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Related Experiment Videos

Criminal careers behind bars.

Matt DeLisi1

  • 1Department of Sociology, Iowa State University, 203A East Hall, Ames, IA 50011-1070, USA. delisi@iastate.edu

Behavioral Sciences & the Law
|September 23, 2003
PubMed
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Prison does not always interrupt criminal careers. Many inmates continue offending within prison, with a small group responsible for serious crimes, supporting the importation model of prison behavior.

Area of Science:

  • Criminology
  • Sociology
  • Penal Studies

Background:

  • The criminal career perspective typically views prison as a cessation of offending.
  • Limited research has explored criminal careers specifically within the prison environment.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate offending patterns and criminal careers among incarcerated individuals.
  • To determine if criminal career trajectories persist during incarceration.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized official data from a probability sample of 1,005 inmates in the southwestern United States.
  • Employed descriptive and negative binomial regression analyses to examine prison offending.

Main Results:

  • Found both similarities and differences between conventional and prison criminal careers.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Crime seriousness was inversely related to incidence/prevalence, but crime magnitude was higher in prison.
  • While some inmates had no violations, 40% were chronic offenders; a small group committed most serious offenses (homicide, rape, arson, assault).
  • Prior criminality was the strongest predictor of prison offending, supporting the importation model.

    • Conclusions:

    • A significant portion of inmates continue criminal activities and rule violations while incarcerated.
    • Prison environments do not uniformly halt criminal career progression for all inmates.
    • The importation model is supported, suggesting inmate background influences behavior within prison.