The validity of self-reported convictions in a community sample: Findings from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development
| Published date | 01 September 2015 |
| Date | 01 September 2015 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1477370815578198 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
European Journal of Criminology
2015, Vol. 12(5) 562 –580
© The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/1477370815578198
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The validity of self-reported
convictions in a community
sample: Findings from the
Cambridge Study in
Delinquent Development
Katherine M. Auty and David P. Farrington
Cambridge University, UK
Jeremy W. Coid
Queen Mary University London, UK
Abstract
Self-report surveys are among the most widely used methods of collecting data on delinquent
behaviour, despite persistent concerns over systematic bias. Further investigation into this
area is necessary, because the increasing difficulty of obtaining detailed official criminal
records is making researchers increasingly reliant on self-reports. Therefore, this analysis
investigates the validity of self-reported conviction data in a community sample of young adults
who are the offspring of the original male participants in the Cambridge Study in Delinquent
Development. The analysis revealed a high level of concurrent validity, although those who
had several convictions or convictions for serious offences were more likely to under-report
them, whereas older offenders were less likely to over-report. Those living with their parents
were less likely to under-report and more likely to over-report their offences. The predictive
validity analyses demonstrated that self-reports significantly predicted subsequent convictions
for property, violent, drug and driving offences. Users of self-report data need to take these
results into consideration.
Keywords
Self-reported convictions, systematic bias, validity
Corresponding author:
Katherine M. Auty, Institute of Criminology, Cambridge University, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge CB3 9DA,
UK.
Email: ka404@cam.ac.uk
578198EUC0010.1177/1477370815578198European Journal of CriminologyAuty et al.
research-article2015
Article
Auty et al. 563
Introduction
The development of self-report survey methodology is thought to be the most important
factor in advancing our understanding of delinquent behaviour (Krohn et al., 2011b).
Therefore, it is important to investigate how accurate self-reports are, because it is pos-
sible that the most delinquent individuals are more likely to provide inaccurate self-
reports, either intentionally or unintentionally. For these reasons, self-reports are often
compared with another data source, most commonly official criminal records. Both types
of data are known to contain errors, and therefore it is recommended in practice that both
data sources be examined alongside each other (Piquero et al., 2003; Weis, 1986). In this
analysis, our concern is whether errors occur in self-report data in a systematic way. We
have two aims: firstly, to examine the validity of self-reported convictions by comparing
them with official criminal records and, secondly, to examine whether self-reported
offending is predictive of later convictions. Key developments in self-report methodol-
ogy are outlined here first, but readers are referred to Thornberry and Krohn (2000) for a
more detailed history.
Surveys of self-reported delinquency collect data on the respondent’s criminal con-
victions or their delinquent behaviour in a more general sense, such as arrests or contacts
with the police. The key issue examined in the literature is the correlation between par-
ticipants’ self-reports and their officially recorded contacts with the criminal justice sys-
tem. Studies comparing self-reported criminal behaviour and official records generally
report fairly high correlations (from 0.3 to 0.6) (Elliott and Voss, 1974; Farrington, 1973;
Hirschi, 1969). However, studies comparing self-reported convictions with criminal or
court records yield even higher agreement (Huizinga and Elliott, 1986; Marquis, 1981;
West and Farrington, 1977). This is thought to be due to respondents being more likely
to remember a conviction than an arrest or police contact (Weis, 1986). We can also
assume that those who are convicted did commit the offence and therefore any errors in
self-reporting are most likely to be attributable to respondents forgetting or deliberately
misrepresenting their criminal histories, perhaps for a variety of reasons. The relation-
ship between self-reported and officially recorded convictions is considered to be the
most important comparison because the respondent’s self-report is put to its ‘most direct
and severest test’ (Weis, 1986: 13) and it is this relationship that is examined here. The
accuracy of self-reports is likely to depend on a number of factors, for example, offend-
ing characteristics such as the number of convictions and the seriousness of the offence,
and individual characteristics such as drug and alcohol misuse, and these factors are also
explored.
The development of self-report survey methodology
The early self-report surveys of Short and Nye (1958), Porterfield (1943) and Wallerstein
and Wylie (1947) found that most people were fairly willing to self-report their contacts
with law enforcement agencies. However, an increasingly methodological approach,
which involved constructing response scales and engaging with issues of sampling, reli-
ability and validity, began to reveal that there were discrepancies between self-reported
accounts of offending and official records.
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