Differential Cost Avoidance and Successful Criminal Careers

Abstract

Using a sample of adjudicated French Canadian males from the Montreal Two Samples Longitudinal Study, this article investigates individual and social characteristics associated with differential cost avoidance. The main objective of this study is to determine whether such traits are randomly distributed across differential degrees of cost avoidance or whether they reflect some degree of rationality. Differential cost avoidance is a composite measure that includes the ratio of self-reported career length to officially recorded career length, the ratio of self-reported offending gravity to officially recorded gravity, and the ratio of time "free" to periods of incarceration. Findings reveal that it is particularly difficult to predict differential cost avoidance at early ages. The main predictors of the residual degree of differential cost avoidance in the early 30s include substance use (especially drugs), the accumulation of debts, and the use of violence in the perpetration of crime. Implications for desistance research are discussed.

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

“…Yet, these numbers were informative in suggesting that q (the risk of apprehension) may increase when the offender is not a relative of the victim and when violence is used. Gebhard et al 's (1965) results are in line with those reported with general samples of offenders which showed that violent offenders, as well as frequent drug users with a history of unemployment and job instability are not as successful at avoiding detection (e.g., Kazemian & LeBlanc, 2007). Gebhard et al's study was also informative in suggesting that different criminal opportunities could condition the risk of apprehension.…”

“…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.…”

“…There have been mixed results about the role of conventional capital in criminal achievement suggesting that conventional capital might be irrelevant to criminal earnings but important to the ability to avoid detection (see McCarthy & Hagan, 2001;Kazemian & LeBlanc, 2007;Tremblay & Morselli, 2000). It is unclear how it might operate in the context of sex offending.…”

“…Bouchard, 2007;Collins & Wilson, 1990), it has been a neglected area in sexual offending research (Bouchard & Lussier, 2011), and consequently, the ability to escape detection and avoid sanction has been overlooked. Generally speaking, research in economic and market offences has shown that offenders differ in terms of their ability to avoid detection (e.g., Bouchard & Nguyen, 2010;Bouchard & Ouellet, 2011;Kazemian & LeBlanc, 2007;McCarthy & Hagan, 2001). There is much heterogeneity in cost-avoidance reported for victimless crimes (e.g., drug selling), and there are no a priori reasons to believe that it is not the same for victim-type offences.…”

Criminal Family Networks: Criminal Capital and Cost Avoidance among Urban Drug Sellers

“…As this suggests, this study employs a definition of criminal attainment consistent with Kazemian and LeBlanc's (2007) notion of cost avoidance, or the minimization of risk for apprehension or incarceration (see also Bouchard and Nguyen 2010). It also conceptualizes violent victimization as an additional potential cost of offending, particularly of drug selling (Contreras 2012;Jacques and Reynald 2012;Jacques and Wright 2008).…”