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Characteristics of young motor thieves in custody
Person. indtvid. 01% Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 353-355, 1994 ElsevierScience Ltd. Printed in Great Britain 0191-8869/94 $6.00+O.OO
Pergamon
Characteristics
of young motor thieves in custody HAZELCOOKSON
Home O&e
Prison Department,
Cleland House, Page Street, London SWIP
4LN. England
(Received 27 April 1993)
Summary-This paper reports the results of a survey of 538 male inmates of Young Offender Institutions. Various measures of frequency of motor theft in this sample are presented. There is a rapid rise in the apparent frequency as one moves from the simple measure of ‘principal offence in current charge’ (2%) through other measures including past behaviour and self-reports to the figure of 72% who had some motor theft in their background. Motor theft would seem to be part of the general repertoire of behaviour of young offenders in custody. A small sub-group of repetitive motor thieves was compared with the rest of the sample. No differences were found between this group and the remainder of the sample on information about family background, employment or frequency of getting drunk, use of drugs, gambling or the use of video games. They were more likely to have convictions for motor and non-motor theft, though less likely to have a current conviction for violent acquisition, and more likely to have previous youth custody. They had significantly higher scores on Psychoticism and Impulsiveness and a higher report rate in their current sentence.
INTRODUCTION There has been little research reported into the characteristics of young motor thieves, although there has been some into personality variables associated with driving habits. Most recently Furnham and Saipe (1993) examined the personality correlates of convicted and non-convicted drivers. (Convictions here referred to offences such as speeding or reckless driving, but not alcohol-related offences.) Convicted drivers attained high Psychoticism and low Neuroticism scores. Some studies have shown higher accident rates amongst extraverts, and Loo (1979) showed that the impulsive component of extraversion is linked with accident-proneness. The data reported here come from a survey of 538 young (1621 years old) sentenced male inmates of Young Offender Institutions (YOIs). Over a period of a year beginning in 1989, psychologists from the Home office Prison Department visited each of the YOIs in England and Wales and interviewed up to 24 randomly selected inmates in each. (Short-term and juvenile establishments were excluded.) Having been sentenced to a period of at least 4 months in custody, the Ss were representative, not of young offenders as a whole, but of those with more serious offences or repeated convictions. In addition to the interview about their home background, employment, use of drugs and alcohol and gambling, trainees also completed a version of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Revised (EPQR) giving sub-scales of Psychoticism, Neuroticism, Extraversion and Impulsiveness. The Extraversion and Neuroticism scales were taken from the short form of the EPQR. The Psychoticism scale was composed of items from the short form together with items from the long form which had given high item-total correlations in previous work with young offenders in custody. The Impulsiveness scale consisted of items from the standard form selected on the basis of previous work with young offenders. Data were taken from prison records.
RESULTS Frequency and age
of onsetof
motor theft
With regard to current convictions, 2% had motor theft as the principal offence in their current charge. 12% had motor theft in their current charge, and a more serious charge in addition. Information about previous convictions was available for 404 of the 538. 47% of these had previous convictions for motor theft. In interview, 331 or 64% of the sample said they had been passengers in a stolen car at least once. The ages at which these 331 had first been passengers in stolen cars are shown in Table 1. 258 or 50% said they had taken a car at least once. Ages of first taking a car are shown in Table 2. Thus more trainees, (64%), had been passengers in stolen cars than had been drivers (50%). Being a passenger precedes being a driver with 22% being under 14 when first a passenger but only 16% when first a driver. However, driving is not
less common at high frequency levels; 86 had been drivers at least 20 times compared with 73 who had been passengers at least 20 times. This suggests that, as one might expect, most young offenders’ 8rst experience of motor theft is as a passenger, but since driving is more rewarding, once they do start to drive this becomes more frequent than being a Table I. Age distribution of first travellingin stolen car Frequency Percentage Age <12 14 4.2 12-13 61 18.4 1415 123 31.2 16+ 133 40.2
Age
Total
Total
331
Table 2. Age distribution of first taking car Frequency Percmtagc 4 I.5 35 13.6 100 38.8 119 46.1
100 353
258
loo
354
NOTES
AND
SHORTER
COMMUNICATIONS
Table 3. Mean personality
Habitual car thieves (n = 58) Others (n = 433) P(r) (2-tailed)
17.8 14.3
scores E
I
Il.3
17.9
17.2
11.9 0.517
17.5 0.636
14.9 0.001
P
N
This is in accordance with work by Nee (1993) in which car thieves described a period of apprenticeship in the company of more experienced friends before progressing to driving. Altogether 72% of the whole sample had some motor theft in their background, either as a current or previous conviction, or admitting to being a driver or passenger in a stolen car. There is a rapid rise in the apparent frequency of motor theft in this sample as one moves from the simple measure of ‘principal offence in current charge’ (2%) through other measures including past behaviour and self-reports to the final figure of 72%. Motor theft would seem to be part of the general repertoire of behaviour of young offenders in custody. In view of this it did not seem appropriate to make any comparison between car thieves and others. However, the 59 who had both been passengers and drivers in stolen cars at least 20 times were compared with the rest of the sample, to see whether this group of committed, repetitive car thieves shared any special characteristics. passenger.
Characteristics of habitual motor thieves Personal history. It might be thought that the high frequency of motor theft in this group may simply reflect greater age giving them more opportunity to accrue offences. In fact there was no association with age for frequency of taking a motor vehicle, and frequency of being a passenger was slightly lower for the 19-21 year olds than for the 16-17 year olds. The mean age for the 59 habitual car thieves was 18.33 and for the rest of the sample 18.47. The sub-sample of 59 did not differ from the rest of the sample on any of the variables to do with home background, such as parents having drink, drug or gambling problems, or either parents or siblings having criminal records. Nor was there any association with frequency of getting drunk, drug use, gambling or playing video games. Habitual motor theft would seem to be a specific activity and not part of a general sensation-seeking or addictive behavioural repertoire. Habitual motor thieves were not more or less likely to have problems with employment than the rest of the sample, either in terms of whether or not they had ever had a full-time job, or in terms of the number of months unemployed in the previous year. Criminal history. Regarding convictions, this group was more likely than the rest of the sample to have motor theft in their current charge (37% compared with 14%) and also in previous convictions (81% compared with 47%). These results are not in themselves surprising, but the internal consistency of the data confirms the view that this group represents a sample of persistent car thieves. They were also more likely to have non-motor theft in their current conviction [51% as opposed to 28%, P(chi-squared) = 0.0004]. They were however significantly less likely to have current violent acquisition [IO% as opposed to 24%, P(chi-squared) = 0.0251. They were also more likely to have previous convictions for non-motor theft and breaking and entering. Thus their criminal careers were characterized by crimes of acquisition, but not of violence, (in comparison with other young offenders in custody). [Nee (1993) also found in a sample of 100 car thieves outside prison that almost all took items from the stolen cars, and a third were involved in car theft for profit, selling parts or the whole car.] They were more likely than others to have experienced previous youth custody [70% compared with 35%, P (chi-squared) i O.OOl]. Data was also collected on disciplinary reports. During their current sentence, the persistent car thieves had a higher mean report rate (0.0133 per day) than the others (0.008 per day). This difference was statistically significant using a Mann-Whitney test, (P = 0.0244). Many of the inmates of course had no reports at all. 63% of persistent car thieves had at least one report, and 51% of others. Personality scores. Mean scores on the 4 scales of the EPQR, Psychoticism, Neuroticism, Extraversion and Impulsiveness (p, N, E, and I, respectively) are shown in Table 3 for the 58 habitual car thieves for whom data was available, and for 433 others. The habitual car thieves scored significantly higher on the Psychoticism and Impulsiveness scales. High P scores are associated with criminality and such individuals are described as cold, callous and lacking in feeling. There was no difference between the two sets in Extraversion or Neuroticism scores. DISCUSSION
In this study all S’s were inmates of Young Offender Institutions. Not all motor thieves receive custodial sentences and so the results do not necessarily apply to motor theft generally. Also a different pattern may emerge if comparison is made with the general population. However the data presented here do allow a valid comparison to show how habitual car thieves in custody differ from their fellow-inmates. In many ways the habitual motor thieves in this study are not distinguished from the rest of the sample of young offenders in custody. They have no more or less disturbed backgrounds or disordered life-styles in terms of drunkenness, drug use, gambling, use of video games or unemployment. They are equally sociable, as measured by the Extraversion scale, and no more or less unhappy or anxious as measured by Neuroticism. They do however have very high scores on Psychoticism and Impulsiveness. The Psychoticism scale is the one most frequently associated with criminality, and this is also reflected in the fact that they are more likely to have previous experience of Youth Custody, and have a higher report rate on their current sentence. Motor theft is sometimes described as ‘just a crime of acquisition’ and as such not serious or significant. However this ignores the fact that motor thieves are often willing to drive recklessly, ignoring traffic regulations and at very high speeds. Since many of them (over half in this rather special sample) first drive when they are below the legal minimum age, they cannot possibly have had adequate instruction or a proper assessment of their skill. These factors make their driving potentially very dangerous, and it is part of their high Psychoticism personality and impulsiveness that they are willing to expose themselves and others to enormous risks. They are literally ‘care-less’, as exemplified by their responses to questions such as:
NOTES AND SHORTER
COMMUNlCATlONS
355
Would being in debt worry you? (No); Does it worry you tf you know there are mistakes in your work? (No); and Do you think people spend too much time safeguarding their future with savings and insurances? (Yes). For all of these questions the habitual car thieves were significantly more likely to produce the keyed responses. The uncaring attitude to other people is illustrated by: Do you enjoy practical jokes that can sometimes really hurt people? (Yes) and Do you try not to be rude to people? (No), which also produced significant cross-tabulations. This is not to say that they are aggressive or violent. They are not characterized by violent crimes, and though they are more likely than others to have current and previous convictions for both motor and non-motor theft, they are less likely to have a current conviction for violent acquisition. In many ways the motor theft is the archetypal criminal. There is no mystery about his motivation; access to a motor vehicle is an almost universal aspiration among adolescent boys. What distinguishes him from his peers is a willingness to use illegal means to gratify this wish and a lack of feeling regarding the possible consequences to himself and others. REFERENCES
Furnham, A. & Saipe, J. (1993). Personality correlates of convicted drivers. Personnlity and Individual Differences, 14, 329-336. Loo, R. (1979). Role of primary personality factors in the perception of traffic signals and driver violations and accidents. Accient Analysis and Prevention, II, 125-127. Nee, C. (1993). Careers in car crime. Home Ofice Research and Statistics Department Research Bulletin, 33, 14.
Pergamon
Characteristics
of young motor thieves in custody HAZELCOOKSON
Home O&e
Prison Department,
Cleland House, Page Street, London SWIP
4LN. England
(Received 27 April 1993)
Summary-This paper reports the results of a survey of 538 male inmates of Young Offender Institutions. Various measures of frequency of motor theft in this sample are presented. There is a rapid rise in the apparent frequency as one moves from the simple measure of ‘principal offence in current charge’ (2%) through other measures including past behaviour and self-reports to the figure of 72% who had some motor theft in their background. Motor theft would seem to be part of the general repertoire of behaviour of young offenders in custody. A small sub-group of repetitive motor thieves was compared with the rest of the sample. No differences were found between this group and the remainder of the sample on information about family background, employment or frequency of getting drunk, use of drugs, gambling or the use of video games. They were more likely to have convictions for motor and non-motor theft, though less likely to have a current conviction for violent acquisition, and more likely to have previous youth custody. They had significantly higher scores on Psychoticism and Impulsiveness and a higher report rate in their current sentence.
INTRODUCTION There has been little research reported into the characteristics of young motor thieves, although there has been some into personality variables associated with driving habits. Most recently Furnham and Saipe (1993) examined the personality correlates of convicted and non-convicted drivers. (Convictions here referred to offences such as speeding or reckless driving, but not alcohol-related offences.) Convicted drivers attained high Psychoticism and low Neuroticism scores. Some studies have shown higher accident rates amongst extraverts, and Loo (1979) showed that the impulsive component of extraversion is linked with accident-proneness. The data reported here come from a survey of 538 young (1621 years old) sentenced male inmates of Young Offender Institutions (YOIs). Over a period of a year beginning in 1989, psychologists from the Home office Prison Department visited each of the YOIs in England and Wales and interviewed up to 24 randomly selected inmates in each. (Short-term and juvenile establishments were excluded.) Having been sentenced to a period of at least 4 months in custody, the Ss were representative, not of young offenders as a whole, but of those with more serious offences or repeated convictions. In addition to the interview about their home background, employment, use of drugs and alcohol and gambling, trainees also completed a version of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Revised (EPQR) giving sub-scales of Psychoticism, Neuroticism, Extraversion and Impulsiveness. The Extraversion and Neuroticism scales were taken from the short form of the EPQR. The Psychoticism scale was composed of items from the short form together with items from the long form which had given high item-total correlations in previous work with young offenders in custody. The Impulsiveness scale consisted of items from the standard form selected on the basis of previous work with young offenders. Data were taken from prison records.
RESULTS Frequency and age
of onsetof
motor theft
With regard to current convictions, 2% had motor theft as the principal offence in their current charge. 12% had motor theft in their current charge, and a more serious charge in addition. Information about previous convictions was available for 404 of the 538. 47% of these had previous convictions for motor theft. In interview, 331 or 64% of the sample said they had been passengers in a stolen car at least once. The ages at which these 331 had first been passengers in stolen cars are shown in Table 1. 258 or 50% said they had taken a car at least once. Ages of first taking a car are shown in Table 2. Thus more trainees, (64%), had been passengers in stolen cars than had been drivers (50%). Being a passenger precedes being a driver with 22% being under 14 when first a passenger but only 16% when first a driver. However, driving is not
less common at high frequency levels; 86 had been drivers at least 20 times compared with 73 who had been passengers at least 20 times. This suggests that, as one might expect, most young offenders’ 8rst experience of motor theft is as a passenger, but since driving is more rewarding, once they do start to drive this becomes more frequent than being a Table I. Age distribution of first travellingin stolen car Frequency Percentage Age <12 14 4.2 12-13 61 18.4 1415 123 31.2 16+ 133 40.2
Age
Total
Total
331
Table 2. Age distribution of first taking car Frequency Percmtagc 4 I.5 35 13.6 100 38.8 119 46.1
100 353
258
loo
354
NOTES
AND
SHORTER
COMMUNICATIONS
Table 3. Mean personality
Habitual car thieves (n = 58) Others (n = 433) P(r) (2-tailed)
17.8 14.3
scores E
I
Il.3
17.9
17.2
11.9 0.517
17.5 0.636
14.9 0.001
P
N
This is in accordance with work by Nee (1993) in which car thieves described a period of apprenticeship in the company of more experienced friends before progressing to driving. Altogether 72% of the whole sample had some motor theft in their background, either as a current or previous conviction, or admitting to being a driver or passenger in a stolen car. There is a rapid rise in the apparent frequency of motor theft in this sample as one moves from the simple measure of ‘principal offence in current charge’ (2%) through other measures including past behaviour and self-reports to the final figure of 72%. Motor theft would seem to be part of the general repertoire of behaviour of young offenders in custody. In view of this it did not seem appropriate to make any comparison between car thieves and others. However, the 59 who had both been passengers and drivers in stolen cars at least 20 times were compared with the rest of the sample, to see whether this group of committed, repetitive car thieves shared any special characteristics. passenger.
Characteristics of habitual motor thieves Personal history. It might be thought that the high frequency of motor theft in this group may simply reflect greater age giving them more opportunity to accrue offences. In fact there was no association with age for frequency of taking a motor vehicle, and frequency of being a passenger was slightly lower for the 19-21 year olds than for the 16-17 year olds. The mean age for the 59 habitual car thieves was 18.33 and for the rest of the sample 18.47. The sub-sample of 59 did not differ from the rest of the sample on any of the variables to do with home background, such as parents having drink, drug or gambling problems, or either parents or siblings having criminal records. Nor was there any association with frequency of getting drunk, drug use, gambling or playing video games. Habitual motor theft would seem to be a specific activity and not part of a general sensation-seeking or addictive behavioural repertoire. Habitual motor thieves were not more or less likely to have problems with employment than the rest of the sample, either in terms of whether or not they had ever had a full-time job, or in terms of the number of months unemployed in the previous year. Criminal history. Regarding convictions, this group was more likely than the rest of the sample to have motor theft in their current charge (37% compared with 14%) and also in previous convictions (81% compared with 47%). These results are not in themselves surprising, but the internal consistency of the data confirms the view that this group represents a sample of persistent car thieves. They were also more likely to have non-motor theft in their current conviction [51% as opposed to 28%, P(chi-squared) = 0.0004]. They were however significantly less likely to have current violent acquisition [IO% as opposed to 24%, P(chi-squared) = 0.0251. They were also more likely to have previous convictions for non-motor theft and breaking and entering. Thus their criminal careers were characterized by crimes of acquisition, but not of violence, (in comparison with other young offenders in custody). [Nee (1993) also found in a sample of 100 car thieves outside prison that almost all took items from the stolen cars, and a third were involved in car theft for profit, selling parts or the whole car.] They were more likely than others to have experienced previous youth custody [70% compared with 35%, P (chi-squared) i O.OOl]. Data was also collected on disciplinary reports. During their current sentence, the persistent car thieves had a higher mean report rate (0.0133 per day) than the others (0.008 per day). This difference was statistically significant using a Mann-Whitney test, (P = 0.0244). Many of the inmates of course had no reports at all. 63% of persistent car thieves had at least one report, and 51% of others. Personality scores. Mean scores on the 4 scales of the EPQR, Psychoticism, Neuroticism, Extraversion and Impulsiveness (p, N, E, and I, respectively) are shown in Table 3 for the 58 habitual car thieves for whom data was available, and for 433 others. The habitual car thieves scored significantly higher on the Psychoticism and Impulsiveness scales. High P scores are associated with criminality and such individuals are described as cold, callous and lacking in feeling. There was no difference between the two sets in Extraversion or Neuroticism scores. DISCUSSION
In this study all S’s were inmates of Young Offender Institutions. Not all motor thieves receive custodial sentences and so the results do not necessarily apply to motor theft generally. Also a different pattern may emerge if comparison is made with the general population. However the data presented here do allow a valid comparison to show how habitual car thieves in custody differ from their fellow-inmates. In many ways the habitual motor thieves in this study are not distinguished from the rest of the sample of young offenders in custody. They have no more or less disturbed backgrounds or disordered life-styles in terms of drunkenness, drug use, gambling, use of video games or unemployment. They are equally sociable, as measured by the Extraversion scale, and no more or less unhappy or anxious as measured by Neuroticism. They do however have very high scores on Psychoticism and Impulsiveness. The Psychoticism scale is the one most frequently associated with criminality, and this is also reflected in the fact that they are more likely to have previous experience of Youth Custody, and have a higher report rate on their current sentence. Motor theft is sometimes described as ‘just a crime of acquisition’ and as such not serious or significant. However this ignores the fact that motor thieves are often willing to drive recklessly, ignoring traffic regulations and at very high speeds. Since many of them (over half in this rather special sample) first drive when they are below the legal minimum age, they cannot possibly have had adequate instruction or a proper assessment of their skill. These factors make their driving potentially very dangerous, and it is part of their high Psychoticism personality and impulsiveness that they are willing to expose themselves and others to enormous risks. They are literally ‘care-less’, as exemplified by their responses to questions such as:
NOTES AND SHORTER
COMMUNlCATlONS
355
Would being in debt worry you? (No); Does it worry you tf you know there are mistakes in your work? (No); and Do you think people spend too much time safeguarding their future with savings and insurances? (Yes). For all of these questions the habitual car thieves were significantly more likely to produce the keyed responses. The uncaring attitude to other people is illustrated by: Do you enjoy practical jokes that can sometimes really hurt people? (Yes) and Do you try not to be rude to people? (No), which also produced significant cross-tabulations. This is not to say that they are aggressive or violent. They are not characterized by violent crimes, and though they are more likely than others to have current and previous convictions for both motor and non-motor theft, they are less likely to have a current conviction for violent acquisition. In many ways the motor theft is the archetypal criminal. There is no mystery about his motivation; access to a motor vehicle is an almost universal aspiration among adolescent boys. What distinguishes him from his peers is a willingness to use illegal means to gratify this wish and a lack of feeling regarding the possible consequences to himself and others. REFERENCES
Furnham, A. & Saipe, J. (1993). Personality correlates of convicted drivers. Personnlity and Individual Differences, 14, 329-336. Loo, R. (1979). Role of primary personality factors in the perception of traffic signals and driver violations and accidents. Accient Analysis and Prevention, II, 125-127. Nee, C. (1993). Careers in car crime. Home Ofice Research and Statistics Department Research Bulletin, 33, 14.