Michael Rocque

Exploring school rampage shootings: Research, theory, and policy

Abstract This paper examines US school rampage shootings, focusing on the period from the late 20th century to the present. School rampage shootings are thought to be distinct from other forms of violence because of the relatively safe rural setting in which most of these events occur, the lack of specified individual targets, and the number of deaths involved. While this type of violence seems to have spiked in the mid-1990s, school violence in general and school shootings in particular have occurred throughout the history of formal education. Research shows that certain elements of school rampage shootings are unique, while others do not distinguish them from more common forms of violence. For the most part, theory development is still nascent, with the most advanced explanations relying on psychological factors. Finally, interventions have generally been guided by situational crime prevention rather than theories about why violence occurs in school. This paper argues that more research is needed before firm policy conclusions can be made.

Identities Through Time: An Exploration of Identity Change as a Cause of Desistance

Research examining desistance from crime (the process of decreasing offending over time) has increased over the last 20 years. However, many explanations of desistance remain somewhat exploratory. One theory in particular that is becoming more prominent includes the idea that desistance is caused by a change in identity (e.g. from deviant to pro-social). While qualitative support has been found for this proposition, prospective quantitative studies have not been conducted on this theory. This study addresses that gap by examining how pro-social identities change over time and whether these changes correspond to desistance from crime. The results of growth curve models indicate that pro-social identity increases over time and is a robust predictor of criminal behavior over the life course. These results offer support to identity theories of desistance and also provide important information for correctional programming.

Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System and Perceptions of Legitimacy A Theoretical Linkage

Historically, research has shown that minorities, especially Blacks, are more likely to be arrested and sentenced to prison terms than their White counterparts. Explanations of these findings range from those claiming that minorities differentially engage in deviant and criminal behavior, to those claiming that the criminal justice system (CJS) treats minorities differently. A related line of work has shown that minorities tend to view the CJS as less just or legitimate than Whites. Most explanations for this finding center on personal experiences of unjust treatment. However, research has also shown that vicarious experiences can influence perceptions of legitimacy toward the CJS and that Blacks often have more negative attitudes even when considering the same objective event as Whites. This article reviews relevant literatures then advances a theoretical linkage between racial disparity in criminal justice contact and legitimacy toward the law. At its base, the model suggests that differential treatment (either personal or vicarious) negatively impacts legitimacy, which in turn increases criminal behavior (and thus, racial disparities in criminal justice contact). The model is important for fully understanding racial differences in criminal behavior and criminal justice contact. Theoretical and empirical implications are discussed.

More Than a Feeling: Integrating Empathy Into the Study of Lawmaking, Lawbreaking, and Reactions to Lawbreaking

Empathy is related, directly or indirectly, to important elements in criminology such as the enactment of harsh penalties for repeat offenders, antisocial behavior, feelings of legitimacy toward the law, and attitudes toward the death penalty. Although empathy is beginning to find its way into criminological discourse, it is still not well understood nor often incorporated into quantitative research. This is likely due to issues regarding the conceptualization and measurement of empathy as well as the lack of measures of empathy incorporated into contemporary data sets. This study discusses the importance of empathy for criminology and uses a set of research examples to exemplify the relationships between empathy and outcomes important to criminology. Empathy emerges as an important predictor of criminal behavior, support for harsh laws, and perceptions of police effectiveness. Future research should incorporate measures of empathy when seeking to understand individual feelings and behaviors as they relate to important facets of criminology and criminal justice.

Social Bonds and Change During Incarceration Testing a Missing Link in the Reentry Research

Research examining prisoner reentry has demonstrated negative impacts of incarceration on social bonds. However, this research is limited in two ways. First, it generally examines outcomes after release, paying less attention to processes occurring in prison. Second, this work tends to examine “incarceration” as a whole, regarding prisons as homogenous. This study uses data from an experiment in which offenders were randomly assigned to incarceration at one of two prisons polarized across a number of structural characteristics that research suggests affect social bonds (a traditional prison vs. a correctional boot camp). Groups were compared with respect to commitment, belief, attachment, and in terms of changes among their relationships during incarceration. The data showed that the boot camp improved prosocial beliefs, but few differences emerged in terms of commitment and attachment. Similarly, the data showed few differences in attachment regardless of the prosocial or antisocial orientation of the inmate’s friends or family.

The lost concept: The (re)emerging link between maturation and desistance from crime

Research on desistance or the process of ceasing criminal behavior has increased in recent years. This work has revealed a large number of factors that are related to desistance. To date, these explanations have been generally perceived as mutually exclusive and/or competitive. Interestingly, while research on desistance from crime has been a recent focus, certain work had examined crime over the life-course as far back as the early 20th century. In particular, the Gluecks offered one of the earliest “theories” of desistance, focusing on maturation. Their “maturation theory” was somewhat tautological and not well specified. However, the Gluecks were clear that further work was needed in order to specify what maturation means and how it relates to crime. In this article, five domains of maturation are articulated drawing on the literature in the life-course and developmental fields. It is argued that this new framework may help advance the criminological work on desistance.

Can they recover? An assessment of adult adjustment problems among males in the abstainer, recovery, life-course persistent, and adolescence-limited pathways followed up to age 56 in the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development

Much research has examined Moffitts developmental taxonomy, focusing almost exclusively on the distinction between life-course persistent and adolescence-limited offenders. Of interest, a handful of studies have identified a group of individuals whose early childhood years were marked by extensive antisocial behavior but who seemed to recover and desist (at least from severe offending) in adolescence and early adulthood. We use data from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development to examine the adult adjustment outcomes of different groups of offenders, including a recoveries group, in late middle adulthood, offering the most comprehensive investigation of this particular group to date. Findings indicate that abstainers comprise the largest group of males followed by adolescence-limited offenders, recoveries, and life-course persistent offenders. Furthermore, the results reveal that a host of adult adjustment problems measured at ages 32 and 48 in a number of life-course domains are differentially distributed across these four offender groups. In addition, the recoveries and life-course persistent offenders often show the greatest number of adult adjustment problems relative to the adolescence-limited offenders and abstainers.

Unraveling Change: Social Bonds and Recidivism among Released Offenders

Abstract Correctional researchers have increasingly focused on social bonding as a key pathway by which parolees desist from crime after release. Most work to date has focused on levels of bonds, either at reentry or as a function of events occurring in the community. However, few have assessed whether the magnitude of change in bonds during incarceration has an additional effect on desistance. Distinguishing between levels and change with respect to bonds may have important implications for understanding how bonds impact behavior. This paper addresses this gap by drawing on survey data from a sample of inmates at the start and end of their six-month prison terms. Recidivism is assessed as a function of change in social bonds (attachments and beliefs) from entrance to exit from prison, as well as levels of bonds at release. Our findings indicate that changes in social relationships predict recidivism, whereas improvements in prosocial beliefs do not. The data also suggest that the level of prosocial belief at release is significantly related to recidivism, whereas the level of attachment is not. The implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.

The Importance of School Attendance: Findings From the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development on the Life-Course Effects of Truancy

School dropout has been extensively studied in the literature as a correlate of negative life outcomes. A precursor to school dropout is truancy, the unexcused or illegitimate student absence from school. Few studies have examined the relationship between truancy and involvement in crime and adjustment more generally over the life-course. This study extends previous work by exploring whether truancy at age 12 to 14 is related to later life outcomes such as crime, aggression, and adjustment using data from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development. Results indicate that truancy has long-lasting associations with negative life outcomes, especially for non-violent crime and problem drinking. Importantly, these findings hold for certain outcomes controlling for a comprehensive host of environmental and individual childhood risk factors.

Examining Metal Theft in Context: An Opportunity Theory Approach

Although law enforcement agencies, policymakers, and communities have had to confront the issue of increasing metal theft for the past several years, almost no academic literature has attempted to examine the correlates of metal theft and subsequent policy implications. This exploratory study profiles the theft of metal from commercial and residential dwellings through analysis of recorded crime data from April 2008 through July 2010 in Rochester, New York. An opportunity framework guided the analyses. Spatial, trend, and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to examine and better understand metal theft. Results indicate that an opportunity theory approach is useful in addressing metal theft and that this framework provides explicit implications for local law enforcement and policymakers.