Deciding to do the crime: An examination of Decision Making Among an Sample of Male and Female Offenders.

• In Event: Posters II

Abstract

Although scholars have made great strides since the individual-level deterrence studies of the 1970s regarding the factors that go into decisions to offend, the knowledge base is woefully thin for a number of reasons. First and foremost is that, most research on the decision making processes of would be offenders have been conducted on high school and college samples, and have, therefore, focused on minor types of offending (petty theft, cheating, drinking and driving, minor assault). There have been very few studies published that have investigated how serious offenders go about making decisions to offend. This study adds to the literature by investigated the decision making process among a sample of 500 male and female incarcerated offenders. Results are presented for differences in decision making and how these differences are related to recidivism post release. Treatment and poly recommendations and future research is suggested.

Author

• Daniell J. O'Connell, University of Delaware