| 1. |
- Aaltonen, Mikko, et al.
(author)
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Comparing Employment Trajectories before and after First Imprisonment in Four Nordic Countries
- 2017
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In: British Journal of Criminology. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0007-0955 .- 1464-3529. ; 57:4, s. 828-847
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Employment plays a crucial role in the re-entry process and in reducing recidivism among offenders released from prison. But at the same time, imprisonment is generally regarded as harmful to post-release employment prospects. Little is known, however, about whether or not offenders’ employment trajectories before and after imprisonment are similar across countries. As a first step towards filling this gap in research, this paper provides evidence on employment trajectories before and after imprisonment in four Nordic welfare states: Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. Using data gathered from administrative records on incarcerated offenders, the analysis focuses on individuals imprisoned for the first time and who served a prison sentence less than one year in length. Results show that although employment trajectories develop in mostly similar ways before and after imprisonment across these countries, important differences exist.
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| 2. |
- Beckley, Amber, 1981-
(author)
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Foreign background and criminal offending among young males in Stockholm
- 2015
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This doctoral thesis considers how factors from the home country, the family, and the individual impact the risk for criminal offending among young males from a foreign background residing in Stockholm. I use Swedish register data to examine the risk for police registered suspicion of criminal offending. The introductory chapter presents an historical overview of immigration in Sweden, theories of criminal offending, and details about analysis of register data. It is followed by three empirical studies that consider unique risk factors for crime among children of immigrants while controlling for factors encountered within Sweden. The first study shows that young male children of immigrants do not seem to be inherently violent as a result of coming from a war-torn country. The second study indicates that it is not the age at immigration, but the family situation that seems to dictate criminal propensity. The final study suggests that threats of deportation and stricter immigration policies do not seem to deter criminality. The most interesting result was probably that high home country human development was a protective factor against crime. This is the first known work to uncover such a result. Future theoretical development may be best aimed at unpacking and empirically evaluating the human development index as a risk factor. Together, these three studies suggest that some previously unconsidered uniquely immigrant factors are related to risk for criminality.
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| 3. |
- Gerell, Manne, Docent, 1979-, et al.
(author)
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COVID-19 restrictions, pub closures, and crime in Oslo, Norway
- 2022
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In: Nordic Journal of Criminology. - : Taylor & Francis. - 2578-983X .- 2578-9821. ; 23:2, s. 136-155
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Alcohol consumption and crime are closely linked and there is often more crime near pubs and bars. Few studies have considered the impact of restricting access to pubs or bars on crime, and the present study aims to provide more insight into this by using the restrictions to combat the COVID-19 pandemic as a natural experiment. In Oslo, Norway, alcohol serving was banned twice during 2020, and at other times during the year, restrictions were placed on how late it could be served. In the present paper, these restrictions are analysed, alongside more general COVID-19 restrictions, to assess their association with crime. To identify these, we employ negative binomial regression models of daily crime counts for nine types of crime adjusted for the day of the week, the week of the year, and the year itself. This is in addition to the presence, or absence, of alcohol-related restrictions and more general COVID-19 restrictions. The findings suggest that both, general restrictions and bans on serving alcohol, reduced crime, although not universally across all crime types and times of the day. When pubs are ordered not to sell alcohol after midnight there appears to be an unexpected increase in crime.
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| 4. |
- Sivertsson, Fredrik, 1984-
(author)
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Criminal Careers in the Long Run : Patterns and Predictions of Criminal Convictions across Age, Time, and Gender
- 2018
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Why is it that a small proportion of the population accounts for the majority of crime? This question has stimulated a great deal of theoretical and methodological controversy in criminology. In essence, the debate is rooted in different theoretical underpinnings of continuity and change in crime, and the extent to which it is possible to foresee a life of crime by zeroing in on at-risk juvenile offenders. The current thesis explores four contentious empirical issues that may move this debate forward: the long-term predictability of persistent offending in adulthood on the basis of childhood risk factors (Study I); the magnitude of adult-onset offending (Study II); the predictive value of gender for criminal recidivism (Study III); and the association between birth cohort membership and criminal career parameters (Study IV). All four studies employ longitudinal Swedish administrative data, based on cohorts of individuals born between the early 1940s and the mid-1980s, and followed on the basis of detailed conviction data. The thesis also utilizes qualitative life-history narratives with former at-risk juvenile delinquents. The results suggest that theories aiming to explain crime beyond the transition to adulthood should incorporate factors presumed to cause within-individual change, even among high-risk juvenile offenders. Although childhood cumulative risk, including a wide range of individual, family, school, and peer measures, were clearly associated with adult crime, they had limited value for predicting those persistent offenders who eventually ended up in the tail of the crime distribution. Furthermore, although gender is generally one of the main demographic predictors of criminal convictions, the results indicate that it is important to include females for the purpose of understanding continuity and change in adulthood. This is in part because adult-onset offending is more prevalent within the female offending population than within the male offending population and in part because the risk for criminal recidivism among female offenders becomes increasingly similar to that found among male offenders as convictions accumulate over the life span. Finally, the results suggest that the typical criminal career has undergone significant changes both within and across gender groups during the period since the mid-1970s, a period which has witnessed a historical decline in the aggregate conviction rate in Sweden. Taking this into consideration, the employment and extensive analysis of longitudinal multiple cohort data ought to provide a basis for furthering our knowledge on the inherent complexity of crime trends, while at the same time also locating the study of criminal careers in its historical context.
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