Offenders’ Risk‐Taking Attitude Inside and Outside the Prison Walls

Abstract

It has long been assumed that risk taking is closely associated with criminal behavior. One reason for placing criminals behind bars--aside from punishment and protecting the public--is to prevent them from engaging in further risky criminal activities. Limited attention has been paid to whether being inside or outside prison affects offenders' risk-taking behaviors and attitudes. We compared risk-taking behaviors and attitudes in five risk domains (ethical, financial, health/safety, recreational, social) among 75 incarcerated offenders (i.e., offenders who are currently in prison) and 45 ex-offenders (i.e., offenders who have just been released from prison). Ex-offenders reported higher likelihood of engaging in risky behavior, driven largely by a willingness to take more risks in the recreational and ethical domains. Benefits attributed to risk taking as well as risk perception did not differ between incarcerated and ex-offenders, indicating that the opportunity to take risks might underlie behavioral risk intentions. Our results also indicate that risk-taking activities are better predicted by the expected benefits rather than by risk perception, aside from the health/safety domain. These results highlight the importance of studying the person and the environment and examining risk taking in a number of content domains.

Who is a Distracted Driver? Associations between Mobile Phone Use while Driving, Domain‐Specific Risk Taking, and Personality

“…This scale measures risk‐taking tendencies across six domains (social, recreational, investment, gambling, health/safety, and ethical). Moreover, risk taking in these domains may have both unique predictors and predictive validity . These results resonate with a robust personality literature that also suggests risk‐taking constructs such as sensation seeking and impulsiveness are multidimensional.…”

Towards a better understanding of risk-taking: key concepts, dimensions and perspectives

“…For example, fear-appeal campaigns against smoking have been relatively effective though commentators are critical of the accompanying stigmatisation of 'hard-core' smokers and emphasise the need for more complex interventions and flexible interventions (see for example French, 2011;Thompson, Barnett, & Pearce, 2009). This approach to behavioural change is also evident in recent articles on risk-taking in Risk Analysis, for example, the article that examines the influence of opportunity structures on risk-taking attitudes of prisoners and ex-prisoners (Gummerum, Hanoch, & Rolison, 2014;Rolison, Hanoch, & Gummerum, 2013). This approach also underpins research that considers individual perceptions and how these perceptions are influenced by observed behaviours of others.…”

Decision-making competence predicts domain-specific risk attitudes

“…Likewise, Markiewicz and Weber (2013) found that individuals reporting more favorable gambling risk attitudes were also more likely to engage in excessive stock trading. Similarly, Zimmerman et al (2014) found that individual differences in ethical risk-taking scores predicted actual dishonest behavior in the laboratory (see also Gummerum et al, 2014 , who examined this issue with currently- and previously incarcerated individuals). Finally, Rolison et al (2014) found that age-related differences in risk attitudes demonstrated evidence of domain-specificity across the lifespan.…”