Later Criminal Careers of Occupants of Juvenile Reformatory and Penal Institutions

• Author: Jüri Saar
• Pages: 100-109

Jüri Saar

Later Criminal Careers of Occupants of Juvenile Reformatory and Penal Institutions

1. Introduction

The individual consistency of delinquent conduct and its changes during life are an area of interest for modern criminological studies. Data collected on the progress of criminal careers¹ greatly complement the general statistics of crime and enable a more exact planning of crime control and prevention measures. For example, committing of criminal offences by an adult usually means that the offending conduct already started in the person's childhood. Paradoxically, a majority of juvenile delinquents do not become criminals in their adulthood, because individual criminal activity usually decreases with age². An increase in the level of crime may be due to an increased number of criminally active individuals in the population, an increased frequency of criminal offences committed by the criminally active individuals, or an overall lengthening of criminal careers. Such background variations in the general crime characteristics require a differentiated criminal policy approach and different measures.

This article describes some of the results of a longitudinal study carried out in 1985-1999. The aim of the study was to analyse the patterns and influencing factors of the further criminal careers of persons who committed criminal and other offences as minors. The studied group consisted of males who had stayed in Estonian juvenile reformatory and penal institutions at the beginning of 1985 and who were actually available and complied with the established criteria³. At that time, practically every minor who committed criminal offences or systematically broke the law was placed in a juvenile reformatory or penal institution. The study was a representative cohort study of delinquent minors, in which the criminal activity of the individuals was monitored over a period of fifteen years. The social and personal characteristics of the individuals of the sample and their criminal career patterns therefore characterise all the juvenile delinquents and criminals of Estonia at the time to a significant degree.

Analysis of personal files was the main method used to collect objective primary data on each person. Other methods included a survey of respondents for which a special questionnaire was used. The questionnaire consisted of the following sections: general data (age, residence, etc.); family data (age of parents, their education, job, family relations, etc.); information about school and studies (completed years of study, repetition of a school year, change of school, etc.); information about spending leisure time (how and with whom the person spent their leisure time); information about harmful habits (smoking, drinking alcohol), and assessments of different spheres of life. Some data were collected in parallel from files and questionnaires so as to appraise the objectivity of the responses.

The aim of the first stage of the study (January 1985) was to identify the main social and personal characteristics of the contingent of special educational institutions for minors. The sample consisted of 210 minors from reformatories and 107 minors from special vocational schools, aged 14-17. The second stage was carried out in April 1990 when an inquiry was made to the Information and Computing Centre of the ESSR (Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic) Ministry of Internal Affairs about the criminal offences committed and punishments incurred by the individuals of the sample during 1984-1990. Criminal offences and punishments were recorded during this and the following stages on the basis of judgments of conviction. Data on the employment status and residence of the same individuals were obtained from the Passport Service of the ESSR Ministry of Internal Affairs. The third stage was carried out in April and May 1995, when an inquiry was made to the Address Bureau of the National Citizenship and Migration Board to obtain information about the places of residence and work of the individuals. Information on criminal offences and punishments during 1990-1995 was collected from the criminal files of the Information and Analysis Bureau of the Police Board. In the fourth stage, a new inquiry was made about the activities of the individuals during 1995-1999. Data collected in the last three stages were added to the earlier data to form a data bank.

2. Juvenile delinquency of individuals of cohort and sanctions applied to them

In order to determine the differences between the persons on whom criminal sanctions or educational measures were imposed as minors and to assess the effect of these on their later criminal careers, the cohort was divided into three subgroups according to the official sanctions:

1. The delinquents' subgroup consisted of individuals who had committed delinquent acts as minors and were placed in a special vocational school by a decision of the Committee for Minors' Affairs (CMA) or the court⁴. The individuals of this subgroup did not commit officially recorded criminal offences until the age of 18 or were exempted from criminal liability due to their age. Their formal characteristic is the application of the most severe educational measure to them. The subgroup consisted of 65 individuals and they were referred to as the S-boys⁵.

2. The subgroup of juvenile criminals consisted of individuals who had committed at least one criminal offence as minors and had served a custodial sentence for it. The formal characteristic was their placement in a reformatory by a court. Individuals of this subgroup did not manifest systematic delinquent conduct as minors before they committed a criminal offence, i.e. they were not occupants of a special vocational school before the offence. The subgroup was composed of 178 individuals and was referred to as the V-boys⁶.

3. The third subgroup consisted of individuals who had exhibited delinquent conduct as minors and were placed in a special vocational school. They had also committed at least one recorded criminal offence as minors. Their criminal offences had taken place before, during or after their placement in the special vocational school, but before they became 18 years old. The formal characteristic is the application of educational measures as well as criminal punishment to the individuals of this subgroup. The subgroup consisted of 74 individuals who were collectively referred to as the Chronic Offenders⁷.

The individuals of the subgroups differed by most of the characteristics used, and the characteristics of the S-boys and V-boys were generally better than those of the Chronic Offenders. Early behavioural problems, worse conditions for socialising in childhood, and school problems were most characteristic of the Chronic Offenders subgroup. At the same time, this group accorded the lowest rating to the relations of their parents and their own relations with their parents; they had the most frequent constant quarrels with parents, they had few chores, they seldom spent their leisure time with their parents, and they did not intend to go to another school or learn a new profession after their release (although they denied their intention of working in the profession they were acquiring). It was prognosticated on the basis of the objective conditions and subjective estimates of childhood that the criminal careers of the Chronic Offenders would be the longest compared to the other subgroups and that the Chronic Offenders would commit a greater number of and more severe criminal offences.

The most positive aspect of the S-boys is that they had not incurred official criminal punishments as minors. When comparing the socialising characteristics of this subgroup's individuals to those of the Chronic Offenders, the position of the S-boys was better in most of the cases (except for the beginning of alcohol consumption and the high alcoholism level of their parents). However, when comparing their socialising characteristics with those of the V-boys, the results were not so good. This was evidenced by the behavioural problems that started at a relatively early age (e.g. an earlier record with the Committee for Minors' Affairs, a larger percentage of those who were placed in a special school). The S-boys were further characterised by a large number of children in the family, a larger percentage of births in single-parent families, and a lower level of education of fathers. Special vocational schools were chiefly intended for minors with a generally poor behaviour and unfavourable family background. Those minors who were placed in the reformatory were from relatively better social conditions and many of them did not exhibit...