Crime and Family: Selected Essays of Joan McCord

13. Patterns of Deviance

C H A P T E R T H I RT E E N Patterns of Deviance* O VER THE LAST FEW decades, studies of crime have yielded enough information to raise some interesting questions about patterns of deviance. For example, studies of young criminals have linked their behavior to parental rejection, parental conflict, and to criminal role models (Bandura and Walters, 1959; Farrington, 1973; Glueck and Glueck, 1950; Havighurst et al., 1962; McCord et al., 1963; McCord and McCord, 1959 and 1960; Nye, 1958; Palmore and Hammond, 1964; Peck et al., 1960; Robins, 1966). Followup studies of delinquents generally indicate that they are likely to continue to commit crimes as adults (Chaitin and Dunham, 1966; Glueck and Glueck, 1940; Robins and O’Neal, 1958). Yet studies of adult criminals have failed to find relationships between childhood family disruption or parental criminality and recidivism (Buikhuisen and Hoekstra, 1974; Guze, 1964; Meade, 1973). Cross-sectional data have shown that types of crimes are age-related (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1974). Yet, Wolfgang et al. (1972) failed to find significant patterns of progression among juveniles from one type of crime to another. Studies of criminals have indicated that alcoholism contributes to adult recidivism (Guze, 1964 and 1976; Guze and Cantwell, 1965; Guze et al., 1962 and 1968; Nicol et al., 1973). Yet backgrounds of alcoholics and of criminals appear to be distinguishable (McCord 1972; McCord and McCord 1959 and 1960). The evidence gives rise to three questions: (1) Why is it that rejection, family conflict, and parental criminal models are seemingly unrelated to adult crime? (2) Does a typology based on official records show promise for the understanding of criminal behavior? and (3) Are there distinctive patterns of antisocial behavior which might help to distinguish between alcoholic and nonalcoholic criminals? *Reprinted from McCord, J. 1980. Patterns of deviance. In Human Functioning in Longitudinal Perspective: Studies of Normal and Psychopathological Populations, edited by S. B. Sells et al., 157–167. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins; with permission Method A sample of 506 men who had participated in the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study between 1939 and 1943 has been retraced to 1975. Tracing included a search of criminal records, mental hospital records, records from alcoholic treatment centers, and death records in Massachusetts. Although these subjects had not been sought since 1948, information about the current location of 93 percent has been obtained: 83 percent were living in Massachusetts at the time of death or their fourtieth birthday. Additional information about alcoholism has been gathered from responses to questionnaires and through interviews.1 Data regarding criminal behavior are based on court convictions through 1975 and on records of the Crime Prevention Bureau gathered in 1945. Almost a third of the men (29%) had been convicted for serious crimes ranging from arson and larceny to murder; an additional 43 percent had records for less serious offenses. Men were considered alcoholics if they described themselves as alcoholic, had received treatment for alcoholism, answered “yes” to at least three out of the four questions from the CAGE test for alcoholism (Ewing and Rouse, 1970), or had been convicted at least three times for drunkenness. By these criteria, 99 men (20%) were identified as alcoholics. All subjects are male, and most were reared in the congested areas of Cambridge and Somerville, Massachusetts. Their median age in 1975 was 47. Results Histories of deviant behavior among the 506 men have been organized to allow consideration of the relationship between juvenile delinquency and adult criminality , patterns of criminality among men who committed various types of crimes, and comparisons between alcoholics and nonalcoholics in terms of their criminal behavior. Juvenile Delinquency and Adult Criminality Of the 365 men who had been convicted for at least one crime, 139 (38%) had records as juvenile delinquents.2 Although three-fourths (79%) of the juvenile delinquents committed at least one crime as an adult, only a third of the men convicted as adults also had records as juvenile delinquents. Thus, although juvenile delinquents tended to become adult criminals (χ2=13.93; p < .001), a majority of adult criminals had no history as juvenile delinquents. Both incarceration and being young when first convicted appeared to increase the probability of subsequent serious crimes. Almost half of the juveniles convicted for serious crimes had been sentenced to reform school. Records for men who had been incarcerated as juveniles were compared with those for men who, C H A P T E R T H I RT E E N 156 PAT T E R N S O F D E V I A N C E 157 as juveniles, had committed serious crimes but had not been incarcerated; 56 percent of the former and 33 percent of the latter committed serious crimes as adults (χ2=5.06; p < .025). Before reaching age 16, 103 delinquents had been convicted for at least one crime. The average age at first conviction among them was 12.5 years. Subsequently , 67 percent committed at least one serious crime. Since only 19 percent of the 36 men first convicted when 16 or 17 subsequently committed a serious crime, recidivism was considerably more prevalent among those who became delinquent before their 16th birthday (χ2=24.33; p < .001). This same group of men—those first convicted as youngsters—were likely to be convicted for serious crimes between the ages of 18 and 24 (χ2=7.3; p < .01) and also after their 25th birthday (χ2=6.9; p < .01). The relationship between adult crimes and serious juvenile delinquency appears in Table 13.1. Patterns of Criminality To search for meaningful patterns of deviance, crimes were classified into groups: those against ordinances (status offenses, traffic violations, etc.); those against order (disturbing the peace, lewd and lascivious behavior, neglecting family, malicious mischief, crimes without victims, etc.); those against property (arson, larceny , breaking and entering, receiving stolen property, theft); and those against persons (rape, attempted rape, assault, kidnapping, manslaughter, murder, and attempted murder). In terms of seriousness, these four types were ordered from low to high as listed above: crimes against ordinances, order, property, and persons . Each man who had been convicted for at least one crime was classified by the most serious of his crimes. Among the 112 men classified as criminals only for crimes against ordinances, 14 percent had juvenile records: also 14 percent of those whose most serious crime was against order (N=104) had juvenile records. Differences were marked, however, between men convicted for crimes against persons and those convicted for crimes against property but not against persons; whereas 84 percent of those whose most serious crime was against property (N=80) had juvenile records, only 39 percent of those who had committed crimes against persons (N=69) had been juvenile delinquents (χ2=10.99; p < .001). TABLE 13.1 Percent of Adult Criminals Who Had Records for Serious Crimes as Juvenile Delinquents Crimes as adults % convicted for juvenile crimes Property and persons (N=19) 63 Property (not persons) (N=35) 57 Persons (not property) (N=36) 31 Only minor crimes (N=275) 21 χ2=32.2; df=3; p < .001. Comparisons of these groups (classifying men by their most serious crimes) show distinguishable trends in the ages when they were first convicted. The probability that a person would commit no crime more serious than one against order increased with age at first conviction: the probability that a criminal would commit crimes against property or against persons decreased with age at first conviction , although the decline was sharper for those whose worst crimes were against property (Table 13.2). Using a somewhat different classification, men were selected who had been convicted for larceny (including breaking and entering or auto theft) for assault (including rape and attempted murder), and for both larceny and assault. Criminals convicted of both larceny and assault had been convicted about twice as often as men convicted only of larceny (t=2.89; p < .005) or only of assault (t=1.99; p < .05). Even omitting convictions for crimes against ordinances or order, the men convicted for both larceny and assault committed significantly more crimes (t=4.13 and 5.33; p < .0002). Men convicted for assault but not for larceny tended to be older at the time of their first conviction than either men convicted only for larceny (t=7.04; p < .0001) or men convicted both for larceny and assault (t=4.54; p < .0001). When first convicted for a serious crime, men convicted only for larceny had been younger than either those convicted for both larceny and assault (t=7.22; p < .0001) or those convicted only for assault (t=7.34; p < .0001). The comparisons suggest that men who commit both larceny and assault can be distinguished by their youthful crimes from those who commit only larceny; those who will commit both larceny and assault tend to begin their criminal careers with relatively minor crimes. Although men who commit both larceny and assault and those who commit only assault tend to commit their first serious crimes at approximately the same ages, those who commit both types of crimes more typically have prior histories for less serious offenses and are more likely to commit future crimes. Alcoholism and Patterns of Deviance Among the 99 men identified as alcoholics, 86 percent had been convicted for some crime. Among nonalcoholics, 69 percent had court convictions (χ2=11.14; C H A P T E R T H I RT E E N 158 TABLE 13.2 Percentage of Subjects Grouped by Age at First Conviction by Type of Most Serious Crime % by type of most serious crime Age Ordinance Order Property Persons Under 16 (N=103) 5 7 54 34 16 or 17 (N=36) 31 22 31 17 18–20 (N=65) 34 34 15 17 21–24 (N=63) 40 43 5 13 Over 24 (N=98) 50 41 0 9 χ2=165.46; df=12; p < .0001. PAT T E R N S O F D E V I A N C E 159 p < .001). Furthermore, alcoholics were disproportionately represented among the men who committed serious crimes (those ranging from arson to murder). Among those who had been convicted for some crime, 67 percent of the alcoholics and only 33 percent of the nonalcoholics had been convicted for a serious crime (χ2=31.57; p < .001). Among juvenile delinquents, those who became alcoholics were more likely to commit serious crimes as adults. Also, among men without serious juvenile records, alcoholics were more likely than nonalcoholics to commit serious crimes as adults (Table 13.3). The Bureau of Crime Prevention records contained information about crimes committed by juveniles. These records showed that 171 men had committed crimes, as juveniles, for which they were not convicted. When both official and unofficial crimes were taken into account, men who later became alcoholics were found more frequently in the group that had been convicted for some—but not all—of their known crimes than among those either convicted for all or for none of their known crimes (χ2=12.2; d.f.=3; p < .01).3 Over half (56%) of the men whose first conviction was for larceny became alcoholics. Criminal records following first convictions indicated that alcoholics had more frequently committed at least one subsequent crime which was more serious than that for which they had first been convicted (χ2=25.99; p < .001). Summary and Discussion This research has been directed toward providing answers for three questions suggested from analyses of prior research. To answer these questions, the lives of 506 men have been traced through official records, questionnaires, and interviews. Now in their mid- to late forties, 149 of these men have criminal records for committing crimes ranging from arson to murder; an additional 216 had records for less serious offenses. One out of five has been (or is) alcoholic. The data from this study agree with other studies in showing that very young delinquents tend to have the worst prognoses, that types of crimes are age-related, and that there is a large overlap between alcoholics and criminals. The data go beyond this, however, in suggesting tentative answers to the three questions posed earlier. TABLE 13.3 Adult Alcoholism and Patterns of Serious Crimesa Adult alcoholics Adult nonalcoholics % with (N=57) (N=92) Juvenile record only 21 50 Juvenile and adult record 39 24 Adult record only 40 26 χ2=12.5; df=2; p < .01. aArson, larceny and related crimes, assault, rape, attempted murder, and murder. 1. Rejection, parental criminality, and parental conflict may be causes—not merely predictors—of delinquency and yet may not be related to adult criminality because so large a proportion of adult criminals have not also been juvenile delinquents. 2. Typologies based on official criminal records do seem to provide meaningful categories among criminals. Classifications based on “most serious crime” suggest differences in criminal patterns. It appears reasonable to expect to find different backgrounds among those who commit crimes against property and those who commit crimes against persons. 3. Alcoholics who are criminals have patterns of deviance which distinguish them from nonalcoholic criminals. It seems advisable, therefore, to differentiate among alcoholic criminals, nonalcoholic criminals, and noncriminal alcoholics in attempting to understand both alcoholism and crime. Notes This paper is a report of research in progress. The research has been conducted jointly with the Department of Probation of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The author wishes to express appreciation to the Division of Alcoholism, the Department of Mental Health, the Cambridge and Somerville Program for Alcoholism Rehabilitation, the Department of Motor Vehicles, the Department of Corrections, the National Institute of Law Enforcement through their Grant NI 74-0038 to Ron Geddes) and to the many individuals who helped in this research. The research has been generously supported by the NIMH (Grant 5 RO1 MH26779). 1. By September 1976, 42 men were known to have died, 216 had responded to the questionnaire , and 83 men had been interviewed. Among the 429 men located and not known to be dead, over half (55%) had provided current information about themselves. Excluding those for whom we had information but no means of contact, the rate of response was 61%. 2. 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