Life Course Persistent Instigators? A Simulation and Evaluation of how Fugitive Arrest and Incapacitation Impacts the Rate of Co-Offending Hyperevents

• In Event: Expanding Statistical and Methodological Approaches in DLC Work

Abstract

Since the 1960s-70s, the US Marshals Service (USMS) have periodically investigated, pursued, and arrested fugitives as part of large-scale task forces. Recent research suggests that the fugitives targeted by these operations are more involved in co-offending networks. Moreover, their tendency to form co-offending relationships persists after periods of incapacitation by arrest, and possibly imprisonment. It thus stands to reason that life-course persistent offenders are disproportionately represented among these operational targets. This study evaluates the impact of Operation Washout, a USMS-led task force that apprehended a total of 123 fugitives in a 10-day period, on the co-offending rate among targets’ alters. The goal is to understand the extent that incapacitating life-course persistent offenders affects network dynamics. Police2Citizen Daily Bulletins containing the arrest data for all of Galveston County, Texas (2006 – 2024) are used to construct a time-stamped longitudinal co-arrest network. Given that co-arrest networks are composed of a high number of events where 3 or more offenders are arrested simultaneously, also known as ‘hyperevents’, we use the relational hyperevent model (RHEM) to evaluate the impact on co-offending network structure over time. RHEM is first used to model the pre-intervention period; this is subsequently used to simulate the relational hyperevents in the network for the intervention period and post-intervention period (2021 – 2024). This simulation is then compared to the observed rate of relational hyperevents in the network. Implications for the USMS and fugitive arrest are discussed.

Authors

• Thomas Brian Smith, University of Mississippi

• Kenneth Lomenzo, University of Mississippi

• Brian Boutwell, University of Mississippi