Analyzing the offending activity of inmates: Trajectories of offense seriousness, escalation, and de-escalation

Ensnarement During Imprisonment

“…As one of the foremost techniques for identifying longitudinal behavioral clusters within a sample, LCGA is especially advantageous for examinations where clusters of longitudinal variation could potentially exist (Cihan, Davidson, and Sorensen, ; Cihan, Sorensen, and Chism, ; Moffitt, ; Nagin, Farrington, and Moffitt, ; Nagin and Land, ; Reidy, Cihan, and Sorensen, ). Specifically, although scholars have employed other methodologies for classifying individuals into longitudinal trajectories (e.g., Moffitt, Caspi, Dickson, Silva, and Stanton, ; Moffitt, Lynam, and Silva, ), LCGA relies on a series of robust statistical estimations to generate the least biased prediction of unobserved clustering within longitudinal data.…”

Visitation and Misconduct Among Maximum-Security Inmates

“…This study did not consider the effects of certain inmate characteristics known to increase violence such as security threat group membership. Moreover, the use of a cross-sectional approach provides only a snapshot of behavior during a limited time span of 1 year that may be insufficient to capture nuances in the frequency and timing of misconduct that are likely to change over time served in maximum custody (Cihan, Davidson, & Sorensen, 2017; Cihan, Sorensen, & Chism, 2017). Findings from this study would benefit from replications including longer observation periods from other jurisdictions.…”

Criminogenic and Desistance-Promoting Processes Behind Bars and Postrelease Supervision: New Evidence From Federal Offenders

“…The consistency with which preprison criminal career parameters and institutional misconduct are correlated is suggestive that certain types of offenders have little intention of mollifying their criminal activity during confinement. However, as newer research has made clear, there is substantial variation in misconduct careers (Cihan, Davidson, & Sorensen, 2017; Cihan, Sorensen, & Chism, 2017; Morris, Carriaga, Diamond, Piquero, & Piquero, 2012). Morris et al’s (2012) study of more than 6,000 prisoners found evidence of a chronic group of inmates who engaged in the highest amounts of misconduct and were consistently noncompliant, a group that had initial difficulty adjusting to prison and considerable misconduct but then declined in their deviance, and another group that adjusted well at first and had delayed onset of misconduct but overall posed few problems for correctional staff.…”

“…These findings have been consistently produced based on samples of prisoners from Arizona (DeLisi, 2003;Drury & DeLisi, 2010), Florida (Valentine, Mears, & Bales, 2015), Illinois (Dooley, Seals, & Skarbek, 2014), Iowa (Hochstetler & DeLisi, 2005), Kentucky (Steiner & Wooldredge, 2015), Louisiana (Jang, Johnson, Hays, Duwe, & Hallett, 2017) New York (Tasca, Griffin, & Rodriguez, 2010), Ohio (Steiner & Wooldredge, 2015), Texas Tasca et al, 2010;Trulson, 2007), multisite samples (DeLisi & Walters, 2011;Harer & Steffensmeier, 1996), and the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP; Gaes, Wallace, Gilman, Klein-Saffran, & Suppa, 2002;Harer & Langan, 2001;Walters, 2015Walters, , 2016 The consistency with which preprison criminal career parameters and institutional misconduct are correlated is suggestive that certain types of offenders have little intention of mollifying their criminal activity during confinement. However, as newer research has made clear, there is substantial variation in misconduct careers (Cihan, Davidson, & Sorensen, 2017;Cihan, Sorensen, & Chism, 2017;Morris, Carriaga, Diamond, Piquero, & Piquero, 2012). Morris et al's (2012) study of more than 6,000 prisoners found evidence of a chronic group of inmates who engaged in the highest amounts of misconduct and were consistently noncompliant, a group that had initial difficulty adjusting to prison and considerable misconduct but then declined in their deviance, and another group that adjusted well at first and had delayed onset of misconduct but overall posed few problems for correctional staff.…”