NCJ Number
120435
Date Published
1988
Length
119 pages
Annotation
A survey elicited opinions of crime, its causes, and preventions from 589 inmates at the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville, the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, and the Chillicothe Correctional Institute in Chillicothe (Ohio).
Abstract
The sample was 84.2 percent male and 15.8 percent female; 57.7 percent were white, 38 percent black, and 3.3 percent other; 72.2 percent employed at least occasionally, including 49.4 percent employed full time; and 72.5 percent had preconviction annual incomes lower than $10,000. Fifty-one inmates (9 percent) reported having committed more than 100 crimes in the previous year, thus accounting for at least 5,100 crimes that year, more than 55 percent of the total number of crimes committed by the entire sample; forty-one percent admitted to no prior crimes. Forty-four percent had committed their first crime between the ages of 11 and 15. Crime motivations for 36 percent were drug- or alcohol-related. Although the proportion of women arrested for property crime has doubled since 1960, the females in the sample committed fewer and generally less serious crimes than the males; had lower incomes; tended to be driven by purely financial, rather than substance abuse-related needs; and were more deterrable. Increased probability and severity of imprisonment appeared to be the most effective deterrent. Tables, graphs, 5 appendixes, sample questionnaire, 103 references.