Are They Buying or Selling Again? Estimating the Impact of Neighborhood-Level Contagion on Types of Juvenile Drug Recidivism

Abstract

We examine how the densities of adult and juvenile drug offenders within neighborhoods might be linked to the odds of juvenile recidivism due to drug sales and drug possession. To do so, we analyze a dataset of 5,528 juvenile offenders adjudicated in Philadelphia’s Family Court between 1996 and 2004 using multilevel models to estimate the effects of both individual- and neighborhood-level indicators on the odds of recidivism. The results indicate that community context is significantly related to the odds of juvenile recidivism due to drug sales, but not due to drug possession. Neighborhood levels of adult and juvenile drug offender densities are also shown to moderate the links between individual-level characteristics and the odds of juvenile drug sales recidivism.

Keywords

juvenile justice recidivism community context

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Akers

R. L.

(1985). Deviant behavior: A social learning approach (Vol. 3). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Armstrong

T. A.

(2008a). Are trends in specialization across arrests explained by changes in specialization occurring with age? Justice Quarterly, 25, 201-222.

Armstrong

T. A.

(2008b). Exploring the impact of changes in group composition on trends in specialization. Crime & Delinquency, 54, 366-389.

Baglivio

M. T.

Wolff

K. T.

Jackowski

Greenwald

M. A.

(2017). A multilevel examination of risk/need change scores, community context, and successful reentry of committed juvenile offenders. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 15, 38-61. doi:10.1177/1541204015596052

Baumer

E. P.

(2002). Neighborhood disadvantage and police notification by victims of violence. Criminology, 40, 579-616.

Baumer

E. P.

Gustafson

(2007). Social organization and instrumental crime: Assessing the empirical validity of classic and contemporary anomie theories. Criminology, 45, 617-663.

Baumer

E. P.

Horney

Felson

Lauritsen

J. L.

(2003). Neighborhood disadvantage and the nature of violence. Criminology, 41, 39-72.

Becker

(1963). Studies in the sociology of deviance. New York, NY: Free Press.

Breetzke

Polaschek

(2018). Moving home: Examining the independent effects of individual- and neighborhood-level residential mobility on recidivism in high-risk parolees. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 62, 2982-3005.

10.

Burgess

R. L.

Akers

R. L.

(1966). A differential association-reinforcement theory of criminal behavior. Social Problems, 14, 128-147.

11.

Bursik

R. J.

Jr. , (1980). The dynamics of specialization in juvenile offenses. Social Forces, 58, 851-864.

12.

Bursik

R. J.

(1988). Social disorganization and theories of crime and delinquency: Problems and prospects. Criminology, 26, 519-552.

13.

Chamberlain

A. W.

(2018). From prison to the community: Assessing the direct, reciprocal, and indirect effects of parolees on neighborhood structure and crime. Crime & Delinquency, 64, 166-200.

14.

Chamberlain

A. W.

Boggess

L. N.

Powers

R. A.

(2016). The impact of the spatial mismatch between parolee and employment locations on recidivism. Journal of Crime and Justice, 39, 398-420.

15.

Chamberlain

A. W.

Wallace

(2016). Mass reentry, neighborhood context and recidivism: Examining how the distribution of parolees within and across neighborhoods impacts recidivism. Justice Quarterly, 33, 912-941.

16.

Chauhan

Reppucci

N. D.

Turkheimer

E. N.

(2009). Racial differences in the associations of neighborhood disadvantage, exposure to violence, and criminal recidivism among female juvenile offenders. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 27, 531-552.

17.

Cohen

(1986). Research on criminal careers: Individual frequency rates and offense seriousness. In Blumstein

Cohen

Roth

J. A.

Visher

C. A.

(Eds.), Criminal careers and “career criminals” (Vol. 1, pp. 292-418). Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

18.

Dishion

T. J.

McCord

Poulin

(1999). When interventions harm: Peer groups and problem behavior. American Psychologist, 54, 755-764.

19.

Fagan

(1992). Drug selling and licit income in distressed neighborhoods: The economic lives of street-level drug users and dealers. In Harrell

A. V.

Peterson

G. E.

(Eds.), Drugs, crime, and social isolation: Barriers to urban opportunity (pp. 99-146). Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press.

20.

Garcia

R. M.

Taylor

R. B.

Lawton

B. A.

(2007). Impacts of violent crime and neighborhood structure on trusting your neighbors. Justice Quarterly, 24, 679-704.

21.

Grunwald

H. E.

Lockwood

Harris

P. W.

Mennis

(2010). Influences of neighborhood context, individual history and parenting behavior on recidivism among juvenile offenders. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 39, 1067-1079.

22.

Hagedorn

J. M.

(1994). Neighborhoods, markets, and gang drug organization. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 31, 264-294.

23.

Harris

P. W.

Lockwood

Mengers

Stoodley

B. H.

(2011). Measuring recidivism in juvenile corrections. Journal of Juvenile Justice, 1, 1-16.

24.

Harris

P. W.

Mennis

Obradovic

Izenman

A. J.

Grunwald

H. E.

(2011). The coaction of neighborhood and individual effects on juvenile recidivism. Cityscape, 13, 33-55.

25.

Hipp

J. R.

Petersilia

Turner

(2010). Parolee recidivism in California: The effect of neighborhood context and social service agency characteristics. Criminology, 48, 947-979.

26.

Intravia

Pelletier

Wolff

K. T.

Baglivio

M. T.

(2017). Community disadvantage, prosocial bonds, and juvenile reoffending: A multilevel mediation analysis. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 15, 240-263.

27.

Johnson

B. D.

Hamid

Sanabria

(1992). In Mieczkowski

(Ed.), Emerging models of crack distribution. In Drugs, crime and social policy. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

28.

Klein

M. W.

(1984). Offence specialisation and versatility among juveniles. The British Journal of Criminology, 24, 185-194.

29.

Kubrin

C. E.

Squires

G. D.

Stewart

E. A.

(2007). Neighborhoods, race, and recidivism: The community-reoffending nexus and its implications for African Americans. Race Relations Abstracts, 32, 7-37.

30.

Kubrin

C. E.

Stewart

E. A.

(2006). Predicting who reoffends: The neglected role of neighborhood context in recidivism studies. Criminology, 44, 165-197.

31.

Lockwood

Harris

P. W.

(2015). Kicked out or dropped out? Disaggregating the effects of community-based treatment attrition on juvenile recidivism. Justice Quarterly, 32, 705-728. doi:10.1080/07418825.2013.797485

32.

McCord

(2003). Cures that harm: Unanticipated outcomes of crime prevention programs. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 587, 16-30.

33.

Mears

D. P.

Wang

Hay

Bales

W. D.

(2008). Social ecology and recidivism: Implications for prisoner reentry. Criminology, 46, 301-340.

34.

Mennis

Harris

(2011). Contagion and repeat offending among urban juvenile delinquents. Journal of Adolescence, 34, 951-963. doi:10.1016/j.adolescence.2010.12.001

35.

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. (2017). Juvenile arrests (OJJDP statistical briefing book). Washington, DC. Retrieved from https://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/crime/qa05101.asp?qa

36.

Piquero

A. R.

Paternoster

Mazerolle

Brame

Dean

C. W.

(1999). Onset age and offense specialization. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 36, 275-299.

37.

Poulin

Dishion

T. J.

Burraston

(2001). 3-year iatrogenic effects associated with aggregating high-risk adolescents in cognitive-behavioral preventive interventions. Applied Developmental Science, 5, 214-224.

38.

Ratcliffe

J. H.

(2004). Geocoding crime and a first estimate of a minimum acceptable hit rate. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 18, 61-72.

39.

Raudenbush

S. W.

Bryk

A. S.

(2002). Hierarchical linear models: Applications and data analysis methods (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

40.

Sampson

R. J.

Morenoff

J. D.

Earls

(1999). Beyond social capital: Spatial dynamics of collective efficacy for children. American Sociological Review, 64, 633-660.

41.

Snyder

H. N.

Sickmund

(2006). Juvenile offenders and victims: 2006 national report. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice.

42.

Sutherland

(1947). Principles of criminology. Philadelphia, PA: J.B. Lippincott.

43.

Tannenbaum

(1938). Crime and the community. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

44.

Tillyer

M. S.

Vose

(2008). Social ecology, individual risk, and recidivism: A multilevel examination of main and moderating influences. Journal of Criminal Justice, 39, 452-459. doi:10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2011.08.003

45.

Warr

(1996). Organization and instigation in delinquent groups. Criminology, 34, 11-37.

46.

Wolff

K. T.

Baglivio

M. T.

Intravia

Piquero

A. R.

(2015). The protective impact of immigrant concentration on juvenile recidivism: A statewide analysis of youth offenders. Journal of Criminal Justice, 43, 522-531.

47.

Wolff

K. T.

Intravia

Baglivio

M. T.

Piquero

A. R.

(2018). The protective impact of immigrant concentration on juvenile recidivism: A multilevel examination of potential mechanisms. Crime & Delinquency, 64, 1271-1305. doi:10.1177/0011128717739608

48.

Wright

K. A.

Kim

Chassin

Losoya

S. H.

Piquero

A. R.

(2014). Ecological context, concentrated disadvantage, and youth reoffending: Identifying the social mechanisms in a sample of serious adolescent offenders. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 43, 1781-1799.

49.

Wright

K. A.

Rodriguez

(2014). A closer look at the paradox: Examining immigration and youth reoffending in Arizona. Justice Quarterly, 31, 882-904.

50.

Zahn

M. A.

Agnew

Fishbein

Miller

Winn

D.-M.

Dakoff

. . . Chesney-Lind

(2010). Causes and correlates of girls’ delinquency. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Retrieved from https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/226358.pdf