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OCR for page 121
4
Co Offender Influences on
Criminal Careers
Albert I. Reiss, Jr.
INTRODUCTION
Offender histories ordinarily are char-
acterizec! by a mix of different types of
offenses and by a mix of offenses commit-
ted alone and with accomplices. Group or
accomplice offending is more characteris-
tic of juvenile than adult careers. This
paper reviews the current state of knowI-
ecige about co-offending in juvenile and
adult criminal careers to illuminate how
and when co-offencling is relevant to strat-
egies of intervention in criminal careers,
particularly strategies to reduce crime
rates. The paper begins with a brief cle-
scription of the major policy questions
that will be acIdressec3 and then summa-
rizes the knowledge about co-offending
that is relevant to them.
Selective Incapacitation of Offenders
One of the major strategies proposer! to
reduce the crime rate is to incapacitate
Albert J. Reiss, Jr., is the William Graham Sumner
professor of sociology and in the Institution for Social
and Policy Studies, Yale University, and lecturer in
law, Yale Law School. The reader is referred to the
Acknowledgments section at the end of this chapter.
72z
career criminals selectively, i.e., to re-
move from society those offenders who
have high individual rates of offending.
In theory one expects to reduce the num-
ber of crimes, and correlatively the num-
ber of victims involvecI in those crimes,
by the amount of crime the incapacitates]
offender wouIcT have committed were he
or she not incarcerated. Within limits,
that seems to be a reasonable presump-
tion, provi(led the crimes are committee!
by a single offender. But whether one
actually prevents those crimes from oc-
curring when incapacitating an offender
will (lepenc3 also on the group status of
the offender and the behavior of co-offend-
ers and their affiliatecl offending groups.
For unless an offender's accomplices are
(leterre(1 from offending by the offen~ler's
incapacitation, no crimes may be saved.
The accomplices may continue to commit
the offenses alone, with one another, by
recruiting new accomplices from within
their group, or by recruiting new mem-
bers to their membership network either
as new participants in offending or at
increased rates of offending. Group or-
ganization and affiliation will facilitate
the search for accomplices, and indeed,
OCR for page 122
122
Reiss (1980:1~16) has argued that inca-
pacitation can increase the crime rate if it
leads to a marginal increase in the num-
ber of offenders and their individual rates
of offending. It is important, conse-
quently, to know to what extent patterns
of recruitment into offending as well as
changes in individual rates of offending
may limit the capability of an incapacita-
tion policy to reduce the crime rate.
Age of Intervention
It is well known that a substantial pro-
portion of all offending, including offend
. . . .
1ng in serious crimes, occurs at young
ages and that the age of onset of offending
is quite young. Moreover, a serious juve-
nile career record appears predictive of
high-rate offending in serious crimes as
an adult (Chaiken ant] Chaiken, 1982:871.
It is also recognized that, while a great
many young people participate in crime,
many drop out fairly early in their career
(Wolfgang, Figlio, and Sellin, 1972:~),
often without any official intervention to
deter them from offending. Yet, at an
early age a sizable minority of youthful
offenders have high indiviclual rates of
offending (Wolfgang, Figlio, and Sellin,
1972:1041. This raises the question of
whether high-rate offenders can be iden-
tifiect at an early age so that they can be
selected for special treatment in a juve-
nile or criminal justice system.
Related to the issue of the early cletec-
tion and selection of career offenders is
whether group affiliation is critical in on-
set, persistence, and clesistance from of-
fending. Of particular interest is the role
that groups play in these phases of a
juvenile criminal career. Were one able,
for example, to identify high-rate offen(l-
ers who recruited a large number of per-
sons into committing clelinquent acts or
persons who hac] a substantial effect on
the individual crime rate of a large nu~n-
ber of offenders, one might want to select
CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS
those offender-recruiters for special treat-
ment in a criminal justice system.
Target of Intervention Strategies
Many intervention strategies aim to in-
tervene in the life of an offender to pre-
vent offending either by incapacitating
the offender or encouraging Resistance
when the offender is allowed to remain in
the free society. The latter are usually
called individual-change strategies. Yet,
other strategies are possible, such as al-
tering group and other social structures or
intervening in collective activity. If
groups are important to the onset, persis-
tence, and Resistance from offending, one
may want to intervene directly in group
relationships or alter group structure so as
to reduce the propensity for delinquent or
criminal behavior. Or, recognizing that
networks facilitate the search for accom-
plices, one may want to intervene in
those networks to increase the costs of
search behavior. The discussion that fol-
lows of the role of group offending in
criminal careers will address the implica-
tions for intervention strategies.
THE NATURE OF GROUP
OFFENDING
There is no commonly agreed-on defi-
nition of a group in research on delin-
quent and criminal behavior. Offending
groups often are treated in writings on
delinquency as synonymous with gangs,
the gang being a territorially organized,
age-graded peer group engaged in a wide
range of activities and having a well-
defined leadership (Miller, 1975:9~. Em-
pirically, most persons who engage in
group delinquency are not members of
such highly structured groups (Klein and
Crawford, 1967; Morash, 1983:329), and
in most aggregates of 20 or more peers,
persons are only loosely associated with
one another, leadership is unclear, and
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CO-OFFENDER INFLUENCES ON CRIMINAL CAREERS
membership turnover is fairly high.
Yablonsky (1959) refers to these peer ag-
gregates as "near-groups." Following
Lerman (1967:63), group offending is
treated in this paper from the perspective
of social networks macle up of pairs, tri-
ads, and constellations of four or more
persons. The extent to which networks
and relationships within them are
bounded organizationally, behaviorally,
and territorially is left problematic.
SOME PRELIMINARY ISSUES
Before examining the basic parameters
of group offending and their relationship
to criminal careers, a few issues that affect
concepts and measures of group offencI-
ing should be consiclered. These are the
relationship of offending to crime events;
defining ant! measuring lone, as con-
trasted with group, offending; and the
effects of criminal justice processing on
parameters of group offending.
Crime Incidents, Their Victims, and
Their Offenders
Any crime event or incident involves
one or more crimes or offenses, one or
more offenders, and, consenting and pub-
lic-order crimes excepted, one or more
victims. One expects to find a number of
relationships among a population of
crime events and their offenses, victims,
and offenders. For example, the ratio of
victims to events clepencis on the rate of
multiple victimization in events and the
rate of victimization ofthe same person in
different events. And the population of
offenders relative to the population of
events depends on the size of the of-
fending group in an event and individual
rates of offending by group members. It is
ordinarily assumed, moreover, that the
prevalence or participation rate of offend-
ers is well below the aggregate incidence
of their offenses and charges and that the
|23
differences are clue primarily to variation
in both individual rates of offending and
the size of offending groups in crime
events.
The above relationships between of-
fen~lers and events can be illustrated
quite simply using data on residential
burglary and robbery. The Peoria (Illi-
nois) Crime Reduction Council (1979),
for example, undertook a study of all ju-
veniles taken into custody for residential
burglary from 1971 to 1978. There were
467 juveniles who accounted for 306 sep-
arate burglaries during this period. The
group composition of both the burglary
incidents and the offenders involved in
them is shown in Table 1.
In regard to burglary offenses commit-
tec3 by apprehended juveniles cluring this
period, single offenders accounted for
one-half of all residential burglaries. In
regard to offenders involves! in these bur-
glaries, however, the one-half of the resi-
clential burglaries with two or more
offenders involved two-thirds of all of-
fenders, and the great majority of multi-
ple-offender burglaries involved two of-
fenders.
How the size of offending groups af-
fects the size of an offender population is
seen even more dramatically for robbery
offenses. Just over one-half of all robbery
TABLE 1 Group Composition of
Burglary Incidents and Offenders
Group Composition
Number Percent
Burglary Incidents
With one offender only
With two or more offend-
ers
Total burglary incidents
Burglary Offenders
Single offender in
incident
155
151
306
155
Two or more offenders in
incident 312
Total burglary offenders 467
50.6
49.4
100.0
33.2
66.8
100.0
SOURCE: Peoria Crime Reduction Council
(1979).
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124
CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS
TABLE 2 Group Composition of Robbery Incidents and Offenders
Percent Distribution by Size of Offending Group
Total Four or
Number One Two Three More
Robbery
Incidents 1,149,000 51.5 24.2 14.3 10.0
Robbery
Offenders 2,215,272 26.7 25.1 22.3 25.9
SOURCE: Bureau of Justice Statistics (1984:Tables 52 and 62).
victimizations in the United States in
1982 involved a single offender (Bureau
of Justice Statistics, 1984:Table 621.
Nonetheless, as seen from the clistribu-
tion in Table 2, only one-fourth of all
robbery offenders in those events of-
fended alone, and there were about equal
proportions of groups of two, three, and
four or more offenders.
Note that for about one-half of all rob-
beries, the same robbery is part of the
criminal history of more than one of-
fender. Although there are on the average
two offenders per robbery, in about one-
fourth of all robberies, the same incident
enters the criminal history of three or
more offenders. If one knows the number
of co-offenders in each offense in a crim-
inal history, one can weight offenses ac-
corclingly and estimate more precisely
the "crimes saved" by incapacitating that
offender. The larger the size of any par-
ticipant's offending group, the less, on the
average, that individuaT's absence should
diminish the population of events.
Lone and Group Offenders in
Criminal Careers
There is a firmly held view that most
offenders are group offenders and that the
career Tone offender is uncommon. These
views are not based on the analysis of
criminal careers or histories, however,
but rather on the group composition of
offending, especially of juvenile offencI
ing. The statistical basis for the conclu-
sion ordinarily is the individual and
group composition of crime events rather
than histories of offending for the offend-
ers involved in those events.
Quite commonly the group-size distri-
bution for a population of events is used
to estimate the participation rate of Tone
offenders in a population. What is re-
ported is a distribution of events by num-
ber of offenders, and the proportion of
single-offender events is taken as an esti-
mate of the prevalence of lone offenders
in a population. Such estimates are mis-
leacling because events rather than per-
sons are counted. Corrections can be
made by weighting the events by the
number of offenders reported for them
and using an appropriate population as
the base for the rate.
Percentage distributions of the size of
offending groups by crime type (the up-
per halves of Tables 1 and 2) reflect the
aggregate risk of being victimized by a
group of a given size, including a single
individual. By way of contrast, percent-
age distributions of the number of of-
fenders involved in those incidents by
the size of the offending group (the Tower
halves of Tables 1 and 2) are offender-
based statistics and state the probability
that a randomly selected offender will
commit that crime alone or with a given
number of associates. The latter statistics
are more appropriate in relating events to
criminal careers or to offenders to be
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CO-OFFENDER INFLUENCES ON CRIMINAL CAREERS
processed. When the interest lies in the
rate of Tone or co-offencting crimes, state-
ments should be made about a population
of crime events, but when the interest lies
in Tone- or group-offender participation
rates, statements must be macle about a
population of offenders.
When all the events in a criminal his-
tory are considered, a large proportion of
offenders exhibit neither exclusively Tone
nor exclusively group offending. Rather,
most offender histories are characterized
by a mix of offending alone and with
accomplices. Although information on
the number of accomplices in each event
of an offender's criminal history is gener-
ally lacking, some idea of the mix of Tone
and accomplice offending can be gained
by examining the criminal history of the
juvenile offenders in the stucly by the
Peoria Crime Reduction Council (1979~.
The 467 Peoria juveniles apprehended
for at least one burglary during a 7.5-year
period were involved in 2,820 offenses
for which 3,426 charges were filed. Con-
sidering only co-offending among the 467
juveniles, 79 (16.9 percent) always com-
mitted their offenses without accomplices
from the study population, and 91 (19.5
percent) only actec] with accomplices
from the study population. The large ma-
jority (63.6 percent) sometimes actecl
alone and sometimes with others from the
study population.)
Unfortunately, good estimates are not
available of the variation among criminal
histories in the mix of Tone and group
offenses, of variation in the number of
accomplices, and of the consistency and
variation of co-offending in an individu-
al's history. With that information, one
might weight individual-offencler rates by
their partial contributions to crime
iSince the co-oŁending data in the criminal his-
tories were tabulated only for offenders included in
the study population, these are probably underesti-
mates for lone offending.
12S
events, especially when estimating the
expected crimes saved by incapacitation.
One might wish to use such a weighted
indiviclual rate as a criterion for selective
incapacitation.
Effects of Criminal Justice Processing
on Estimates of Group Offending
Self-report studies of mate delinquent
behavior disclose a higher rate of Tone
offending than clo official records of ap-
prehension for the same offenders (Erik-
son, 1971; Hindelang, 1971, 1976b). The
question arises, therefore, as to whether
an apprehension hazard is associated
with violating the law win others
(Erikson, 1971:1211. For if violating in
groups increases the likelihood of being
apprehended, the prevalence of Tone of-
fencling will be underrepresented in of-
ficial records.
Several attempts have been made to
test whether there is a group-apprehen-
sion hazard by comparing self-reported
and officially reported offenses in an of-
fender's history. Erikson (1971:125) con-
cludecl that, although there is a greater
risk of apprehension for offenses that are
officially known rather than self-reported,
the selection bias is consiclerably less for
the most serious offenses. Subsequent re-
search by Hinclelang (1976b:121) casts
doubt on the group-hazarcl hypothesis.
While exclusively group offenders have a
higher risk of apprehension per crime
than do those who always offend alone,
those with a mix of Tone and accomplice
offending have comparable risks in both
types of events.
What does seem apparent from Hinde-
lang s work is that those engaging in
illegal behaviour in groups are likely to
engage in this behaviour more frequently
than those engaging in the illegal
behaviour alone" (1976b: 1221; incleed,
the largest proportion of solitary offenders
was found in the group with the lowest
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126
individual rates of offending and the
smallest proportion of solitary offenders
in the group with highest indiviclual
rates. This supports Eriks on' s (1971) con-
clusion that among offending youths, sol-
itary offenders are more likely to engage
less frequently in crimes and to commit
less serious crimes than group offenders.
Unfortunately, data are unavailable to
determine whether adult solitary offend-
ers are also disproportionally involved in
the less serious offenses or have lower
individual rates of offending. Since major
crimes against persons involve higher
rates of solitary offending, it is possible
that adult solitary offending, in contrast to
that of juveniles, is disproportionally con-
centrated on the more serious offenses.
BASIC PARAMETERS OF GROUP
OFFENDING
Despite the fact that a number of major
longitudinal studies of criminal careers
have followed samples of youths into
their adult years (Glueck and Glueck,
1930, 1937, 1940, 1943, 1946; Shannon,
1978; Wolfgang, 1978; Elliott et al., 1983),
none has examined patterns of co-offend-
ing into adulthood. Thus, this discussion
of the parameters of group offending must
depend primarily on research on juvenile
delinquency. Even that research, how-
ever, pays relatively little attention to
individual rates of offending or the role of
co-offending in careers so that often a
single study or source of data must be
relied on.
Offending and Group Size
Breckinridge and Abbot (1917) were
among the first to point out that most
delinquent offenses are committed with
at least one other person and that even
most youths regardecl as Tone offenders
occasionally engage in clelinquency with
a companion. Somewhat later, Shaw and
CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS
Meyer (1929) and Shaw and McKay
(1931) estimated in juvenile court sam-
ples that less than 20 percent of the juve-
nile offenders before the court committed
offenses alone, that the modal size of an
offending group is small (two or three
participants), and that most delinquency
is not committed by well-organizec3
groups. Shaw and McKay concludecI,
moreover, that while such offending two-
somes and threesomes commonly are
combinations from a larger group, a
whole group is rarely involved in the
same delinquent or criminal act.
Large networks that link by association
up to 200 youths ordinarily consist of
fewer than 30 or 40 active members orga-
nized into smaller cliques of ~10 mem-
bers (Klein and Crawford, 1967~. In a
cohort study of delinquency in a Swedish
community, a youth gang was defined as a
group of juveniles who were linker] to-
gether because the police suspected
them of committing crimes together
(Samecki, 1982: 144-145~.2 There were
well over 100 of these gangs in the study.
Membership varied from 2 to 30 boys; the
mean size was 5 boys (Samecki: 151~.
What was most evident, however, is that
groups were constituted by co-offending
relationships. These relationships con-
sisted of links of co-offen(ling to form
chains of association. One such chain in
this Swedish city involved 260 boys and a
few girls and constitutes! about 45 percent
of the study population. Together they
accounted for 86 percent of the crimes
2The study population was located in a southern
Swedish industrial community of about 50,000 in-
habitants. The records of the local police on all
crimes whose suspects were under 15 years old and
from the police register (PBR) for all juveniles 15
years and older were the main source of information
on offenses. Additional data sources included re-
ports from police hearings, from police interviews
with juveniles suspected of crimes, and from social
service authorities (Sarnecki, 1982:54~5~.
OCR for page 127
CO-OFFENDER INFLUENCES ON CRIMINAL CAREERS
reported cluring the study period (Sar-
necki: 14~1451.
Although accomplices in delinquency
are drawn more often from smaller
cliques than from their larger network,
the number of accomplices in any delin-
quent act is much smaller than the num-
ber in the clique (Short and Stro~tbeck,
1965; Klein and Crawford, 19671. Consic3-
ering only those offenses committed by
two or more offenders, the mocial size of
an offending group from age 12 onward is
two participants. Groups with four or
more participants are relatively uncom-
mon after age 14 or 15. The majority of
offenders have accomplices until their
early 20s, after which the majority commit
their offenses alone (Hood and Sparks,
1970:87-881. There is some variation in
Tone and group offending rates by country
and considerable variation by type of of-
fense (Sveri, 19651.
The distribution of group size within
an offending history has consequences for
intervening in that career. A majority of
most common crimes are committed by
two or three offenders, and most offend-
ers will have a substantial and continuing
history of offenses in which their associ-
ates change from crime to crime. The
larger the offending group, the more
likely it is to be confined to a single event
unless the group specializes in specific
targets of offending, as in terrorism or in
some kinds of white-colIar offending in
which continuing use of organizational
power is integral to committing offenses.
Age of Onset
There is much controversy concerning
whether the onset of delinquency is a
consequence of induction by co-offencl-
ers. Glueck and Glueck (1934a, b, 1937,
1943, 1950) contended that pre-clelin-
quent and delinquent behavior began at
an early age in family and school social-
ization. They claimed that those with de
127
linquent tendencies associate with one
another rather than being led into their
joint clelinquent behavior by their associ-
ations. Their definition of delinquency is
quite broacI and includes behavior la-
beled as "antisocial" and also "clelin-
quent tendencies" (Glueck and Glueck,
1950:421. Moreover, their conclusion is
not based on collecting information about
the group composition of specific behav-
ioral acts committed by offenders in their
sample. Rather, their contention is based
on their observation (Glueck and Glueck,
1950:41) that the onset of delinquency for
their institutionalized delinquents oc-
curred before age 10 and consequently,
in their view, before the time that groups
play a significant role in a boy's life.
Challenging this conclusion, Eynon
ant! Reckless (1961) founct that the me-
dian age of first contact with juvenile
authorities was 13 for incarcerated juve-
nile offenders and that there were no
significant differences in age of onset or
the presence or absence of companions at
the first officially recorded (lelinquent act
(Eynon and Reckless:169~. The meclian
age of onset for the first self-reported
delinquent act ranged from 11 to 14 years
clepencling on the type of offense. Self-
reports on whether one hac3 companions
for each of seven offense types ranged
from 56 percent of those who ran away
from home to a not surprising 100 percent
of those engaging in gang fights (Eynon
and Reckless: 170~. They concluclec! that
the "presence of companions is a major
component of male delinquency, regarcI-
less of the age of delinquency onset"
(Eynon and Reckless:1681; companion-
ship is present at early as well as at late
onset. But, as they note, what we still lack
is information that tells us whether com-
panionship experience relevant to the on-
set of delinquency causes delinquent be-
havior (Eynon and Reckless:168~.
Most investigators seem to have missec!
this obvious point that companionship
OCR for page 128
128
begins among children at a fairly early
age. Although Thrasher (1927), in his
classic stucly of what he called "youth
gangs" in Chicago, was well aware of the
fact that the kinds of groupings in which
he was interested were found at quite
young ages, he focused on territorial
groupings. Subsequent work focused on
"organizer! gangs" rather than on "com-
panionship." These groups were largely
territorially organized anct regarded as a
phenomenon of aclolescent and young
aclult ages. Recruitment and induction
into these peer groups were macle prob-
lematic but without any explicit attention
to prior delinquent histories. This was
partly because Thrasher devoted a great
deal of attention to official records of de-
linquency, ant] a clelinquent act was
rarely enterer] as an official record prior to
age 12.
In any case, what is at issue is whether
the onset of delinquency involves primar-
iTy Tone offending or whether it is linked
primarily to companionship or accom-
plice relationships. With answers to this
key question, one may begin to unravel
the problem of the role of groups in
launching a continuing offending career,
since there must be consiclerable clesis-
tance from offending, even at very early
ages.
It is difficult to assess the role that
companionship plays in the onset of cle-
linquency because of the weak cross-
section designs of most etiological studies
and the failure to specify a testable causal
model. A longitudinal design that follows
members of a birth cohort as well as all
their accomplices who are not members
of the cohort is necessary to test causal
hypotheses about onset. Unfortunately,
up to now cohort studies have not exam-
inec3 the role of co-offending in criminal
careers. Olson's (1977) multiple regres-
sion analysis of the personal interview
data for a subset ofthe Racine birth cohort
study (Shannon, 1978) found that first
police contact at a very young age was
CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS
associated only with being mate and hav-
ing friends in trouble with the police. Yet
those two variables accounted for at most
one-fourth of the variance, inclicating that
the personal interview variables did not
include the most important determinants
of age at first police contact (Petersilia,
1980:349~.
Group Affiliation and Individual Rates
of Offending
Individuals vary considerably in their
rates of offending. Most young offenders
also have co-offenclers in their offending
and associate in other group activities
with still other offenders. An interesting
question is how an indiviclual's rate of
offending is related to the offending rate
of the affiliatec3 group. Morash (1983:319)
concludes that the clelinquencY rate of
one's peers is a strong predictor of an
individuaT's rate of delinquency. Boys
who belonged to peer groups with a be-
low-average rate of clelinquency had be-
Tow-average rates of clelinquency and
boys with peers who had high indiviclual
rates of clelinquency hacT an above-ave
,
~ ,
rage indiviclual rate of delinquency
(Morash:3211.
Juveniles with high rates of offending
typically commit those offenses with a
large number of accomplices. Sarnecki
(1982) found that the 35 most delinquent
juveniles in the Swedish community he
studied were linkecl to one another by
membership in the largest gang and two
smaller gangs. These were among the
most criminally active gangs in the com-
munity. The 35 juveniles were involves!
with 224 accomplices in crime. Almost 3
in 10 of the 799 other delinquents in the
community committed at least one crime
win 1 of these 35 high-rate offenders
(Sarnecki: 171,2091. The accomplices of
these 35 were usually selected from the
criminally more active part of the total
offending population (Sarnecki:144-1451.
High-rate juvenile offenders affiliate
OCR for page 129
CO-OFFENDER INFLUENCES ON CRIMINAL CAREERS
with one another.in peer groupings. The
35 most active members were but 6 per-
cent of the delinquents in Sarnecki's
study population. They belonged to the
three largest membership gangs, in
which the mean number of suspected
crimes per gang member was 22.3 during
a 3-year period a rate that was three
times that ofthe delinquent population as
a whole. The members of the largest gang
made up only 13 percent of the popula-
tion of offenders, yet they accounted for
42 percent of all suspected crime
(Sarnecki: 1741.
Duration of Accomplice Relationships
Most pairings in committing delin-
quencies are of short duration. Sarnecki
(p. 140) found that only 13 percent of the
1,162 juvenile clelinquency pairings in an
offense in the Swedish community per-
sisted beyond 6 months. Only 4 percent
of the pairs were still committing crimes
together after 1.5 years, but 1 of the 1,162
offending pairs was committing offenses
together after 3.5 years, roughly half the 6
years the stucly tracked offenders. The
short life of any pairing in delinquency
partly reflects the fact that most delin-
quent careers are short. Almost 6 in 10
youths in the Swedish cohort were
known to the police cluring only one 6-
month period ofthe 6-year study (Sarnec-
ki:l411. Among those persisting in delin-
quency, the modal pattern was to change
associates in committing offenses.
Sarnecki (pp. 142-143) also found that
the most criminally active usually commit
their crimes in pairs and that they pre-
serve particular pairings longer than (lo
those who are less active. The most active
and seriously delinquent juvenile sus-
pects were 45 times more likely to com-
mit crimes with the same associates than
were less active juveniles from the study
population.
Quite clearly, accomplices in offending
change quite frequently in juvenile ca
729
reers. The larger the number of offenses
committee! by an offender, the larger the
number of different accomplices linked to
that offender's career. One's accomplices
as a juvenile are likely to be drawn from
cliques or constellations of cliques with
which one is affiliatecl. Or(linariTy, these
cliques are part of a network. Adults are
perhaps more likely than juveniles to be
Inked in loose networks, ones in which
they are linked by weak rather than
strong ties (Granovetter, 19731.
Stability of Group Affiliation
An important issue is how shifts among
cliques of peers and co-offenclers occur
en c] how affiliation with cliques and
larger networks is stabilized, on the one
hand, and disconnected and terminated,
on the other. These issues are not clealt
with systematically in the research on
crime and clelinquency.3 Thus, empirical
studies on clelinquent gangs and street-
corner groups are used here to explore
these issues.
It was quite evident in the Swedish
community stucliecl by Sarnecki (1982)
that most gangs, as well as pairings, ex-
isted for only short periods of time. Only
one gang persisted for the entire 6-year
period and towards the end of that period
it split into two separate groups. Yet a
third was spun offin the final 6 months of
Similarly, little is known about the stability of
group affiliations among a population of nonoffend-
ers. The stability of pair and group affiliations seems
to vary by age and to be more stable during the pre-
adolescent than the adolescent years. Still, it seems
that all youths frequently change companions for
conforming acts, such as walking to school, dating,
going to the movies and shopping. Much more
needs to be known about pair and group affiliations
for nondelinquent or all youths to assess the relative
stability of delinquent affiliations. It is possible that
delinquent pairings show greater stability than non-
delinquent pairings. Choosing different compan-
ions for different activities, moreover, may simply
be a characteristic of both youthful and adult behav
~or.
OCR for page 130
130
the stucly. The original gang was still the
largest of the three at the close of the
study period, however, despite its losing
members to form two others (Sarnecki:
153~. Although gangs can (livi(le by
schism, merge with other gangs, or join a
network of gangs, their durability has
consequences for individual careers. Ca-
reer termination may result simply from
the short duration of groups and the loose
links that bins! members, especially for
those who rely primarily on group affili-
ation for accomplices and support in of-
fending.
Suttles's (1968) study of street-corner
groups in Chicago allows us to explore
the stability of affiliations with o~encling
groups. He identifiecI 32 named street-
corner groups in the Aciciams area of Chi-
cago (Suttles:1571. With one exception,
they were made up exclusively of mates
and averaged from 12 to 15 members in
size. Some had as few as 8 members and
one had 29. Each of the groups had some
members who lived outside the Addams
area ranging from 4 to 17 percent; 12
percent of the members of all the groups
lived outside the area (SuttIes:157-1671.
Outsiders were youths who either for-
merly lived in the area or were relatecI by
kinship to one of the group members
(Suttles: 1651.
Although Suttles (1968) floes not pro-
vicle detailed information on the duration
of the 32 groups, he reports that one
laster! but 1 year and that some lasted 2 or
3 years (pp. 161, 1661. All were subject to
considerable turnover in membership,
partly because of resi(lential mobility.4 Of
those known to have quit membership in
4Klein and Crawford (1967) similarly reported
high turnover in the black Los Angeles gangs they
studied. They reported that "many members af-
filiate with the group for brief periods of from a few
days to a few months, while others move out of the
neighborhood or are incarcerated for periods some-
times exceeding a year" (p. 661.
CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS
groups, 41 percent moved to another area
of Chicago (SuttIes: 1671.
One additional fact is worth noting. A
substantial proportion of all boys in an
area never affiliate with these larger
groups (Short and Stro(ltbeck, 1965:56-
57; Suttles: 1731. Suttles reports that most
of the unaffiliated are boys who regularly
"bane! together" in small cliques (p. 1691.
Few boys, then, are isolates. The role of
affiliation with territorial delinquent
groups in accounting for differences in
individual rates of offending is unclear,
however. SuttIes (p. 220) reports that ar-
rest rates were about equal for the affil-
iated and unaffiliated boys. Yet others,
especially Short and Strodtbeck, report
much higher individual rates of offending
for gang-affiliated boys.
The stability of territorially based
groups is threatened by three major con-
tingencies: transiency, incarceration of
members, and shifts to conventional ca-
reers. Slum neighborhoods especially are
characterized by high residential tran-
siency of families. That transiency has
three major consequences for territorial
youth organizations. For one, it makes the
membership of any group volatile. From
the perspective of the group, to survive
substantial annual turnover in member-
ship, it must obtain new members. From
the perspective of the individual mem-
ber, it means transitory affiliations with
some group members and adapting to the
exodus of former members and an influx
of new members. Recruitment and re-
placement are age graded, and there is
some preference for older rather than
younger boys (Suttles:163~. Even associ-
ations between gang boys appear age
graded. Klein and Crawford (1967:74) re-
port that younger gang members are sel-
dom seen in the company of older gang
members.
Another consequence of transiency is
that it spreads the network and influence
of the group beyond the confines of its
OCR for page 131
CO-OFFENDER INFLUENCES ON CRIMINAL CAREERS
territory, always linking some former res-
idents to it. Chicago appears similar to
Sarnecki's (1982) Swedish community in
that some youths who move into other
areas affiliate with other territorial groups
(Keiser, 1969; Short and Moland,
1976:1681. Transiency thus both expands
the choice of accomplices and links terri-
torially based groups. lust how widely
such individual contacts spread across
territorially based groups is unclear but
some of the most active and serious of-
fenclers are transient and use this larger
network to search for accomplices.
Transiency also has important conse-
quences for the temporal continuity of
territorially based groups. To survive, the
group must continually invest in replac-
ing members. The more formally orga-
nized a group and the more provision it
makes for replacement of members, the
more likely it is to survive, as studies of
Chicago's black conflict gangs demon-
strate. The Vice Lords, which incorpo-
rated as a not-for-profit organization,
gained as many as 8,000 members in 26
divisions (Sherman, 1970), while the in-
formally organized Nobles barely sur-
vivec] (Short and Moland: 1681. The
higher the residential transiency of an
area, the more likely its youths are to be
organized into a loose confederation and
the fewer and less stringent are the crite-
ria for entry and continuing affiliation
with its territorial groups. Moreover, the
combination of transiency and the aging
of members, with replacement confiner]
to a narrow range of age-mates, suggests
that recruitment is limited to newly en-
tering residents or, in a few cases, by
mergers among gangs (Sherman, 1970;
Short ant! Moland: 168~. The combination
of these contingencies suggests that un-
less youth groups are formally structured
to deal with turnover, they should have
fairly high death rates.
The second important source of insta-
bility in gang membership is the rate of
]3]
incarceration of gang members. The more
seriously delinquent the members of a
gang, the more likely they are to be incar-
cerated for substantial periods of time.
Short and Molanct (p. 168) report that
nearly all the Vice Lords had been in
correctional institutions at one time or
another, and Short and StroUtbeck (1965)
draw attention to the disruptions causer]
by incarcerating gang leaclers. Unfortu-
nately, they do not provide estimates of
the rate of incarceration for any time in-
terval.
A third important source of turnover in
street-corner group membership is the
shift to more conventional career affilia-
tions by some members. At least one-half
of Suttles's (p. 167) Addams-area group
dropouts left because Key married, went
into the service, joined a job training
program, or worked regularly in a job.
Relatively few were lost to jail.
The general impression is that delin-
quents are organized into loose federa-
tions rather than highly organized groups.
The federation is characterized by loose
ties among inclivicluals and cliques or
clusters. Members are linked by a variety
of activities in addition to delinquent of-
fencling. Inclivicluals are not tightly
bound either to large groups or to partic-
ular pairings within groups. Accomplices
change quite frequently. According to
Olofsson (1971), Swedish male juvenile
delinquents are less selective of compan-
ions ancl their choices are less stable than
are those of youths in the general popu-
lation. It perhaps is reasonable to con-
clucle that, while there are some highly
structured territorial gangs that persist for
periods of time (Miller, 1958, 1975;
Clinard and Ohlin, 1960; Spergel, 1964;
Klein and Crawford, 1967), associates in
most delinquency offenses are drawn
from much less structured networks in
which nuclei of offenders are linked as
nodes in that network. Territorial gangs
(Thrasher, 1927; Whyte, 1943) are per
OCR for page 150
150
sitory. Some confirmation for this pattern
of shifting to lone offending with aging
was found in a major study by Sveri in
Sweden (19651.
Group Processes in Selective Attrition
from Criminal Careers
The concern in this section is to ac-
count for the selective attrition of group
offenders. In doing so, explanations of
how group and network processes ac-
count for Resistance from criminal careers
are posited. Three archetypes of desis-
tance are presented. Desistance of group
offenders can be attributed to specific
deterrence, to status transactions, and to
disruption of group affiliations.
Specific Deterrence
This archetype assumes that punishing
an offender not only leacis the offender to
desist but has consequences for other
group members as well. It assumes.
moreover, that an individual is inducted
into offending by others, as a member of a
group, and continues to offend with one
or more group members until appre-
hendecI. The sanction of being caught
(particularly if reinforcer] by parental or
other sanctions) leads that individual to
desist from offending. The experience of
being sanctioned has a specific deterrent
effect on the offender. Apprehending and
punishing a member of a clique may
increase the likelihood that other mem-
bers, especially accomplices who are not
punishecl, will also desist. The percep-
tion of the risk of being caught is in-
creased by apprehension followed by
punishment. This is a special kind of
specific (leterrence whereby the punish-
ment of some specific and significant
other leads to Resistance. What is critical
in this deterrence is that one knows the
person who is being punished and conse-
quently has a more (lirect basis for vicar
CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS
iously experiencing the punishment and
calculating one's risk.
This archetype probably accounts for
much of the Resistance at young ages ant!
early in an offending career. The (lesis-
tance rate is greatest following the first
apprehension (Wolfgang, Figlio, and
Sellin, 1972:871.
Status Transitions
Adolescence is characterized by the
substitution of peer for parental relation-
ships and control, especially for males, in
American society. As boys grow up, peer
groups lose some of their influence and
control over those affiliated with them.
This Toss of influence is closely tied to
status transitions, particularly those con-
necte(1 with the transition to adult status.
But from early adolescence on, indiviclu-
als make transitions to more conforming
affiliations. Such transitions decrease the
influence of nonconforming peers.
This archetype can account for the cle-
sistance of in(livicluals with low rates of
offencling. Such offenders usually offend!
with accomplices. They are recruited by
others to participate in offenses others
initiate, an(1 they rarely, if ever, initiate
offending. They are at most peripheral
members in a group and offend as occa-
sional recruits. With marginal affiliation
to a group, they desist after one or a few
such experiences because they find con-
forming activities more rewarding and
less risky or because they are not selectecI
as accomplices. These low-rate offenders
normally clesist in the early adolescent
years.
This second archetype is especially
germane, however, for persons who par-
ticipate in delinquency as part of cliversi-
fied peer activity. This is generally char-
acteristic of groups of young mates, such
as athletic teammates and street-corner
gangs. Here one gradually is drawn into
the cultural life-styTe of one's class
OCR for page 151
CO-OFFENDER INFLUENCES ON CRIMINAL CAREERS
wherein delinquency is part of that life-
styTe. With aging, members turn to court-
ship, marriage, and having children as
well as securing regular employment to
fulfill family responsibilities. They may
withdraw from their peer group to as-
sume these adult roles. Women and fam-
iTy may play a role in weaning the mate
delinquent from his gang. Desistance in
this archetype is a function of movement
to an adult status. This pattern probably
explains the Resistance of many Tower-
cIass ethnics in the United States in their
young adult years.
The Resistance of group offenders may
result not only directly from the cleclining
influence of peers on a member's behav-
ior but also from the indirect effect that
has on group cohesiveness and the selec-
tion of co-offenders. With Reclining cohe-
siveness, groups become vulnerable to
dissolution. There appears to be some
discontinuity between the individuaT's
maturation and group adaptation to the
changing requirements of its members.
Since such transitions do not occur at the
same rate for all members, the group
experiences selective attrition that gradu-
ally weakens it. Most cannot recruit re-
placements since the pool of those eligi-
ble also declines with transition to adult
status. Failing to recruit enough members
to maintain its status quo, the group dis-
integrates.
Much Resistance of group offenders
and offending may be tied to the fate of
the particular groups to which they be-
Tonged. Individuals who depend primar-
iTy on co-offending with accomplices af-
fiTiatect with a particular group or network
are particularly vulnerable to its clemise.
Inasmuch as the demise of delinquent
peer groups is most commonly associated
with the transition of their members from
juvenile to aclult status, group clemise
should account for at least some of the
Resistance of group offenders in their late
teens. Desistance in this second arche
151
type does not clepencl on apprehension
and punishment. The archetype is consis-
tent with explanations of selective attri-
tion of group offenders.
Disruption of Group Affiliation
Indivicluals are particularly vulnerable
to the disruption or dissolution of group
ties. Where such ties are primarily re-
sponsible for or play a major role in rein-
forcing one's delinquent or criminal be-
havior, breaking them may lea(1 to
Resistance. This is especially likely to
occur when the incliviclual is unable to
replace those bonds with others that per-
mit continuation of the behavior. The
three major ways that group bonds and
affiliations that reinforce offending are
dissolved are through residential mobil-
ity of an offender, affiliation with a total
institution, and the dissolution of the re-
inforcing group itself.
Resi(lential mobility breaks group ties
en c] makes problematic reincorporation
into a new group in the area to which one
moves. Those who are unlikely to offend
without group support drop out if they
cannot affiliate with a new offending
group or find accomplices. Residential
mobility often is combined with other
forms of social mobility, such as getting
aclvanced schooling or a job or joining a
military organization.
Total institutions also may affect clesis-
tance from careers. Two types of total
institutions can have important conse-
quences for Resistance from criminal ca-
reers: prisons and the military. Incarcera-
tion affects one's position in a group and,
if it still exists on release, one may have
(lifficulty reentering. By (lisrupting pat-
tems of search for co-offen~lers, incarcer-
ation may also shift offenders from pre-
clominantly group to predominantly solo
offending. Apart from (lisrupting co-
offending patterns, incarceration also may
have specific deterrent effects, especially
OCR for page 152
1S2
for young group offenders. If so, incapac-
itation at young ages may be a viable
strategy to bring about Resistance from
offending.9
Another major source of Resistance
through entry into a conventional total
institution is the military. Some criminal
careers obviously go on in the military
but many appear to be broken. As noted
previously, Mattick (1960) found that 87
percent of the Illinois inmates paroled to
the army were given honorable dis-
charges and their recidivism rates were
far below those of civilian parolees. Re-
search is necessary to examine the effect
of military, merchant marine, and other
forms of service on interrupting and ter-
minating contemporary criminal careers
since Mattick's research was on parole to
the World War II army (Mattick, 1958,
19601. Service in conventional total insti-
tutions is a potential alternative source of
intervention in criminal careers.
This third archetype suggests that
breaking group bonds and relationships
may be a critical factor in Resistance from
offending. The breaking of ties is facili-
tated by forming new relationships or
movement to new environments. Such
ties are most likely to be broken in the
late teens or early adult years. Offenders
who continue to offend after these years
may be those who usually commit of-
fenses alone or who select different ac-
complices, often strangers, for each of-
fense. The adult career offender, then, is
characterizes] by transient relationships
with other offenders. Relationships with
co-offenders are instrumentally contrived
9Impr~sonment also introduces one to new of-
fenders and networks. Just how influential such ties
are on one's offending after leaving prison is not
known. Such ties may not be as important as com-
monly assumed because inmates win close ties are
usually not released at the same time and such ties
and prison attitudes become less influential as re-
lease nears (Wheeler, 1961~.
CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS
rather than by-proclucts of group affili-
ation.
INTERVENTION ISSUES AND GROUP
OFFENDING
Group offending is most characteristic
of what we think of as juvenile delin-
quency and characterizes juvenile ca-
reers. Characteristically, the juvenile
court clears with a group of co-offenders
rather than a solo offender when consid-
ering a particular offense for which the
juvenile is apprehended. Moreover, the
juvenile career is more likely to be char-
acterized by a predominance of group
offending when compared with adult ca-
reers. Ad~litionally, the juvenile court is
better able than is a criminal court to
consider co-offenders in dispositions be-
cause it is less bound by many of the
proceclural safeguards attending criminal
proceedings and by the obligation to try
fact without knowledge of the prior
record and current status of the offender
and co-offenders. The juvenile court has
greater latitude to investigate ant] dispose
of matters involving joint offending and
joint careers. When siblings are involved
in juvenile offending, there is greater op-
portunity for family intervention. Given
this greater latitude in investigating, ex-
amining, and disposing of juvenile cases
and the fact that most adult criminal ca-
reers are initiated in the juvenile years,
serious consideration must be given to
identification of and intervention in those
juvenile careers most likely to lead to
adult careers. A number of issues relating
to such interventions are examined be
low.
Probability of Being Caught in
Co-Offending
Earlier, attention was drawn to a possi-
ble apprehension selection bias in con-
junction with membership in a group
OCR for page 153
CO-OFFENDER INFLUENCES ON CRIMINAL CAREERS
(Erikson, 1971). Specifically, the question
is whether there is evidence that group
offenders are more likely to be caught
than are solo offenders ant] whether one's
risk of apprehension increases with the
size of an offending group. Also, the prob-
ability of being apprehended as either a
juvenile or an adult may well be a func-
tion of the prior record of a current co-
offender.
It seems reasonable to conclude that
one's risk of apprehension is a function
both of one's indiviclual rate of offending
ant] that of one's co-offenders. And it is
apparent that, at least for juveniles, high-
rate offenders with accomplices are more
likely to engage in crimes than are those
who commit the same acts alone
(Hindelang, 1976b:1221. One may also
expect interaction effects between one's
rate of offending, the group mix of one's
offenses, and the offending rate of one's
co-offenders.
Inasmuch as one of the major ways of
estimating an individual's rate of offend-
ing is from official records of apprehen-
sions, it is important to know whether the
probability of apprehension is substan-
tially greater for group than lone offend-
ers who have the same indiviclual rate of
offending. One expects, however, that
this could vary by age so that the risk of
apprehension is a function of whether
one offends alone or with others at older
as well as younger ages. It is important
also to know whether apprehension is
more likely to occur for a co-offending
than a solo offense, even for those careers
characterized by a substantial proportion
of solo offenses. If so, using official rec-
ords of apprehension will underestimate
substantially the individual rate of of-
fencling for those who engage predomi-
nantly in solo offenses and overestimate
the rate for group offenders if the two are
not distinguished.
Just how much the individual rate of
offending, in comparison with the group
753
status of an offense, increases one's risk of
apprehension is most problematic for of-
fenses against the person. A predomi-
nantly solo pattern of offending may be
disproportionally constituted of non-
stranger crimes against the person, since
that arrest rate is a function of victim
identification et the time ofthe complaint.
In brief, the rate of apprehension for solo
offenses against persons who are strang-
ers as well as against property may be
substantially lower than that for others at
risk. This suggests that it is important to
separate solo from group offending rates
by type of offense in assessing apprehen
.
sion r1s Is.
Early Identification of Career
Criminals
One of the barriers to early identifica-
tion of adult criminal careers has been the
high apprehension rate of juveniles such
that the population of offenders for dispo-
sition is large. Moreover, it is commonly
presumed that at young ages it is clifficult
to distinguish high-rate offenders from
low-rate offenders. The Wolfgang, Figlio,
and Sellin (1972) retrospective cohort
study supports this conclusion by report-
ing probabilities of committing a next
offense by offense number and transition
probabilities based on number and prior
offense type. These probabilities were
based on the entire juvenile career with-
out respect to annualized indiviclual rates
of offending or of the time between of-
fenses. This may be important informa-
tion that may help to separate high-rate
juvenile offenders from the population of
all offenders at a fairly early age.
There is, of course, the possibility that
many early high-rate offenders desist
from a criminal career well before adult-
hood. There is no strong evidence that
this is the case, however, and there is
evidence that high-rate adult offenders
can be identified by their juvenile of
OCR for page 154
154
fencling rates (Chaiken and Chaiken,
1982).
It has been suggested here that there is
an important subset of juvenile offenders
that should be identified for special adju-
ctication. These are the high-rate offend-
ers who can have high rates of recruiting
co-offenders. They would appear to be
easily identified by both their high incli-
viclual rates of offending and the number
of offenses they commit with a large num-
ber of different co-offenders. One shouIc]
be able to distinguish between those
high-rate co-offenders whose rate is pri-
marily dependent on affiliation with a
small number of co-offenders ant] those
who are continually involved with new
associates. Moreover, there is some evi-
dence that these recruiters affect the par-
ticipation rate of their co-offenders as
well as the co-offenders' rates of offend-
ing. If that is the case, they are especially
opportune targets for early intervention.
In any event the evidence presented sug-
gests that the recruiter population for ju-
venile offenders is a small enough subset
to warrant considering early intervention
in their careers, perhaps even with strat-
egies of incapacitation, since their inca-
pacitation may have a marked effect not
only on the aggregate crime rate but on
participation and Resistance rates of co-
offenders as well. Investigation into these
early intervention possibilities and their
effects would add appreciably to our un-
derstancling of early criminal careers ant]
the possibilities for intervening in them.
Sanctioning Group Offenders
Our adult system of justice is to a sub-
stantial degree based on preserving the
individual integrity of co-offenders as
they are processed in the criminal justice
system. This means that not only must
their individual history of offending be
disregarded when trying a current set of
charges but also inclividuals involved in
CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS
the same offense can be treated cliffer-
ently based on their role in the charged
offenses and that differences in their prior
offending or personal histories can be
taken into account at sentencing. The
particular doctrine of sentencing will de-
termine what will or may be taken into
account, but there is a general presump-
tion that the disposition for one offender
need not be contingent on that of another
so Tong as equals in all respects under law
are treated equally. As noted above, the
juvenile court has not been bound as
tightly by these considerations and hence
may have considerably more latitude to
consider alternative strategies for sanc-
tioning accomplices in an offense. Unfor-
tunately, very little evidence about the
effects of differences in sanctioning co-
ofFenders is available to guide such
choices.
One ofthe important issues in juvenile
sanctioning is the extent to which early
sanctioning may be a specific and a gen-
eral deterrent to offending. It has been
suggested here that punishment of one's
co-offenders increases the sense of risk.
Worth considering is whether early sanc-
tioning of all co-offen(lers increases the
Resistance rate. Of special interest also is
whether differential sanctioning for of-
fenders in the same offense has different
specific deterrent and Resistance effects
for co-offenclers.
Where offenders are linked in the same
networks, one expects to find overlap in
offending careers. Each of these careers
can be treated inclependently to deter-
mine the extent to which sanctioning in-
terventions affect each career. Yet, each
may also be regarcled as affected by the
interventions in the careers of co-of-
fenders. Desistance may be influenced as
much by the sanctioning of co-offenders
as ofthe individual offender himself. Sim-
ilarly, one's pattern of offending with oth-
ers may be influencer! by interventions in
their careers or by their clesistance. Is one
OCR for page 155
CO-OFFENDER INFLUENCES ON CRIMINAL CAREERS
more likely to desist if one's co-offenders
have desisted? These seem questions
worthy of investigation.
Intervention Strategies and Group
Offending
Intervention strategies disrupt the lives
of individuals ant! affect their criminal
careers. Although many interventions are
individual-change strategies, some aim to
change the external conditions believed
to cause the behavior of individuals.
Klein ant] Crawford (1967:6~66) con-
cluded that "elimination of external
sources of cohesiveness of gangs, in most
cases, wouIcI be followed by clissolution
of a relatively large proportion of gang
membership." They reached this position
by observing that the internal sources of
gang cohesion are weak and that the gang
is maintained by strong external pres-
sures (Klein and Crawford:661. From this
perspective, juvenile gangs are rather
fragile entities. They lack the internal
stability of internally generated group
goals, have high turnover in membership,
generate few unique group norms, and
lack a lasting identity with a group name
(Klein and Crawford:66~. There is also
considerable evidence that these inter-
nally unstable gangs are kept together by
external pressures, such as conflict with
other groups (Klein and Crawford:65~6)
or political activity ( lacobs, 1976; Short
and MolancT, 19761.
Disrupting the intemal structure of
such gangs to diminish their members'
delinquency is not likely to be successful.
Klein and Crawford (1967) concluded
that interventions by group workers in
black clelinquent gangs in Los Angeles
tencled to increase the social cohesive-
ness of the gangs, thereby resulting in
increaser! indiviclual rates of offending.
Similarly, Short and StroUtbeck (1965)
concluded that disrupting the gang lead-
ership in the black gangs they studier!
l5S
failed to disrupt the gang and may actu-
ally have contributed to increased rates of
minor delinquent acts.
Although the group workers' interven-
tion strategies that aimec] at disrupting
group structure and processes may not
have achieved their intended result,
other strategies of intervention aimed at
disrupting networks may nonetheless be
consequential for individual careers.
Klein and Crawford (1967) suggested that
strategies that weaken group cohesion
may have that effect.
Incapacitation of offenders similarly
does not necessarily disrupt gang struc-
ture. Jacobs (1976, 1977, 1983) described
the U.S. prison of the 1960s and 1970s in
our most urbanized states as organized
around an inmate system that was an
extension of the gang organization and
the conflict relations from which the
prison population was drawn. He sug-
gested, moreover, that the prison society
tencled to increase the cohesion of those
gangs and their importance to their mem-
bers because they performed a wicle va-
riety of functions for them. The gangs also
recruited members within the prison, es-
pecially as the inmate system became
politicized (Jacobs, 1976, 1977: 14~1491.
On release a substantial minority of the
recruits and many of the former members
of the supergangs (which include juve-
nile and adult divisions in the community
and in juvenile and adult correctional
institutions) retained ties with at least
some former gang members. The prison
of this period appeared to extend the
network of a(lult co-offenders through in-
mate recruitment into the gangs while
incarcerated and sustained at least some
of them on release.
Group Recruitment and Replacement
Processes
When more than one incliviclual is in-
volvecl in offending, incapacitation of one
OCR for page 156
156
of the offenders will not necessarily affect
the crime rate. Much depends on what
happens to the individual rate of offend-
ing of his co-offenders. The current prac-
tice is to discount the "crimes saved"
through incapacitation of an offender by
weighting the individual's contribution to
the incident, using the mean size of of-
fending groups for that offense. If the
mean size of offenders is two, for exam-
ple, an individuaT's crime saved is caTcu-
lated as one-half. Yet, there is no empiri-
cal evidence to conclude that individuals
recluce their crime rate, on the average, in
this way. There is some reason to believe
they might not. One wouIc! expect that
the incapacitation of recruiters, for exam-
ple, would have a far greater impact on
the crime rate than would the incapacita-
tion of followers or many of their co-
offenclers, even granted equal rates of
offending.
What is neecled is a comparison of over-
lapping criminal careers to determine
whether incapacitation in the career of
any offender has any effect on the indivicl-
ual rate of offending of his co-offenders
subsequent to incapacitation. Given the
fact that the more organized gangs of
career criminals are more adept at recruit-
ing replacements for incarcerated mem-
bers, incarceration may save only those
crimes that are solo offenses. If so, one
should not only aim to incapacitate incli-
viduals with high solo offending rates but
one should expect little impact from inca-
pacitating individuals who have high co-
offencling rates as accomplices. If this
were to be verified empirically, one
would also expect to gain less from inca-
pacitating juveniles than adults, since
their solo offending rates are on the aver-
age Tower.
One might also expect to gain more by
disrupting processes of recruitment and
replacement of co-offenders in juvenile
than in adult populations, since juvenile
CRIMINAL CAREERS AND CAREER CRIMINALS
networks that facilitate offending are
seemingly based more on soliciaristic and
personal relationships than on rational
choice and impersonal contact. For most
juveniles, the selection of co-offenders is
far more restricted than it is for adults,
being limited to a territorial neighbor-
hood and its environs. We need to know
more about how adults recruit their co-
offenders and the extent to which their
co-offenders are dispersed rather than
concentrated in space and time. We
clearly need both ethnographic and net-
work studies of adult offending popula-
tions to explore these issues of co-offend-
ing and their effects.
CONCLUDING NOTES
It should be abundantly clear that re-
search on group offending not only is
disproportionally concentrated on juve-
niles but that it has focused almost exclu-
sively on documenting how pervasive it
is and on speculating on its role in the
etiology of delinquency. The etiological
question therefore remains murky and
the consequences of groups for criminal
career development remain unexplored.
We need, therefore, to devote far more
attention to detailed studies of offending
careers and to pay special attention to the
group composition of offending in those
careers, treating each individual's career
in terms of its intersections with others.
Not only do such investigations provide
sociometric information so that such tech-
niques as block-modeling (White, Boor-
man, and Breiger, 1976) can isolate par-
ticular networks, but also they permit us
to examine how criminal justice interven-
tions have consequences for the offend-
ing of all individuals in the same network.
Examination of the consequences of solo
and co-offending is but part of a larger
need to order over time the life events of
offenders with their offending history so
OCR for page 157
CO-OFFENDER INFLUENCES ON CRIMINAL CAREERS
that we may determine their conse
quences. Furler study of group offencI
ing requires far more information on how
juvenile and adult careers are linked.
That information must be obtained from
prospective longitudinal cohort studies
that approximate more closely the design
of the Swedish community study under
taken by Sarnecki (19821. That design is
based on a social-network approach and
expands the study population to inclucle
all co-o~enders who are not initially part
of the cohort. It is well to bear in mind
that in a dynamic society there is consicI
erable movement into and out of commu
nities and that individuals are drawn into
different networks over time. The artifi
cial divorcement of the cohort from a
changing environment and its reduction
to a population of individuals unrelated
in time and space restrict considerably
what can be learned about individual
careers.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The persons who have assisted me in
different ways in the preparation of this
paper number well over 100 scientists in
this country and abroad who responded
to my requests for information. I am much
indebted to them. I owe special thanks
also to those who took the time to read
and provide help in revising one or more
drafts. Numbered among them are some
of my colleagues on the Panel on Re
search on Criminal Careers. Those to
whom I owe this special debt include
Larry Baron, Alfred Blumstein, Shari Di
amond, David Farrington, Malcolm 1970 Postscript. In A. Manocchio and J. Dunn
Klein, Richard Lempert, Lloyd Ohlin,
lames Parker, Elizabeth Piper, Brent
Shea, lames F. Short, Ir., Marvin Wolf
gang, Stuart Wright, and Frank Zimring. I
owe a special debt also to Jerzy Sarnecki,
who discussed his Swedish study win
me, and to Denise Galarraga of Me Na
157
tional Criminal Justice Reference Service
for a partial translation of Mat study.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
solo offending
