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CJE3444 - CRIME PREVENTION
Dr. E. Buchholz
SECONDARY PREVENTION
Chapter 9
Prediction for Secondary Prevention
What is secondary prevention?
 Using techniques to identify and predict future offending
 The techniques involve identify potential offenders, places, or situations that have a greater
likelihood for criminal activity.
Predicting Future Offending
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Predicting future offending requires:
o Testing
o Appropriate variables
o Use of demographics
o Acceptance of error
What to predict?
How do we measure?
 The impact of an intervention?
o Recidivism
 Rearrest
 Reconviction
 Reincarceration
o Seriousness of future activity
o Revocation of probation or parole
 Potential dangerousness?
o Psychological evaluations
o Social risk factors
Predictors
 Psychological
o Clinical interviews
o Psychological tests
o Personality
o Interpersonal relationship
o Life experiences
 Sociological
o Age
o Ethnicity
o Socioeconomic status
o Group affiliation
o Family background
o Other demographic factors
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Degree of Accuracy
 Making wrong predictions can have dire consequences.
 Two types of error in predictions
o False positive
o False negative
Predicting Offending & Errors
Curtis Clinton, a registered sex offender, is accused of strangling to death 23-year-old Heather
Jackson and her two children, Celina, 3, and Wayne, 20 months. He also is accused of sexually
assaulting Celina in the course of committing the murders in Jackson’s John Street home.
Jackson was found dead, her naked body jammed between a mattress and a bed frame inside the
house she started to rent about a week prior.
Her two children were found dead inside a closet.
Clinton was released from prison after serving 13 years in prison in the death of Misty Keckler,
18, and two unrelated counts of assault. He claimed he did not intend to kill Keckler, who was
strangled at her friend's trailer.
The assault charges were filed after Clinton struggled with deputies at the Wood County jail,
biting one of them on the hand, when he was behind bars, awaiting trial for killing Keckler.
In a separate case -- before he was ever indicted in Keckler's death -- Clinton pleaded guilty to
unlawful sexual conduct with a minor for an incident involving a 14-year-old girl.
For that crime, Clinton, who was 27 at the time, was labeled a registered sex offender and
sentenced to 16 months in prison, which he served while awaiting trial in the Keckler case.
Keckler was strangled, her hands then tied behind her back, her feet bound, and her naked body
submerged face down in a bathtub.
Defense attorneys said Keckler died during a "sexual misadventure." She had died, they said,
while the two were having consensual sex -- Clinton had accidentally choked Keckler to death.
Attorneys said there was no way to prove Clinton had deliberately killed Keckler
Problems inherent in false predictions:
 False Positive
o Potential offenders or recidivists may be subjected to interventions or harsher and/or
more prolonged treatment or punishment.
o Individual is unduly denied his/her freedom based on an inaccurate finding.
 False negative
o Predictions may result in ignoring individuals, or in the early release of individuals
who may cause further harm to society.
o Society is subjected to unnecessary harm
Types of Prediction
 Clinical
 Rater’s evaluation of an individual through questioning, evaluation, and inspection of
records
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o
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Psychological tests are an example
Demographic information
 Individual
 Family
What is a problem with psych tests?
NO SET RULES PER INTERVIEWER
Clinical Prediction
 False +: about 50-80% of time
 False –: about 20-30% of time
Over predict who is going to be bad.
What type of future problems could this lead too?
Methodologies are questionable
The determination of subsequent offending or dangerousness may be too strict
Requires actual injury to another person
Reincarceration during follow-up period
Variables used to determine future behavior may not be predictive of the type of behavior being
considered
Many clinical interviews are of short duration
Types of Prediction
 Actuarial
Making predictions based on known statistics
 Age, gender, race, SES, criminal history
Types of Prediction
 This is probably happened to all of you already in your life…Think of a way?
 Auto insurance
Past accidents
Age
Sex
 Life insurance
Males (mortality rates)
Actuarial Prediction
 Little predictive power
25-35% false predictions for different methods
45-50% false +
10-15% false  Actuarial Prediction often creates an ecological fallacy – making individual
predictions based on group data.
 False prediction still becomes an accepted norm.
Types of Prediction
 Criminal Career Prediction - Identifying individuals based on their criminal history
 Past criminal behavior predicts future criminal behavior
o Strong indicator
 20-35% false +
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Criminal Career Prediction
 Criminal career prediction studies:
 Criminal specialization
o Tailor prevention/intervention strategies
 Criminal patterns
o Changes in offending over
o Youthful offenders who commit more frequent and more serious offenses as
juveniles continue on to adult careers
o Cannot accurately predict which individuals will continue offending
 Lacks in determining length between offenses, severity of offenses, and crimes which have
gone unpunished
Risk Factors & Crime Prevention
 Risk factors can be broken down into several categories:
o Family size
o Peer
o Community
o Biological and psychological problems
o Criminal parents
Family
 Criminal parents
 Poor parental supervision
 Harsh and inconsistent discipline
 Witnessing abuse or neglect
 Large families
 2 parent working families
 Welfare, low income
 Broken homes
 Family Bonding
Peer
 Delinquency peers
 Antisocial siblings
 Unmotivated peers (too much free time)
 Gangs
Community
 Inner city neighborhoods
 Disorder/incivility
 Poor areas
 Crime areas (gangs, prostitution and drugs)
 Availability of firearms
 Poor educational systems
Biological & Psychological Factors
 Impulsivity
 Low IQ
 ADD
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Parents substance abuse while pregnant
Poor nutrition
Learning disabilities
Risk Factors as Predictors
 Best predictors of later deviant behavior are:
o General offending
o Substance use
o Antisocial peers
Risk Factors as Predictors
 Life-Course-Persistent Offending
o Poor social environments
o Social cognitive difficulties
o Poor academic abilities
o Poor family management
o Neuropsychological problems
 Adolescence-Limited Offending
o Prior antisocial behavior
o Poor parent-child relations
o Antisocial peers
o Poor academic performance
Risk Factors as Predictors
Browning and Loeber’s Pathways to Delinquent Behavior
 Authority Conflict
o Early stubbornness, which later leads to defiance and avoidance of authority
 Running away
 Truancy
 Ungovernability
 Covert Behavior
o Minor acts of lying and theft, then moves on to property crimes, then moderately
serious delinquency
 Joyriding
 Grand theft
 Overt Behavior
o Begins with aggressive activity and leads to fighting and violent activity
Risk Factors as Predictors
 Risk factors are useful tools in identifying potential problem and individuals
 Rarely accurately predict
 Should be used as indicators of possible future problem behavior
Predicting Crime
 Just as risk factors of “people” can be used to predict future criminal behavior, it is important
to address places and events as possible predictors of crime.
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Predicting Places and Events
 Hot spots of crime:
o “Small places in which the occurrence of crime is so frequent that it is highly
predictable, at least over a one-year period.”
o The length of the “frequency” of crime determines if prevention methods can be
sustained in the hot spot area.
Sherman et al. Minneapolis Study
 Calls for service:
o 50% came from only 3% of the locations
o All domestic disturbance were at the same 9% of the locations
o All assaults at 7% of the locations
o All burglaries at 11% of the places
o All robbery, sexual misconduct, and auto theft at 5% of the possible locations
Block and Block Chicago Communities
 Hot spots tend to surround elevated transit stops and major intersections
 Potential victims can be located and offenders have options for escape
Johnson et al.
 Temporal Variation
o The movement of crime, even over short periods
o Limits the value of identifying hot spots using traditional methods
 Prospective Mapping
o Creating maps that predict future crime locations based on knowledge of recent
events
Hot Products
Felson and Clarke
VIVA
 Value – Determined by potential offenders
 Inertia – The weight and portability of the item
 Visible – To potential offenders
 Accessible – To offenders
Hot Products
Clarke
CRAVED
Concealable
Removable
Available
Enjoyable
Disposable
Predicting Places and Events
 Repeat victimization
o Can be considered in terms of both people or places being victimized at least a
second time within some period of time subsequent to an initial victimization event.
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Target repeat
o The same person or place being victimized at least a second time
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The average victim of home invasion will be victimized again within 6-18 months.
Predicting Places and Events
 Risk Heterogeneity
o Something identifies an individual as a good target and he/she becomes one
o Can be different offenders whoa re attracted due to apparent vulnerability or some
other characteristic
 Event Dependency
o Past success leads to going back to the same target for criminals
 Assume potential offenders are rational
 Research suggests targeting repeat victimization can effectively reduce crime.
Predicting Places and Events
Virtual Repeat
 A follow-up victimization of a similar person, place, or item
o e.g., a local burglary elevates the risk of burglary for other proximate homes.
Summary
 It is important to address risk factors for individuals as well as places
 However, prediction is not without flaws.
 Researchers and the public must be willing to accept a number a false predictions
 In addition, issues of labeling and discriminatory predictions must be addressed
End of Chapter 9