Are the Criminogenic Effects of Incarceration Mediated by a Change in Criminal Thinking or a Change in Perceived Certainty?

• DOI: 10.1177/0032885520978374
• Published date: 01 January 2021
• Date: 01 January 2021
• Author: Glenn D. Walters
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0032885520978374

The Prison Journal

2021, Vol. 101(1) 21 –40

© 2020 SAGE Publications

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DOI: 10.1177/0032885520978374

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Article

Are the Criminogenic

Effects of Incarceration

Mediated by a Change

in Criminal Thinking or

a Change in Perceived

Certainty?

Glenn D. Walters1

Abstract

The purpose of the current study was to determine whether a change

in criminal thinking or a change in perceived certainty mediates the

putative criminogenic effect of incarceration. A path analysis of 1,170 male

delinquents revealed that incarceration prior to age 19 produced a negative

rather than positive effect on offending behavior at age 20, although it

did predict an increase in proactive criminal thinking (PCT) from age 18

to age 19. PCT, in turn, predicted a rise in past year offending. Perceived

certainty of punishment, on the other hand, failed to mediate the effect of

incarceration on future offending.

Keywords

proactive criminal thinking, certainty of punishment, imprisonment,

criminogenic effects of incarceration

Introduction

Deterrence theory holds that incarceration, by increasing the cost of crime,

serves as a deterrent to future offending. This is an assessment, however, with

which not all offenders agree. Kolstad (1996) surveyed a small group of prison

1Kutztown University, PA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Glenn D. Walters, Kutztown University Department of Criminal Justice, 361 Old Main,

15200 Kutztown Road, Kutztown, PA 19530, USA.

Email: walters@utztown.edu

978374TPJXXX10.1177/0032885520978374The Prison JournalWalters

research-article2020

22 The Prison Journal 101(1)

inmates (N = 36) and discovered that only 19% alleged that prison had a strong

deterrent effect, with another 44% indicating that it had a weak or partial

deterrent effect. Over one-third of the sample (36%) believed prison had no

deterrent effect at all. Further analysis revealed that nearly half the sample

(44%) considered themselves more hostile or critical as a consequence of their

prison experience, and all but a handful (92%) viewed prisons as universities

of crime where offenders learn attitudes and techniques that increase their

propensity to commit crime upon release. After spending 6 months in prison,

control participants in a Maryland study who had been randomly assigned to

prison rather than to a boot camp displayed significant decrements in self-

control and anger management and significant increments in criminal attitudes

and behaviors. By contrast, participants randomly assigned to the boot camp

experienced minimal change except for a small reduction in self-control

(MacKenzie et al., 2007). These findings suggest that incarceration may create

a criminogenic effect in addition to or instead of its presumed deterrent effect.

The Criminogenic Effect of Incarceration

In an early study on the putative criminogenic effect of incarceration, Vieraitis

et al. (2007) determined that an increase in the number of state prison releases

predicted an increase in the overall crime rate. Vieraitis et al. (2007) inter-

preted these findings to mean that incarceration augmented future offending.

Reviewing a number of the other early studies in this area, Nagin et al. (2009)

concluded that the effect of incarceration on future offending was either null

or criminogenic. Weatherburn (2010) uncovered evidence of a criminogenic

effect for incarceration in 406 matched pairs of offenders convicted of non-

aggravated assault and assigned to either prison or probation. Those assigned

to prison were significantly more likely to recidivate upon release than those

assigned to probation. Contrasting offenders who were sentenced to prison or

probation by judges who differed in their propensity to imprison defendants,

Harding et al. (2017) discovered that those sentenced to prison were signifi-

cantly more likely to be arrested within 3 years of release than those sen-

tenced to probation, although the effect was restricted to offenders found

guilty of a technical probation or parole violation rather than those convicted

of a new felony. Most recently, Caudy et al. (2018) noticed that imprisoned

male and female offenders were more likely to recidivate than male and

female offenders placed on probation, although in this case, the effect was

strongest for higher risk offenders.

In one of the largest studies to examine the putative criminogenic effects of

incarceration, Bales and Piquero (2012) compared 79,000 felons sentenced to