General Characteristics of the Sample

The data set consisted of records of charges that were received during the 2002 to 2006 for those offenders charged with robbery and also for those charged with sexual offences. It also consisted of the records of charges received in the year 2006 for those offenders

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charged with drug offences. The time period was selected because in 2002 the RBPF started computerising their records. The offences were chosen because it was recommended that these would be the records that were almost completely computerised. Only the year 2006 was chosen for the collection of drug offences because of the share number of charges and the time limitations. The charges were collected instead of the convictions as the use of the conviction data would have greatly reduced the size of data set. The data were extracted solely by the researcher over the period of two years. The RBPF is still in the process of computerising their records and, therefore, the files were both paper-based and computerised. Hence the initial data were collected in an electronic format and then an extensive search of the paper-based format was conducted to ensure that the data were completely accurate as per the records. These records were located in the Crime Intelligence Office and the Criminal Records Office at Central Police Station in the capital of Barbados, Bridgetown, St. Michael.

In the first week of the collection process content dictionaries (Appendix A & B) were constructed. These were analysed for inter-rater reliability using twenty anonymised files. The inter-rater reliability was found to be very high with a score of 98%. The information was placed in an SPSS data matrix after the offenders‟ names were replaced by case numbers. There were a total of 1692 offenders. The data file also contained demographic information and the charge history for each offender.

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Figure 7.1 Histogram of the Age at the Start of the Study for the Offenders in the Sample

Research into the criminal career paradigm has been focused on predominately male offenders as they make up the greater proportion of criminals (Dean et al., 1996; Wolfgang et al., 1972). This was also the case in this data set; in this sample, 96.7% of the offenders were male. This percentage is representative of the proportion found in other studies; for example, in Ezell‟s (2007) study, 96% of the sample was male. The age at the start of the study ranged from 13 to 71 years (see Figure 7.1); mean age 29.72 years (Median= 28.0, Mode= 23.0). The mean age also corresponds to that found in previous studies; for example, in McGloin et al.‟s (2009) study, the mean age was 28.1 years. Indeed, the general age characteristics of the present sample are very much in line with

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previous findings spanning a number of decades. Thus, Pyle (1974) found that the top- risk age group for black and white offenders was between 15 and 25 and Walsh (1980) found that 52% of the study‟s sample were 20 and under and 81% 30 and under. In Budd‟s (1999) study, 16% of the offenders were of school age and 50% were between 16 and 24. In addition, Mawby (2001) found that 26% of the offenders were under 20, 35% 20-24, 23% 25-29 and only 11% 30 or more; i.e. over 50% of the offenders were under twenty-six years old. In Mawby‟s sample, offenders ranged in age from 12-58 and 3.2% of the offenders were under the age of lawful culpability (16 years).

In the majority of previous studies investigating the influence of race, Blacks, although only a minority in the population have tended to make up a disproportionate element of the offending population (see, for example, Blackburn, 1993; Blumstein & Graddy, 1982; Bonczar & Beck, 1997; D‟Alessio & Stolzenberg, 2003; Hindelang, 1978; McGloin et al., 2009; McNulty & Bellair, 2003). The present study is distinctly different from previous work, however, in that the population of Barbados is approximately 93% Blacks, 3.2% Whites and 3.8% mixed. In this sample, 99.3% of the offenders were black; race was, therefore, coded in a binary format: Black and non-Black.

Other demographic characteristics considered in the present study were housing area type, educational level, and employment type. Housing area type was based on the level of income of the majority of the residents living in the same area as the offender. However, there was only one offender who lived in a high income neighbourhood and only one offender had no fixed place of abode. These offenders were, therefore, removed from the housing area type variable. This left 95.8% of the offenders lived in low income housing and 4.2% of the offenders lived in middle income housing. These results are in line with

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previous research which has found that the majority of offenders come from low-income neighbourhoods (Lindstrom, 1995; Wikstrom, 1991).

Four levels of education attained were devised: primary, secondary, skilled, university. This variable indicated the highest level of education completed to date. The majority of offenders (76.6%) had completed secondary level education, 8.9% had completed primary level, 4.2% were skilled and 1.1% had completed university. Information on education level attained was not available for 9.2% of the offenders. The overall educational level displayed in this Barbadian sample is, therefore, higher than found in other studies where a greater proportion of offenders had dropped out of school at an early age (Freeman, 1996; Lochner & Moretti, 2004).

In the present sample, only 23% of the offenders were recorded as employed at the time of the charge which is consistent with previous research findings; for example, Forrester et al. (1988) found that 70% of offenders were unemployed and Mutsaers‟ (1996) offenders were mostly unemployed. Employment type was coded into blue collar work and white collar work. In the present sample, 85.3% of offenders had held blue collar work, 2.4% white collar work, and 12.2% did not provide information on the type of job they had previously held. Blue collar work was defined as any labour intensive work for example a construction work and white collar work was defined as an office job for example a salesman. These proportions indicate that the greater percentage of offenders in the sample had held labour intensive jobs at some point in their lives. As the majority of offenders were unemployed at the time of being charged, type of employment was recorded but not whether the jobs were currently held or had been held only in the past.

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