Criminal Achievement, Offender Networks and the Benefits of Low Self‐control

Abstract

This study follows recent research on criminal earnings and examines the impact of underlying traits (low self‐control) and personal organization features (nonredundant networking) on the criminal earnings of a sample of incarcerated offenders previously involved in market and predatory crimes. Controlling for various background factors (age, noncriminal income, lambda and costs of doing crime), both low self‐control and nonredundant networking independently explain why some offenders are more successful than others in achieving higher monetary standards through crime. Although efficient, brokerage‐like networking enhances market offenders' earnings, low self‐control emerges as an asset for predatory offenders: the lower their self‐control, the higher their criminal earnings. For market offenders, however, low self‐control has no direct effect, but it does mitigate the impact of effective networking on criminal earnings. The results emerging from this study have implications for Gottfredson and Hirschi's theory of crime and the advent of a criminal network perspective. Extensions are also made toward the conventional/criminal embeddedness framework and deterrence research.

Patterns of criminal achievement in sexual offending: Unravelling the “successful” sex offender

“…Criminal achievement has traditionally been investigated in economic and market crimes in terms of monetary gains (e.g., McCarthy & Hagan, 2001;Morselli & Tremblay, 2004;Nguyen & Bouchard, 2011;Tremblay & Morselli, 2000). The current study extent this concept to sexual offending and sexual gratification.…”

“…To do so, an empirical study based on a large sample of convicted sex offenders is conducted to examine the variations in productivity and impunity in sex offenders. While it could be argued that studying inmates for criminal achievement is paradoxical given that they have already been caught, an analysis of both the criminal earnings (Morselli & Tremblay, 2004), and the study of sanction avoidance (Bouchard & Ouellet, 2011;Kazemian & LeBlanc, 2007) of inmates show much variations prior to incarceration. We believe that the same may apply to individuals committing sex crimes.…”

“…Illegal income has often been used as a performance measure of criminal achievement (e.g., McCarthy & Hagan, 2001;Nguyen & Bouchard, 2011;Tremblay & Morselli, 2000;Wilson & Abrahamse, 1992). Illegal success varies across offenders and a few hypotheses have been raised to explain such variations, such as criminal capital (i.e., criminal experience, or skills) (Bouchard & Nguyen, 2010;McCarthy & Hagan, 2001;Nguyen & Bouchard, 2011), especially those learned through offenders' social capital (i.e., resources found in offenders' relationships to others) (Bouchard & Ouellet, 2011;Bouchard & Nguyen, 2010;Morselli & Tremblay, 2004;Morselli, Tremblay, & McCarthy, 2006;McCarthy & Hagan, 2001), and even low self-control (Morselli & Tremblay, 2004). McCarthy and Hagan (2001), for example, showed that crime specialization, a desire for wealth, and willingness to collaborate with others have all been associated with higher criminal earnings.…”

“…Since the publication of the "Criminal Careers and Career Criminals" (Blumstein, Cohen, Roth, & Visher, 1986), research on this issue has evolved around three main themes: (a) the modeling of offending, the longitudinal sequence of crimes, crime PATTERNS OF CRIMINAL ACHIEVEMENT IN SEXUAL OFFENDING 4 specialization, and the study of the "chronic offender" (e.g., Farrington & Loeber, 1998); (b) the understanding of criminal persistence by examining the role of formative years, early life stages and the study of the "early onset" offender (e.g., Moffitt, 1993), and; (c) the life events, life transitions, informal controls, and the study of the "desistor" (e.g., Sampson & Laub, 2005). A fourth theme emerged more recently, as research on the sociology of crime and criminal achievement, the role of mentorship, criminal networks, and professionalization has helped garnered information about the "successful criminal" (e.g., Bouchard & Nguyen, 2010;McCarthy & Hagan, 2001;Nguyen & Bouchard, 2011;Tremblay & Morselli, 2000;Morselli & Tremblay, 2004;Tremblay, 2010). The focus of criminal achievement studies is not so much the volume of criminal activity or the individual frequency rate of offending, or lambda (λ), but the examination of whether crime pays, what the payoffs are, and for whom.…”

Le processus de désaffiliation aux gangs. Le rôle des facteurs individuels et collectifs

“…(0 à 11). Cet index fournit une mesure des sources potentielles d'associés et, de plus, une source de CSCG positif est un prédicteur robuste d'une carrière criminelle active et réussie (Bouchard et Nguyen, 2010 ;Descormiers, Bouchard et Corrado, 2011 ;Morselli et Tremblay, 2004 ;Tremblay, 1993). En revanche, le CSCG négatif indique le nombre de contacts négatifs (animosité) que le gang entretient avec les motards et les 10 groupes du crime organisé ciblés (0 à 11).…”