Indices of Personal and Social Costs and Rewards - Subject Follow-up
This measure appears in the following time-points: Follow06, Follow12, Follow18, Follow24, Follow30, Follow36, Follow48, Follow60, Follow72, Follow84.
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Related Construct
Description of Measure
Empirical evidence on deterrence suggests that offending has both personal and social rewards and that punishment associated with this offending has distinct social and personal costs (Williams and Hawkins, 1986; Nagin, 1998). Previous tests with general populations of adolescents (Grasmick et al., 1990) and college students (Nagin and Paternoster, 1991, 1994) show that these costs form essential components of a dynamic model of deterrence that includes both the punishment costs of arrest and the social costs of detection and punishment. As a result, the Indices of Personal and Social Costs and Rewards were adapted for this study to measure the adolescent's perceived likelihood of detection and punishment for any of several types of offenses (Nagin and Paternoster, 1994). This measure is comprised of five dimensions: Certainty of Punishment {Others & You (e.g., "How likely is it that kids in your neighborhood would be caught and arrested for fighting?")}, Social Costs of Punishment (e.g., "If the police catch me doing something that breaks the law, how likely is it that I would be suspended from school?"), Personal Costs of Punishment {Variety & Weight (e.g., "Has your court sentence kept you from hanging out with your friends as much as you used to?")], Social Rewards of Crime [Stealing, Fighting & Robbery (e.g., "If I take things, other people my age will respect me more.")}, and Personal Rewards of Crime (e.g., "How much 'thrill' or 'rush' is it to break into a store or home?").
Confirmatory factor analysis was completed for several of the domains mentioned below at the baseline time point.
- Social costs of punishment: a one factor model resulted in an acceptable fit with the following values: alpha: .68; NFI: .94; NNFI: .92; CFI: .95; RMSEA: .07.
- Certainty of punishment-others: Both a one-factor and two-factor model fit this data. The values for the one-factor model are: NFI: .95; NNFI: .93: CFI: .95; RMSEA: .09. The values for the two-factor model (the two factors are parallel to the crime type): NFI: .94; NNFI: .91: CFI: .95: RMSEA: .09. The alpha for this domain is: .82
- Certainty of punishment-you: Both a one-factor and two-factor model fit this data. The values for the one-factor model are: NFI: .98; NNFI: .98: CFI: .98; RMSEA: .07. The values for the two-factor model (the two factors are parallel to the crime type): NFI: .98; NNFI: .97: CFI: .98: RMSEA: .08. The alpha for this domain is: .89
- Social rewards of crime-fighting: A one-factor model was fitted to the data and produced the following values: alpha: .75; NFI: .96; NNFI: .92: CFI: .96: RMSEA: .07
- Social rewards of crime-stealing: A one-factor model was fitted to the data and produced the following values: alpha: .76; NFI: .95; NNFI: .92: CFI: .96: RMSEA: .08.
For the remaining scales, the reliability coefficient is as follows:
- Personal Costs of Punishment - Variety: .99
- Personal Costs of Punishment - Weight: .93
- Social Rewards of Crime - Robbery: .82
- Personal Rewards of Crime: .88
The domains in this measure were found to have good internal consistency at the follow-up time points as well. The alphas for each domain are listed below for 6 through 24 months.
- Social costs of punishment: 6 month - .74; 12 month - .76; 18 month - .78; 24 month - .78
- Certainty of punishment-others: 6 month - .85; 12 month - .86; 18 month - .87; 24 month - .90
- Certainty of punishment-you: 6 month - .90; 12 month - .91; 18 month - .92; 24 month - .92
- Social rewards of crime-fighting: 6 month - .83; 12 month - .86; 18 month - .87; 24 month - .89
- Social rewards of crime-stealing: 6 month - .80; 12 month - .84; 18 month - .85; 24 month - .87
- Personal Costs of Punishment - Variety: 6 month - .96; 12 month - .97; 18 month - .97; 24 month - .97
- Personal Costs of Punishment - Weight: 6 month - .94; 12 month - .96; 18 month - .97; 24 month - .96
- Social Rewards of Crime - Robbery: 6 month - .86; 12 month - .88; 18 month - .90; 24 month - .90
- Personal Rewards of Crime: 6 month - .90; 12 month - .89; 18 month - .91; 24 month - .91
Ten scores that correspond to each of the domains in the measure are computed:
- Certainty of punishment-others [S#PUNOTH]; mean of 7 items
- Certainty of punishment-you [S#PUNYOU]; mean of of 7 items
- Social costs of punishment [S#SOCCST]; mean of 6 items
- Punishment costs-variety [S#VARCST]; count of 18 items
- Punishment costs (13) - material issues [S#MATCST]; sum of 13 items
- Punishment costs (5) - freedom issues [S#FRECST]; sum of 5 items
- Punishment costs-weight [S#WGTCST]; mean of 18 items
- Social rewards of crime-stealing [S#STLRWD]; mean of 5 items
- Social rewards of crime-fighting [S#FGTRWD]; mean of 5 items
- Social rewards of crime-robbery [S#ROBRWD]; mean of 5 items
- Personal Rewards of crime [S#PERRWD]; mean of 7 items
Data Issues
- This measure is skipped if the subject has not been involved in any ongoing programs or placements required by the court, either currently (s#paincost_crtinv) or at some point during the recall period (s#paincost_crtin6).
- Beginning with version 01.19, items s#paincost17a and s#paincost17b (which concern drinking or getting high in the institution) were skipped if the interview was conducted in a federal facility. Item s#paincost17a is used in the computation of both the variety (s#varcst) and freedom (s#frecst) scores, while s#paincost17b is used in the computation of the weight (s#wgtcst) score.
- Variables S#Paincost19a and S#Paincost19b (being able to support your family financially) were added to the interview in version 01.16. Data for these variables is available beginning with the 24month time-point. These variables are not used in the computations of any summary scores.
References
- Nagin, Daniel S. and Raymond Paternoster. (1994). Personal Capital and Social Control: The Deterrence Implications of Individual Differences in Criminal Offending. Criminology 32:581--606.
- Nagin, D. S. and Paternoster, R. (1993). Enduring individual differences and rational choice theories of crime. Law and Society Review, 27, 467-469.
- Piquero, A. R. and Tibbetts, S G. (1996). Specifying the direct and indirect effects of low self-control and situational factors in offenders' decision making: toward a more complex model of rational offending. Justice Quarterly, 13, 481-510.
- Developed by the working group for this study, primarily by J. Fagan.