Black-white differences in positive outcome expectancies for crime: A study of male federal prison inmates

Glenn D. Walters

Journal of Criminal Justice, 2011, vol. 39, issue 2, 192-197

Abstract: Purpose This study was designed to assess whether black inmates hold more positive outcome expectancies for crime than white inmates in an effort to inform the debate on the nature of well documented differences in criminal involvement between blacks and whites.Methods Positive outcome expectancies for crime were measured in 393 black male inmates and 154 white male inmates housed in a medium security federal correctional institution using the Outcome Expectancies for Crime (OEC: Walters, 2003b) inventory.Results Black inmates reported significantly stronger positive outcome expectancies for crime than white inmates after controlling for preexisting group differences in age, education, marital status, confining offense, response style, general criminal thinking, and negative outcome expectancies for crime. Anticipation of social benefits for crime in the form of love, respect, and security were particularly salient in distinguishing between black and white inmates.Conclusions It is speculated that an interaction of motivational (high achievement motivation), structural (blocked economic opportunities), and cultural (peer reinforcement) factors may be responsible for black-white differences in crime with important implications for theory, research, and clinical practice.

Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047-2352(11)00025-0
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jcjust:v:39:y::i:2:p:192-197

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Criminal Justice is currently edited by Matthew DeLisi

More articles in Journal of Criminal Justice from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().