Seeing and choosing crime as alternative

1. Prof. Dr. Lieven J.R. Pauwels
t. +32 9 264 68 37
f. +32 9 264 84 94
Lieven.Pauwels @UGent.be
Seeing and choosing crime. A Randomized
Scenario Study of the Causes and “Causes of
the Causes” of the Perception-Choice Process
Lieven J.R. Pauwels
Director IRCP
Dept. of Criminolgy, Criminal Law and Social Law, Ghent University
Belgium

2. research publications consultancy conferences
www.ircp.org
Lieven J.R. Pauwels
+32 9 264 68 37
Lieven.PAuwels@UGent.be
• What?
• Why does it matter?
• What are the Key Concepts?
• How (methods)
• Findings & Implications
Structure of the presentation
2

3. research publications consultancy conferences
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Lieven J.R. Pauwels
+32 9 264 68 37
Lieven.PAuwels@UGent.be
• How do adolescents and young adults react towards micro-place
environmental triggers (Provocation and Social Control)?
 Do they see violence as a response and do they choose that options?
 Do they all react similar, or can we speak about differential vulnerability and situational
resistance?
• Is this perception-choice process indirectly related to social
situations in residential neighborhood and social control
mechanisms?
1. What is this presentation about?
3

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Lieven J.R. Pauwels
+32 9 264 68 37
Lieven.PAuwels@UGent.be
• The answers to these questions can help crime prevention policy-
makers in understanding the impact of their measures
 Towards whom are situational prevention measures guided and towards what are they
key factors that need to be adresed by social preventive measures
• The answers to these questions can inspire further studies in
processes of decision-making from integrative theoretical
frameworks
 Wy integrative frameworks ? Outdated visions of human nature and social order have for
too long hampered serious theoretical integration
 Assumed is a REASONABLE (but myopic) actor and using dual process theory (see
Kahneman, 2011)
 Human nature: see “new sciences of morality” (Greene: the tragedy of commonsense
morality ; Haidt: the emotional dog and its rational tail; Krebbs: multidimensionality)
2. Why does this matter?
4

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Lieven J.R. Pauwels
+32 9 264 68 37
Lieven.PAuwels@UGent.be
3. Key concepts (1) perception-choice process
5
Source: Haar & Wikström (2010)
INDIVIDUAL ActionSetting
Deterrence: monitoring agents versus no monitoring agents
Provocation: present or absent Violent act
Perception of alternatives
Choice processes
No violent
act
Morality
Self-control
Situation =
F (P*E)

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Lieven J.R. Pauwels
+32 9 264 68 37
Lieven.PAuwels@UGent.be
3. Key concepts (2) perception-choice process
6
Nhood cohesion
Nhood disorder
Propensity
Scenario
exposure
Choosing the
violent
response
Context of development Context of action
Parental control

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Lieven J.R. Pauwels
+32 9 264 68 37
Lieven.PAuwels@UGent.be
• Factorial design (see Eifler, 2007; Sauer et al, 2009;
Wallander, 2009)
• Replication study inspired by Haar & Wikström, 2010;
Wikström et al. 2012
• There is a shortage of replica studies in social sciences
(Joannidis,2005)
• Integration of 2 randomized vignettes into questionnaire
• Each vignette is created as a single question, randomly
distributed (Sauer et al, 2009; Sauer et al. 2011; Wallander,
2009)
• 2 vignettes per respondent: bus stop scenario & class room
scenario
4. Methodology: an online randomized
scenarionstudy
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8. research publications consultancy conferences
www.ircp.org
Lieven J.R. Pauwels
+32 9 264 68 37
Lieven.PAuwels@UGent.be
4. Methodology: an online randomized
scenarionstudy
• Online student survey + factorial survey (data collection March
2015-June 2015 time online: 2,5 months).
• E-mail link to online questionnaire (via school principals,
universities and university colleges (1st bachelor year)
• Incentive: Win an i-Pad
• 1021 students filled out an online survey
• Random distribution of scenarios from the scenario universe using
a randomizer algorithm (Matsumoto & Nishimura, 1998)
• Mersenne Twister pseudorandom number generator
• Randomizer was pretested. 1000 trials result in 25% per scenario
(4 categories)
8

9. research publications consultancy conferences
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Lieven J.R. Pauwels
+32 9 264 68 37
Lieven.PAuwels@UGent.be
4. Methodology: an online randomized
scenarionstudy
• Single-level logistic models:
• Multi-level models require more scenarios
per respondent -> too few scenarios
• Studying interactions between context
of action and personal characteristics
• Blockwise models to study what
happens with the effects of “distant
mechanisms”
9

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Lieven J.R. Pauwels
+32 9 264 68 37
Lieven.PAuwels@UGent.be
Measures
• PADS+ (Wikström, Oberwittler, Treiber & Hardy 2012)
• Morality scale (moral beliefs + emotions)
• Capacity to exercise self-control scale (Grasmick & Bursick
scale-including thrill-seeking, impulsiveness)
• Parental monitoring
• SCENARIO: “SETTING CHARACTERISTICS”:
• Provocation & monitoring agents
• SWING STUDY (Hardyns et al. 2015)
• Collective efficacy (Sampson et al. 1997)
• Observed micro-place disorder scale (Pauwels, 2007;
Pauwels & Hardyns, 2016)
10

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Lieven J.R. Pauwels
+32 9 264 68 37
Lieven.PAuwels@UGent.be
Valid
Percent
Valid -16 26.9
16 -18 44.2
18 + 28.9
Total 100.0
Sample descriptives
11
N %
Classroom
violence
1173 7,25%
Bus-stop violence 1173 13,55%
Frequency
Valid
Percent
Valid Female 770 64.7
Male 421 35.3
Total 1191 100.0

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Lieven J.R. Pauwels
+32 9 264 68 37
Lieven.PAuwels@UGent.be
Results: who chooses the violent response?
12

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Lieven J.R. Pauwels
+32 9 264 68 37
Lieven.PAuwels@UGent.be
Results: who chooses the violent response?
13

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Lieven J.R. Pauwels
+32 9 264 68 37
Lieven.PAuwels@UGent.be
• Neigborhood disorder is strongly related to choosing the violent
response (both scenarios), ceteris paribus
• Effect of neighborhood disorder is strongly reduced when parental
monitoring is taken into account, ceteris paribus
• When propensity is taken into account, effect of neighborhood
characteristics and parental monitoring disappear
• This may be due to indirect effect, or differential selection
• Longitudinal studies needed to clarify the social model of
developing crime propensities
14
The “causes of the causes” and choosing
class room violence

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Lieven J.R. Pauwels
+32 9 264 68 37
Lieven.PAuwels@UGent.be
Implications and conclusions
• Crime prevention is about combining social and situational
crime prevention
• Unable to falsify the results found in Wikström et al (2012)
• Scenario criminogeneity and propensity interact, robust
results!
• Effects of observed neighborhood disorder and socialization
mechanisms on choosing the violent response disappear
when propensity is taken into account
• BUT: Can we do better in analyzing the choice process
(deliberation vs habituation? See also Kroneberg et al. 2010,
Beier, 2016)
15

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Lieven J.R. Pauwels
+32 9 264 68 37
Lieven.PAuwels@UGent.be
Methodological appendix
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17. 17
Self-reported offending
(past 12 months)
Scenario 1 (violence in
the class room)
Incidence Rate Ratio
Scenario 2 (violence at
the bus-stop)
Incidence Rate Ratio
Graffiti 1.648* 1.270*
Destroying something 1.772** 1.453*
Theft (>5euro) 1.494** 1.192 ns
Buying stolen goods 1.469** 1.515*
Stolen something
(general)
2.232** 2.669**
Threatened some-one 1.989** 1.844**
Hitting some-one on the
streets
5.879** 5.772**
Hitting some-one so that
person was wounded
4.398** 4.326**
Threatening with knife 5.253** 1.877**
PREDICTIVE VALIDITY OF SCENARIO RESPONSE

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Lieven J.R. Pauwels
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Method issues randomization in the sample
18

19. INTRODUCTION Louise is waiting for the bus at a bus stop. She is listening to her iPod
DIMENSION LEVEL WORDING
Provocation Pushed and ignored Suddenly a girl who walks by pushes her.
When Louise asks her why she pushed her
the girl just ignores her.
Pushed twice and iPad broken Suddenly a girl who walks by pushes her
so she drops her iPod to the ground and it
breaks. When Louise asks her why she
pushed her the girl pushes her once again
Monitoring Police officers There are two police officers walking on
the other side of the street
None There are no other people at the bus stop
OUTCOME Violence If you were Louise, how likely do you
think it is that you would hit or push the
girl that pushed you?
JUDGEMENT Very likely
Likely.
Unlikely
Very Unlikely
Scenario Universe Monitoring
Police officers No-one
Provocation Pushed and ignored A B
Pushed twice and iPod broken C D
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Source: Wikström et al. (2012)

20. 20
INTRODUCTION It is break between two lessons. David is standing in the school
corridor together with a group of other pupils
DIMENSION LEVEL WORDING
Provocation False accusation Steve comes up to David and falsely
accuses him of having stolen some money
False accusation and push Steve comes up to David and falsely
accuses him of having stolen some money
and pushes him to the ground so that he
hurts his back.
Monitoring Teachers There are several teachers around who
can see what is going on.
No teachers There are no teachers or other adults
around who can see what is going on.
OUTCOME Violence What would you do if you were David?
Would you hit Steve?
JUDGEMENT Yes, I would hit Steve.
No, I would just tell Steve he is an idiot.
No, I would tell a teacher about it.
No, I would do nothing.
Scenario Universe Monitoring
Teachers No teachers
Provocation False accusation A B
False accusation and push C D

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Lieven J.R. Pauwels
+32 9 264 68 37
Lieven.PAuwels@UGent.be
Validity check: (1) IS THE INTERACTION
EFFECT STABLE ACROSS MEASURES?
21
Interaction effect remains when using
stylized questionnaire items of exposure

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Lieven J.R. Pauwels
+32 9 264 68 37
Lieven.PAuwels@UGent.be
Validity check: (2) IS THE INTERACTION
EFFECT STABLE ACROSS MEASURES?
22
Interaction effect remains when using
Perceived temptation (consequence of propensity) and scenario criminogeneity

23. research publications consultancy conferences
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Lieven J.R. Pauwels
+32 9 264 68 37
Lieven.PAuwels@UGent.be
The “causes of the causes” and choosing
class room violence
23

24. research publications consultancy conferences
www.ircp.org
Lieven J.R. Pauwels
+32 9 264 68 37
Lieven.PAuwels@UGent.be
The “causes of the causes” and choosing
violence at the bus stop
24

25. www.ircp.org
Contact
Lieven J.R. Pauwels
t. +32 9 264 68 37
f. +32 9 264 84 94
Lieven.Pauwels@UGent.be
IRCP
Ghent University
Universiteitstraat 4
B – 9000 Ghent