Does vocational schooling facilitate criminal offending? A study of educational tracking in Finland

Savolainen, Jukka; Hughes, Lorine A.; Hurtig, Tuula; Taanila, Anja

doi:10.1177/1477370813479075

Cited by 15 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…Exact matching (i.e., precision or perfect matching) seeks to identify control cases that match treatment cases on each matching covariate while dropping any cases that do not have exact matches, which avoids the problem of extrapolating to nonsimilar cases (Bales and Piquero 2012; see also Guo and Fraser 2010). CEM loosens the matching criteria by binning variables that are continuous or wide-ranging and that would impose overly restrictive matching conditions (Blackwell, Holleran, and Finn 2008; Savolainen et al 2013). Our analysis only requires coarsening one covariate, the prior record score, due to the level of detail and range of values within this measure.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Uniquely Punitive Turn? Sex Offenders and the Persistence of Punitive Sanctioning

Cochran

Toman

Shields

et al. 2020

Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency

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Objectives: This article tests two theoretical ideas: (1) that social concerns about particular “dangerous classes” of offenders shift over time to influence court sanctioning practices and (2) that, since the 1990s, sex offenders in particular came to be viewed by courts as one such “dangerous class.” Methods: We examine sanctioning trends in Florida and compare punishment of sex offenders in earlier versus later parts of the get-tough era. We then examine whether sentencing is associated with rational criminal justice incentives (e.g., increasing seriousness or rates of sex crimes) or with shifting public concerns (e.g., increasing media attention to sexual violence). Results: Punitiveness increased for all crimes but especially for sex crimes. Punitiveness appears not to be driven by increasing seriousness or rates of crime, but does appear to be partially driven by increasing national media attention to sexual violence. Conclusions: The findings support arguments that sex offenders were subjected to a uniquely punitive turn in sanctioning and that courts are sensitive to shifting public concerns. The results advance theoretical arguments developed by Gottschalk and earlier work that suggests that the persistence of get-tough era sentencing practices may be driven in part through focal attention to select types of offenders.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Uniquely Punitive Turn? Sex Offenders and the Persistence of Punitive Sanctioning

Cochran

Toman

Shields

et al. 2020

Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency

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“…The sixth indicator is a dichotomous item that identifies youth who opt out of the general track of upper-secondary education. Completing the general track is the required path for tertiary (college-level) education (Savolainen et al 2013). The final indicator is a dichotomous measure indicating that respondents dislike school “very much.” Thus, higher values on this construct indicate increased educational marginalization.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does Educational Marginalization Mediate the Path from Childhood Cumulative Risk to Criminal Offending?

Solomon

Savolainen

Mason

et al. 2017

J Dev Life Course Criminology

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Purpose Early exposure to multiple risk factors is known to predict involvement in criminal offending. The purpose of this study was to examine the processes responsible for this association. Specifically, the focus was on the capacity of adolescent educational experience to mediate the effect of childhood cumulative risk (CCR) on criminal offending, net of expected continuity in antisocial propensity and behavior. Methods Data from the Northern Finland Birth Cohort Study 1986 (n = 5,743) were used to estimate a structural equation model to examine the hypothesized pathways. The educational pathway was captured by a latent variable (educational marginalization) consisting of indicators of low academic performance, weak school attachment, and low educational aspirations. Results CCR had a strong positive relation with educational marginalization, which, in turn, emerged as a statistically significant predictor of having criminal record by age 19. Although continuity in antisocial behavior accounted for most of the total effect of CCR on criminal offending, one third of it was mediated by educational marginalization. Conclusions The results highlight the adolescent educational experience as a promising target of intervention in efforts to curb criminal careers among children at risk.

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“…A child who is hyperactive or has a bad temper will face more difficulties adjusting to the learning environment at school (Caspi et al, 1998;Frazier, Youngstrom, Glutting, & Watkins, 2007;Miech et al, 1999;Rodriguez et al, 2007). Students with these characteristics are more likely to receive low or failing grades, and they are more likely to be streamed into educational tracks that are less demanding and focused on vocational schooling in manual trades (Savolainen, Hughes, Hurtig, Ebeling, & Taanila, 2013). In the end, children with behavioral problems are more likely to drop out or to not pursue education beyond the compulsory level (Barry & Reschly, 2012;McLeod & Keiser, 2004).…”

Section: Pathways From Antisocial Propensitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Antisocial and Human Capital Pathways to Socioeconomic Exclusion: A 42-Year Prospective Study

Savolainen¹

2017

Preprint

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Nordic welfare states have been very successful at reducing poverty and inequality among their citizens. However, the presence of a strong social safety net in these countries has not solved the problem of socioeconomic exclusion, manifesting in such outcomes as chronic unemployment and welfare dependency. In an effort to understand this phenomenon, the current study builds on the assumption that psychological risk factors emerge as important determinants of socioeconomic disadvantage in an environment where ascribed characteristics have less impact on educational and occupational attainment. Using data from Finland, this research examined a life course model linking childhood differences in cognitive skills and antisocial propensity to midlife socioeconomic exclusion. The Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development (n = 369) follows individuals from age 8 (b. 1959) through age 50. Evidence from a structural equation model found support for key theoretical predictions: (1) human capital and antisocial pathways contributed independently to socioeconomic exclusion; (2) the effect of childhood psychological factors on midlife socioeconomic exclusion was mediated by adolescent and adult life course outcomes; and (3) the human capital and antisocial domains intersected such that antisocial children struggled in school as adolescents, which contributed to their persistence in crime and deviance in adulthood – a behavioral pattern that directly increased the risk of socioeconomic exclusion in midlife. In short, the findings suggest that early emerging differences in cognitive ability and antisociality set in motion a process of negative life outcomes with enduring consequences for socioeconomic well-being. The results are discussed from the perspective of socio-historical context and public policy.

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Does vocational schooling facilitate criminal offending? A study of educational tracking in Finland

Cited by 15 publications

References 36 publications

A Uniquely Punitive Turn? Sex Offenders and the Persistence of Punitive Sanctioning

A Uniquely Punitive Turn? Sex Offenders and the Persistence of Punitive Sanctioning

Does Educational Marginalization Mediate the Path from Childhood Cumulative Risk to Criminal Offending?

Antisocial and Human Capital Pathways to Socioeconomic Exclusion: A 42-Year Prospective Study

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