predict adult careers from juvenile careers, we have dealt with the incidence and seriousness of offenses and severity of sanctions (events) as converted into descriptive statistics which represent the careers of individuals or groups of individuals. When events, individuals, and groups of individuals are confused the discussion sometimes becomes confused because everyone is not referring to the same phenomena represented by the statistic before them. The Racine cohort data in this chapter have been arrayed in categories of offenders and typologies which reveal the extent to which data on juvenile careers differ from those for adult careers.

The Relationship of Alcohol and Drugs to Delinquency and Crime in Racine

This chapter continues our critical examination of the relationship of alcohol and drugs to delinquency and crime in the Racine cohorts. Forty percent of 715 people in the 1942 and 1949 Cohorts who filled out self-reports and had continuous residence in Racine revealed at least some marijuana and/or other drug use, but only 10 percent said that they used marijuana or other drugs ‘frequently or ‘all of the time/ Only 1.8 percent had police contacts for drug offenses and half of those had only misdemeanor-level offenses. These cohorts reached the age of 16 in 1958 and 1965, before the public’s attention had been focused on drugs and crime.

The Prediction Problem

Substance involvement has long been used as a predictor in devices that are meant to guide probation and parole decisions. Whether substances are the cause of delinquency and crime or not, the Racine data suggest that alcohol and drugs may have a catalytic influence on some patterns of continuity in delinquency and crime. Substance use may influence behavior to the extent that employment becomes unstable or impossible with property crimes becoming the best alternative to work.