How Arrest Impacts Delinquency Over Time Between and Within Individuals

• DOI: 10.1177/1541204017712560
• Author: Thomas J. Mowen,John J. Brent,Kyle J. Bares
• Date: 01 October 2018
• Published date: 01 October 2018
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

How Arrest Impacts Delinquency

Over Time Between and Within

Individuals

Thomas J. Mowen

1

, John J. Brent

2

, and Kyle J. Bares

1

Abstract

While some studies find that criminal justice contact may deter future offending, another body of

research indicates that contact with the criminal justice system can increase delinquency among

youth. Although research has examined the relationship between punishment and offending, from a

life-course perspective, we know little about between-individual and within-individual effects of

punishment across time. Using a cross-lagged dynamic panel model, results from an analysis of four

waves of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 demonstrate that arrest con-

tributes to within-individual increases in delinquency across time even after baseline levels of

delinquency are controlled. Between-individual results show that youth who were arrested expe-

rience significant increases in offending compared to youth never arrested even after accounting for

prior offending. Finally, this study uncovers a “cumulative effect” of arrest in that each subsequent

year the youth is arrested relates to increased offending irrespective of prior offending. Overall,

findings suggest that arrest contributes to significant increases in delinquency even after baseline

levels of offending are directly modeled.

Keywords

delinquency, life-course, labeling

Recent evidence suggests that the field of juvenile justice has experienced noteworthy changes over

the past decade. For instance, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (2015)

reports that there were an estimated 1 million juvenile arrests made in 2014, an approximate 50%

decrease from the 2 million in 2005. Further, the number of juveniles in residential placement has

decreased from 105,055 in 1997 to 54,148 in 2013, representing a roughly 50%decrease (Hock-

enberry, 2016). Despite these decreases, a wide body of research demonstrates that the practices and

policies through which juveniles are punished and sanctioned remain punitive (Fritsch, Hemmens, &

Caeti, 1996; Hopson & Obidah, 2002; Kupchik, Fagan, & Liberman, 2003; Mowen & Brent, 2016;

Zimring, 2005).

1

Department of Sociology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH, USA

2

School of Justice Studies, College of Justice and Safety, Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond, KY, USA

Corresponding Author:

Thomas J. Mowen, Department of Sociology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403, USA.

Email: tmowen@bgsu.edu

Youth Violence and JuvenileJustice

2018, Vol. 16(4) 358-377

ªThe Author(s) 2017

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/1541204017712560

journals.sagepub.com/home/yvj

Despite a relevantly steady decline in youth violence and victimization over the last few decades,

criminal justice responses to youth offending have grown to mirror broader punitive trends in the

adult justice system (Feld, 1984; Hirschfield, 2008a). The tendency to criminalize both youth

conduct and respective sanctions has been found to produce a number of negative outcomes. For

example, overly punitive responses can lead to collateral consequences for youth and alter their

trajectory toward increased offending and criminal justice processing (Liberman, Kirk, & Kim,

2014) and arrest (Mowen & Brent, 2016). Overall, findings suggest that the intended deterre nt

effect of sanctioning youth may be undermined by a labeling effect wh ereby instead of being

deterred from offending, youth engage in more offending as a consequence of punishment (Bernberg

& Krohn, 2003; Wiley & Esbesen, 2016).

Despite research finding an association between punishment, formal contact with the criminal

justice system, and offending (Bernburg, Krohn, & Rivera, 2006; Liberman et al., 2014; Wiley &

Esbensen, 2016), we know little about the long-term effects of formal sanctioning, like arrest on

delinquency over time. From a life-course perspective, this limitation is significant as punishment

has the ability to serve as a turning point in offending. That is, punishment can mark a positive or

negative turning point across time that may alter offending or other outcomes (Mowen & Brent,

2016). Further, research has assessed whether the impact that the negative label applied to youth via

formal sanctions increases offending through “secondary deviance” or increased punishment via

“secondary sanctioning” (Liberman et al., 2014; Mowen & Brent, 2016). This is important to

examine further as a growing body of literature continues to demonstrate the deleterious effects

that punishment or contact with the criminal justice system can have on youth outcomes (see Mowen

& Brent, 2016; Uggen & Manza, 2002; Warr, 1998).

Using four waves of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY1997, see

Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2013), the goal of this study is 3-fold. First, this project explores how

arrest relates to within-individual changes in delinquency across time, while controlling for baseline

levels of offending. Second, we explore the extent to which youth who are arrested experience

changes in delinquency over time compared to youth who are not arrested, again while accounting

for prior offending. Finally, this project assesses whether there is a “cumulative effect” of arrest on

delinquency by examining how variations in the number of years in which youth were arrested relate

to levels of delinquency between individuals.

Criminal Justice, the Life Course, and Youth

Contextualizing Punitive Responses

There can be little doubt that the U.S. criminal justice system has undergone a punitive turn over the

last 30 years. Consequently, crime control policies have advanced the use of zero tolerance policies,

mandatory minimums, sentencing guidelines, and actuarial practices that serve “tough on” and “war

on” initiatives. This has led many scholars to advance organizing concepts such as a “culture of

control” (Garland, 2001), “new penology” (Feeley & Simon, 1992), “growth complex” (Kraska &

Brent, 2011), and “crime control industry” (Christie, 2016). Indicative of this trend is the approx-

imate 6-fold increase in criminal justice processing that has positioned the United States as having

the highest incarceration rate in the world (Carson & Anderson, 2016), with little evidence

documenting its effectiveness in reducing crime.

This trend, however, is not confined to the adult justice system. Despite declines in delinquency,

youth arrests, and juveniles placed in residential placement, crime control lo gics have become

commonplace when identifying and responding to juvenile offending since the 1990s (Feld,

1999). Often termed the “criminalization of juvenile justice,” the regulations, punishment practices,

and security measures of the formal justice system have increasingly structured the field of juvenile

Mowen et al. 359