Offending Trajectories Among Native‐Born and Foreign‐Born Hispanics to Late Middle Age

Abstract

Research on crime over the life‐course has made considerable progress in the last several decades. Despite this growth, significantly less attention has been devoted to longitudinal examinations of Hispanic populations beyond one phase of the life‐course, and/or examining differences between native‐born and foreign‐born Hispanics. Recognizing these limitations, this study offers an investigation of Hispanics in the United States focusing on offending and its relationship to immigration status. Using arrest data from a cohort of 375 Hispanic males from ages 18 to 50, trajectory analysis revealed four unique offending trajectories: very low‐rate offenders, high‐rate late‐onset escalators, initially high‐rate desisters, and high‐rate chronic offenders. Multivariate regression models demonstrated that Hispanic immigrants were significantly less likely to be initially high‐rate desisters or high‐rate chronic offenders compared with their native‐born counterparts, yet unmarried Hispanics were significantly more likely to be high‐rate late‐onset escalators. Study limitations and implications are also discussed.

Life Course Offending Pathways Across Gender and Race/Ethnicity

“…While 12.7 % of Indigenous females are likely to populate one of these three serious offenders groups, only 6.4 % of non-Indigenous males and 1.5 % of non-Indigenous females are likely to populate any one of these three groups. This mirrors what we know about the influence of race/ethnicity on longitudinal offending patterns from US studies documenting the offending pathways of Blacks and Hispanics [51,63,82,101].…”

“…In the USA, the literature on race/ethnicity and crime convincingly links the disadvantages that accrue to minority populations, particularly Blacks, and related structural and systemic biases, with their disproportionate involvement in offending, especially serious and chronic offending [81]. The few life course studies to examine race/ethnicity focus primarily on the experiences of Blacks, although some recent work outlines longitudinal offending patterns among samples of Hispanics [51,63]. Studies comparing Blacks to Whites indicate that Blacks populate chronic offending trajectories at significantly higher rates than Whites [32,64,82,101] and that this reflects their unique structural contexts and related exposure to key risk factors that both foster early onset and preclude desistance [48,84].…”

Desistance from Offending in the Twenty-First Century

“…Similarly, research employing group-based trajectory analysis reveals similarity in the developmental trajectory of offending when distinguished by race and ethnicity. Longitudinal trends of arrest counts from 17 to 52 for African-American men (Doherty & Ensminger 2014), from 18 to 50 of incarcerated Hispanic men ( Jennings et al 2013), and from 7 to 27, 33, and 37 across 3 cohorts of racially diverse men (Ezell & Cohen 2005) are surprisingly similar to those found among longitudinal samples into midlife or beyond of whites with respect to shape and patterning (Blokland & Nieuwbeerta 2005, Piquero et al 2007. Collectively, this research suggests that analyses of data censored in early adulthood may amplify racial and ethnic differences in desistance trends that dissipate when observed for longer periods of the life course.…”

Do the adult criminal careers of African Americans fit the “facts”?

“…Since the 1986 NAS report, there have been considerable advances in our understanding of the criminal careers among white populations, males in particular. However, the core issue is that although our knowledge is growing with respect to participation, onset, and offending careers into early adulthood among African Americans and Hispanics (i.e., from adolescence to the late 20s) (e.g., Loeber, Farrington, Stouthamer-Loeber, & White, 2008; Reingle, Jennings, & Maldonado-Molina, 2011; Tracy & Kempf-Leonard, 1996) and into later adulthood for Hispanics (Jennings, Zgoba, Piquero, & Reingle, 2013) we still know very little about the long-term criminal careers among African Americans.…”