Crime and Destiny: Patterns in Serious Offenders' Mortality Rates

Large-scale cohort studies suggest that offenders are more likely to experience premature death. We argue, in this paper, that strain, self-control, and differential association theories would all predict higher fatality rates among offenders but rely on different processes in order to account for differential outcomes. Whereas low self-control theory holds that higher offender mortality rates are accident driven and unrelated per se to criminal activities, strain theory emphasizes the significance of suicides and overdoses as critical factors underlying offenders' excess mortality rates. Co-offending research, on the other hand, would predict that offenders' higher mortality rates will incorporate a significant, crime-related, occupational-hazard component.

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