Abstract

We explore predatory offenders’ subjective perceptions of time and investigate how these perceptions shape their decision-making. We do so by examining interviews with 109 active armed robbers and carjackers in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. These offenders view their lives as unfolding within fatalistic time tracks emerging from financial insecurity and unstable futures. Within these, they define the foreground of their offenses as temporal episodes. Doing so shapes and is shaped by the feelings of control they experience in the episodes. Outside of their offenses, they define the episodes of their lives by contrasting them to the dominant sociotemporal order. We discuss implications for decision-making, cyclical involvement in predatory crime, the rewards of such crime, and the function of present orientation

INTRODUCTION

In attempting to explain the decision-making of individuals who break the law, criminologists commonly identify systemic, socioeconomic factors such as poverty and structural disadvantage as critical factors explaining why some people turn to crime (e.g., Anderson 2000; Berk, Lenihan, and Rossi 1980; Krivo, Peterson, and Kuhl 2009; Sampson and Laub 1995). Micro-level theorists explain criminal involvement by labeling offenders as less controllable (e.g., Nagin and Paternoster 1994), deterrable (e.g., Jacobs 2010; Pogarsky 2002), and empathetic (e.g., Van Gelder 2013). Others highlight how situational elements, such as co-offenders (e.g., Hochstetler 2001; McGloin and Thomas 2016), inebriation (Baskin-Sommers and Sommers 2006; Wright and Decker 1997), and perceived reward (McCarthy 2002; Paternoster and Pogarsky 2009), shape offenders’ decisions.

Less attention has been paid to whether and how offenders’ subjective perceptions of time—their conceptions of the passing of time, the symbolic meanings they and others ascribe to it, their understandings of the past and future, and their roles in the flow of time—influence their decisions. Prior research shows that chronic lawbreakers seem less able or willing than non-offending populations to consider future consequences (Brezina et al. 2009), but such treatments of time as an important determinant of offender decision-making are rare. It is far more common for criminological theories of decision-making to hinge on whether offenders think of time but to offer little or no acknowledgement of time as a multifaceted causal variable. Thus, time is simultaneously a necessary component but also an unacknowledged assumption of most criminological perspectives on offender decision-making.

Take deterrence (Gibbs 1968; Chambliss 1966) and neutralization (Sykes and Matza 1957), for example. Both perspectives structure predictions of offender-decision-making around assumptions about how offenders perceive time. Deterrence assumes the extent to which offenders are deterred is determined by their interpretation of time-reliant consequences of their behavior: When will I get caught? How quickly will I be punished? How long will I be punished? Likewise, neutralization theory assumes offenders consider their present actions in light of their futures: Will I feel guilty? What can I do now to avoid this?

Despite such assumptions, these perspectives do not interrogate offenders’ perceptions of time as topics of interest. They fail to account for how differences in offenders’ perceptions of time may make them more or less deterrable or likely to neutralize their lawbreaking. Time is treated similarly throughout studies of offender decision-making despite it always being a determining factor of whether, when, how, and why an offender will engage in an offense. Time is the context within which an offense takes place and is therefore a critical moderating component of decision-making. Although offenders experience the impact of time reflectively, in the present moment, and anticipatorily, it is viewed as an immutable behavioral factor and unworthy or inaccessible as a subject of research on offender decision-making.

Considerations of how perceptions of time shape non-criminal behavior are common. Studies have explored time perception and behavioral outcomes among children and the elderly (Ferreirra et al. 2016), professional athletes (Tobin and Grondin 2012), military combat personnel (Diaz‐Manzano et al. 2018), medical professionals (Zerubavel 1979), and astronauts (Navarro et al. 2023). They have also examined the influence of culture (Xiaoyang and Eom 2019), emotions (Droit-Volet and Meck 2007), and even high speed transportation (Klein 2004) on such perceptions. Finally, they have explored how time discounting and inabilities to delay gratification result in negative life outcomes (Mischel et al. 1972; Michel 2015). If empirical consideration of time benefits these disparate areas it may also benefit our understanding of lawbreaking. How do offenders experience time? What role does it play in their offending? Answering such questions necessitates a systematic consideration of how offenders reference time to make sense of their pasts, presents, and futures and how they perceive time within the context of their offenses.

The present study addresses these questions through an examination of the ways a group of active, predatory offenders subjectively perceive time. We present a model of time as a critical component of offender decision-making. We conclude with implications for understanding of offenders’ cyclical involvement in predatory crime, the rewards of such crime, and assumptions regarding the deleterious nature of present time orientations among offenders.

Subjective time

Time permeates individuals, societies, and the natural world and thus spans all scientific disciplines and fields of inquiry (Carstensen et al. 1981; Weigert 1981). This pervasiveness has led many scholars to take time for granted and treat it as but the context within which other phenomena change (McGrath and Kelly 1986; Zerubavel 1981). However, others have studied time itself. These include philosophers (Bardon 2013), physicists (Einstein 1916), quantum physicists (Pons, Pons, and Pons 2013), neuropsychologists (Meck 2005), physiologists (Surnina and Lebedeva 2008), and biologists (Winfree, 1980).

Beyond examining the physical nature of time, researchers have also explored its subjective qualities. Contemporary work bridging physiology and psychology demonstrates that the ways people perceive time can vary across the lifespan, in the moment, and when compared to others (e.g., Conway 2004; Parkinson and Wheatley 2013; Pradham and Tripathy 2018). These studies and others in psychology and sociology, argue that people do not always see time as homogenous and divisible into interchangeable segments (McGrath and Kelly 1986; Zerubavel 1979). Some instances of time are instead perceived as distinct given differences in situational, contextual, and social factors (Geertz 1973; Lyman and Scott 1989; Zerubavel 1981). Others are incorporated into a general flow of time unconsciously. This work suggests people perceive time in three overlapping ways: by defining their time tracks, temporal episodes in these time tracks, and through the sociotemporal orders of their respective cultures. These concepts form the basis of a framework for understanding the perception of time that is germane to the decision-making of criminal offenders, particularly those who operate within the day-to-day contexts of urban street offending.

A framework of time

Time tracks

People subjectively perceive time by situating their own pasts, presents, and futures in the continuous flow of time (e.g., Carstensen 1999; Weigert 1981; Zimbardo, Keough, and Boyd 1997). These “time tracks” are bounded by one’s time horizons, or the furthest points in the past and future they perceive activities as relevant to the present (Husman and Hilpert 2017: 268). Time tracks are also characterized by an individual’s sense of personal agency in affecting subsequent outcomes (Frederick et al. 2002; Loughran, Paternoster, and Weiss 2012; Lyman and Scott 1989; Zimbardo and Boyd 2008). Some individuals may consider distant points in the past and future and believe they have some control over present or future outcomes; others may consider themselves within fatalistic time tracks that limit thinking to near term considerations with little sense of long-term control over events and outcomes (Lyman and Scott 1989; Zimbardo and Boyd, 2008).

The character of individuals’ time tracks can be shaped by a range of background factors including education (Worrell and Mello 2007), family environment (Zimbardo and Boyd 2008), substance use (Petry, Bickel, and Arnett 1998), early exposure to violence (Monahan et al. 2015), and socioeconomic deprivation (Carvounas and Ireland, 2008). The income and resource instability and job insecurity (i.e., “precariousness”) that often accompany the latter can make it difficult, if not impossible, for individuals in such circumstances to plan for or think of the future (Fieulaine and Apostolidis 2015) with obvious consequences for those who engage in predatory street offending.1

Temporal episodes

People also subjectively perceive time by distinguishing segments of it with defined beginnings and endings from the broader continuous flow of time (Zerubavel 1979). These temporal episodes can be lengthy, such as one’s time as a student, or mere moments (Weigert 1981). Because these episodes are disconnected from continuous time, their intrinsic rules can be similarly disconnected from the world beyond their temporal boundaries. This permits individuals to act or see themselves in ways during some episodes differently than they would in others (Lyman and Scott 1989). These actions and self-perceptions, in turn, shape and are shaped by the meanings individuals give to these episodes (Lyman and Scott 1989; Weigert 1981).

Consider holidays. During a holiday, those “celebrating” it first label the day as conceptually distinct. This encourages them to think and act differently during it. Perhaps they are typically frugal, but on the holiday they eat and drink heartily. Perhaps they typically avoid spirituality, but on the holiday they worship. Such thoughts and actions reinforce the day’s meaning as distinct from other days.

Robbery, according to Lyman and Scott (1989), is another way individuals may create temporal episodes and derive meaning from them. They argue that individuals in fatalistic time tracks may respond to perceived lack of control by taking part in risky activities like robbery. When committing robberies, individuals carve these episodes from past and future events and also impose temporally bounded rules on them. This allows them to shift from seeing themselves as lacking control to having sway over their fate (during the episode).

Sociotemporal orders

Just as individuals subjectively perceive time (i.e., as time tracks or temporal episodes), collectives of people do likewise through “sociotemporal orders.” These are systems of norms dictating culturally approved standard sequences, durations, chronological periods (e.g., time of day or year), and recurrences of events or activities (McGrath and Kelly 1986; Zerubavel 1981). For instance, in modern Western culture, daily and weekly activities are expected to follow a fairly rigid schedule. One wakes, eats, and enjoys recreation at normatively prescribed hours (Zerubavel 1981).

A culture’s sociotemporal order temporally patterns activity among its members or promotes them doing the same kinds of things at the same times (Zerubavel 1981; see also, McGrath and Kelly 1986 on “entrainment”)2. It also imbues temporal episodes with meaning (Zerubavel 1979). Consider how identical social acts may be assigned different social meanings if taking place during different times. For instance, sexual intercourse between two individuals during their first meeting may be viewed as “too soon” and thus inappropriate. Following their marriage, however, the same act may be viewed as appropriate because it occurs at the “proper time.” Finally, a culture’s sociotemporal order defines how time should be viewed more broadly. In Western culture, time is likened to money. It is a symbolic object that can be saved, invested, and spent (Weigert 1981). Above all, it is not to be “wasted” (Weber 1958).

Hence, the sociotemporal order is a perceptual framework by which cultural members collectively define normative and deviant behavior (Abbott 2022; Balmer, Meckin, and Abbott 2021). As with other normative systems, those who do things at the “proper times” can develop and maintain group identity and social solidarity with others who follow the same norms (Zerubavel 1981). Group members may then identify those who do not adhere to the sociotemporal order as outgroups and treat them as such (Zerubavel 1979). For instance, because time is money in Western culture, those who “spend” time on activities that are not income-producing are seen in a negative light (Weigert 1981).

In sum, our framework of time recognizes that people, including offenders, have an understanding of time as flowing from some indefinite point in the past to some indefinite point in the future, with specified implications for how they perceive and respond to events. They situate their time tracks—or their subjective perceptions of the pasts and futures of their own lives and their roles in them—in this flow. Within these time tracks, they see some segments of time—temporal episodes—as different than others. Finally, the sociotemporal norms order of their respective cultures encompass all of these understandings. This framework provides a way to connect the historical, cultural, and structural components of society (i.e., the background conditions) to the context of offending (offenders’ time tracks) and its foreground (the temporal episodes in which they commit crimes). As such, it provides a useful tool for examining decision-making as it flows through these stages of offending and beyond.

Time in studies of criminality

Time plays a key role in almost all studies of criminality, particularly in the case of causal analysis. Methodologically, researchers studying crime measure or control variables with variations of time such as lags, latencies, rates, or durations. Studies are very often temporally bounded. Many threats to validity (e.g., history, testing, instrumentation) and causality have temporal natures. Researchers incorporate time in their explanations of criminality, victimization, and crime control in several ways. In much research it is the conceptual cornerstone against which other variables change, as in longitudinal and time-series analyses examining how the values of one or more variables fluctuate over repeated points in time (e.g., Lauritsen 2005; Rosenfeld, Fornango, and Rengifo, 2007; Weisburd et al. 2004). In other research, time, along with space, is a dimension in which to situate criminal events and explore their patterning (e.g., Brantingham and Brantingham 1984; Cohen and Felson 1979).

A third body of research, lifecourse criminology, relies on time as the framework in which events or roles are sequenced. Lifecourse theories argue roles are “age-graded” because they are only to be adopted at certain points during the lifecourse (e.g., Sampson and Laub 1993; Uggen 2000). Other research explores the relationship between how people “spend” their time and their criminal propensity. People who spend their time in activities that are unstructured (e.g., Osgood et al. 1996; Riley 1987) or those that locate them with motivated offenders and a lack of guardians (e.g., Cohen and Felson 1979; Holt and Bossler 2008) have a higher likelihood of deviance, crime, and victimization.

Prior work amply shows that offenders’ orientations to the present and future influence their decisions. Present-oriented individuals are less likely to consider long term consequences and more likely to participate in risky, deviant, or criminal activity (e.g., Gottfredson and Hirschi 1990; LaGrange and Silverman 1999; Nagin and Paternoster 1994). Scholars surmise they either intentionally discount or fail to consider future rewards or consequences. This subjectively inflates present rewards despite their lower objective value or higher potential for negative outcomes (e.g., Bickel and Marsch 2001; Loughran, Paternoster, and Weiss 2012; Nagin and Pogarsky 2004).

Prior research also demonstrates that offenders and others can give different meanings to the episodes or phases of their lives. Lifecourse scholarship shows that offenders and others see their lives as consisting of disparate phases in which they differentially view themselves and participate in varied activities (e.g., Benson and Kerley 2000; Sampson and Laub 1993). Similarly, research exploring offenders’ narratives notes that individuals tell stories as a means to distinguish their present and past selves (Maruna 2001; Presser 2008; Sandberg 2009). And prison research illustrates how current or former inmates see time while locked up as different from that occurring on the outside (e.g., Cohen and Taylor 1978; Matthews 1999; Medlicott 1999).

Hence, while much of criminology fails to address time as a causal variable of interest, there is support for the notion that offenders’ views of time influence their decision-making and that time should therefore be taken more seriously as a subject of criminological research. We therefore examine time itself. Specifically, we explore how offenders perceive their time tracks and how these perceptions are shaped by external forces. We also investigate whether and how offenders define temporal episodes in the foreground of offending. Finally, we examine how offenders’ decisions are influenced by the dominant sociotemporal order.

DATA AND METHODS

Our study is informed by interviews with 109 active predatory offenders from St. Louis, Missouri, USA. The sample consists of 84 active armed robbers interviewed for an earlier study on armed robbery (XXXX 1997) and 25 active carjackers featured in an earlier study on carjacking (Jacobs et al. 2003). Both studies were conducted with the same basic research design and had the same intent: to explore the background and foreground of these crimes from the perspective of active, unincarcerated offenders.

Both groups were located and recruited in the mid to late nineties using a snowball sampling strategy (Watters and Biernacki 1989). This relies on offender networks and consists of locating participants who have a specific characteristic (such as actively committing armed robbery or carjacking) and asking them to refer others with the same characteristic. Initial participants were recruited through a fieldworker with longstanding social ties to individuals actively engaged in crime.

To meet the criteria for participation in either study, potential participants had to 1) have committed an armed robbery or a carjacking in the previous month; 2) self-identify as an active robber or carjacker; or 3) be regarded as a robber or carjacker by other participants. The robbers were involved in street and commercial robberies. The carjackers were also sometimes involved in street or commercial robberies. Additionally, participants in both groups reported occasional involvement in drug sales, theft, and burglary.

The participants’ narratives indicate that the sample consists of novice and experienced armed robbers or carjackers. Most participants admitted to participating in many armed robberies or carjackings; several reported only being involved in a few. The majority of the participants reported experiences with being arrested at one or more times for predatory or other types of crime. Only a handful had never been arrested or convicted.

The sample consists primarily of African-American males, although it does include 3 white males (armed robbers) and 18 African-American females (13 armed robbers and 5 carjackers). The ages of the sample range from 15 to 51 years old. The majority of the sample were not working at the time of data collection and had either inconsistent or non-existent work records.

The participants were interviewed for 1-2 hours by various members of the research teams, using a semi-structured format. This allowed for free-flowing conversations wherein interviewees could elucidate their stories at will or when prompted. It also permitted the researchers to clarify their interests and respond to interviewee questions. The researchers probed vague or inconsistent responses in an effort to increase validity. Both studies were approved and monitored by the home institution’s human subjects research committee to ensure compliance with ethical and safety standards.

Both studies aimed to understand how active armed robbers or carjackers perceive, interpret, and respond to circumstances and opportunities surrounding armed robbery or carjacking (see, Wright and Decker 1997).3 Following typical active offender data collection protocol, offenders were asked to describe their motivations to engage in specific criminal acts, then describe the planning, targeting, execution, and aftermath components of these incidents. In addition to eliciting a good deal of objective information about criminal events, these interviews provide a rich accounting of the subjective features of offending, with interviewees asked to consider many facets of the offending process as it applied to them individually. They were also asked about other subjects such as guilt, their families, and their experiences with work.

Analysis

Initial data collection for these studies was not guided by questions regarding how predatory offenders define time and the relationship of these definitions to their lifestyles and offending.4 The impetus for the present study instead came about post hoc as the result of our understanding of extant literature and the content of the interviews. While the participants were not directly asked about time or how they defined it, analysis of their interviews revealed that their varying considerations of time were a frequent subject of discourse. For example, when discussing the foreground of their offending, it was common for them to use language indicating that they perceived their offenses as temporally bounded and distinct from their views of time more broadly.

We used NVivo during analysis to organize our conceptual domains. Initial analysis consisted of comparing the interviewees’ comments within and across the interviews. We then categorized similar responses and statements into broad domains (e.g., “broad view of time,” “time before during after offense”). We next refined these broad domains by separating the responses within on the basis of similarities or dissimilarities into more specific subdomains (e.g., “fatalism,” “freezing time during offense”) (see Spradley 1979). When we identified a theme in one interview, we then searched for its presence in the other interviews. Following the first round of coding, all domains were reexamined to ensure the conceptual similarity of the comments comprising them. The subdomains were also reexamined to determine if they were conceptually distinct or should be combined. This resulted in the themes informing the findings. It should be noted that throughout analysis no systematic differences between the armed robbers and carjackers were noted in terms of the ways they defined time or the relationship between these definitions and their lifestyles and offending.

FINDINGS

The interviewees indicated that they subjectively perceived time in several ways. First, they talked about how living through “hard times” situated them in fatalistic time tracks. Second, they defined their offenses as distinct temporal episodes. In doing so, they gained a sense of (fleeting) control that was unavailable in their everyday experience. Finally, they defined the time periods outside their offending by contrasting them to the dominant sociotemporal order.

Fatalistic time tracks

The interviewees lives were dominated by extreme structural disadvantage and the correlates of such disadvantage (see e.g., Wilson 2012; Bourgois 2003; Anderson 2000). All hailed from neighborhoods featuring high rates of poverty, inadequate schooling systems, a lack of decent employment, rampant violence, widespread illicit drug use and sales, and high rates of imprisonment (see, Wright and Decker 1997). Living in such circumstances colored the interviewees’ views of the present and future such that they saw themselves living in fatalistic time tracks. Specifically, they viewed the present as characterized by prolonged financial insecurity or, in their words, “hard times,” and the future as out of their control.

The present: Hard times

The interviewees’ all grimly summed up their present experience as “hard times” (Richard L. Brown; Playboy)5. As Pacman put it, “I gotta deal with reality every motherfucking day...For me, the best way to describe reality, hard-assed times, man. Difficult times.” These “hard times” consisted of a constant, pressing need for money and the inability to obtain it predictably and regularly. As previously mentioned, most interviewees were unemployed and had unstable licit income. As Playboy put it, “At that time it was a struggle...We didn’t have no money…We was jobless.”

For many, this unemployment stemmed from unsuccessful attempts to get hired or a lack of jobs altogether. Regarding the former, Antwon Wright said, “I need money. I fill out applications daily. Somebody says this is bad you got tattoos…looking for a job, in a way that’s discrimination. How do you know I can’t do the job?” Kid Kutt spoke likewise, “I send out applications, I try to fill out applications sometimes. I ain’t got no phone, I’m not situated so basically if they do call me I won’t get the messages or nothing like that. So basically I live day to day.” In regards to the latter, Goldie put it simply. “There ain’t no jobs in the hood, no jobs.”

Most of the interviewees thus led lives plagued by financial uncertainty. Without regular paydays to count on, the unpredictability of being able to pay for things—be they bills, food, or drugs—paradoxically became the only thing they could reliably predict. A comment from Fred Harris illustrates this:

I’m good at budgeting my money…cause I know it’s got to last…on Monday…I usually have something left over [from weekend robberies] to where I can still keep going. It usually carry me until Wednesday, that’s when I start hurting. Thursdays is when I start making my sleepless plans…what I’m gonna do, know that I’m at the point…I’m broke.

These hard times motivated the interviewees to go out and forcibly take money or vehicles from others. When asked why he robbed someone, Bob Jones replied, “Desperation. Just wanting to have some money.” Robber 72’s6 response was more descriptive:

I’m trying to put in applications here and…there and…they ain’t got no jobs, you don’t have enough education and shit like that. You just say fuck this shit, man. Hey, I go get paid the best way I know how and that’s what I do.

But solving their financial uncertainty in this way only heightened the interviewees’ sense that the future would hold negative circumstances: if not more hard times, incarceration or an early death instead.

The future: Whatever happens, happens

All of the interviewees’ discussions of the future suggested they saw themselves careening toward prison or early graves. When asked where they saw themselves in the future, they responded like George, who said, “I see myself in the penitentiary.” This partially stemmed from understanding they would eventually be caught by police. As T-Bone said, “The law is going to catch up with you one day.” Or as Frank Nitti #2 put it, “Everybody gets caught…If you do it long enough.” It also came from a cultural understanding that most young men from their neighborhoods end up in prison at some point. Tall stressed to the interviewers that men like him “live in a totally different world” where prison is an assumed future. Pacman put it this way. “You got colleges and [we got] fucking…prison.”

They spoke similarly about early death. “You gonna go one day,” said Redwood. Bill Williams echoed this, “I’m gonna tell you man, one day man, it’s gonna come to an end man.” “I’ll say it like this,” Kid Kutt observed, “Eventually gonna come down to me, gonna catch up with me anyway” (see, Brezina et al. 2009).

Notably, the interviewees emphasized these outcomes were out of their control. Most did so by peppering comments about getting caught or killed with asides such as “whatever happens, happens” (Treason Taylor) or “what comes around, goes around” (Kid Kutt). Some were more descriptive. Joe Murphy explained it this way, “The last thing you worry about is getting caught,” he said. “If it happens, it happens. It’s just that time. You know it’s inevitable that one day it’s gonna come so you don’t trip on it.”

Hence, the interviewees’ disadvantaged circumstances resulted in their lack of access to worthwhile employment and thus their financial insecurity. They committed armed robbery and carjacking to address this, which, in turn, increased their perceptions they were heading to prison or early death. Because they saw their actions having little effect on these outcomes, it was rare for them to think of time beyond the immediate future. Seeing their lives as situated in these fatalistic time tracks then influenced the interviewees’ perceptions of their offenses as distinct temporal episodes wherein they were in control.

Robbery and carjacking as temporal episodes

Defining the episode

The interviewees first indicated they distinguished their offenses as temporal episodes apart from their time tracks when discussing changes in their thinking during the foreground of these offenses. This started when the idea of robbery or carjacking would occur to them. Binge described this as a thought “crossing” his “mind.” Larry Washington commented on how robbery would “pop into my mind.”

They would then limit their focus to the time horizons of the anticipated offense. “I don’t think about nothing,” Wallie Cleaver said. “When I see them and I know that’s who I’m gonna get I just go on and do it…. I don’t have time to sit there and think.” Thugg spoke similarly, “Nothing be going through our heads but rob and get out.” Playboy said, “You don’t have no time to think on what you’re doing.” James Love said, “I don’t worry about no time, no nothing.” When planning an offense, James Williams did “nothing but click [think about it] all the time.”

Many of the interviewees intentionally limited their thinking to the offense and nothing beyond. “I put forth an effort to try not to think,” Marko Maze said. Richard L. Brown commented likewise, “You can’t let nothing change your thoughts.” Tall stressed, “I know when I’m gonna do something I’m putting my mind strictly on taking what I set out for.” Some used drugs or alcohol to this end. Tony Brown explained, “Psych yourself up to do it…Get so high, you be so fucking out of your mind that you don’t care.”

In addition to constructing the foreground of their offenses as distinct temporal episodes by not thinking beyond the time horizons of the offense, the interviewees also did so by taking atypical actions within them. As Burle put it, during robberies he did things “you wouldn’t normally do.” This included carrying a firearm. “The only time that I would ever carry a gun is when I was going to do this,” Bennie Simmons said.

In sum, the interviewees thought of little else in the moments prior to their crimes and took actions (e.g., robbing, carrying guns) within these temporal boundaries they would not take during “regular times” (e.g., during recreation, while grocery shopping, etc.). As with the way people think and act differently on holidays, this suggests that they see these time periods as distinct from other temporal episodes in their lives and as separate from their fatalistic time tracks. In doing so, the interviewees were able to transcend those time tracks during the temporal boundaries of their offenses and experience feelings of control otherwise unavailable to them (see Katz 1988).

Episodic control

All of the interviewees commented on gaining feelings of control during offense episodes. They did so in several ways. First, in limiting their thinking to the foreground of their offenses they did not worry about future consequences they considered out of their control (i.e., arrest, death, etc.). This came across in their responses to whether they thought about getting caught or killed. Killer Slob replied, “You can’t think about it when you doing it. You think about that then you be scared and shit, then you be like, no, let me leave this thing alone before I get caught.” James Scott declared, “If you think you gonna get caught the police might swoop on you.” Syco spoke likewise, “Cause if you think about getting caught that’s when the police start coming around.” By avoiding such thoughts they focused on things in their control—like executing the offense.

Many directly referred to experiencing control during offense episodes. When asked why commit robbery despite the risks of prison time, Burle replied, “…the thrill of it. You in control.” Without pausing, he emphasized how things were outside of a robbery, stating “Life dictates control.” Robert Lee Davis stressed how for one lacking control the attraction of control in a robbery was self-evident. “You ever been in control of something? When you got a gun, you are in control of something.”

The interviewees also implicitly referred to feelings of control by noting the absence of other antithetical feelings like anxiety when planning or during offense episodes. Robert Gibson described how his nervousness would dissipate when he got “into the action of robbing.” He explained, “Then I’m committed, there is no time for nervousness.” Nick spoke similarly. “The scared starts when you walk in. The scared stops when you get the man…or the woman in the palm of your hand.”

The interviewees also gained feelings of control by forcefully redefining victims’ understanding of time within the offense’s duration. In their words, they would take victims’ “time.” This involved “catching victims sleeping,” or wrapped up in their own time tracks or temporal episodes, and then imposing their own definitions of the temporal episode on them. As Playboy put it, “If you caught sleeping, you get got.”

Sometimes this involved informing victims that it was now a different “time.” Loco did so during a carjacking, “The driver was in the car…when I made my move, bam. He looked like, ‘What’s up?’ I say, ‘You know what time it is. Get up off this motherfucker.’” It is important to note that prior to announcing the robbery or carjacking the interviewees had already defined the time for themselves. This gave the interviewees a “moral advantage” over victims in that they knew “what time it is” but the victims did not (see Katz 1988: 171-174). They then controlled the episode by imposing their understanding on victims who, until the announcement of the crime, did not know they were in a robbery or carjacking episode.

Here we see how the feelings of control armed robbers and carjackers experience during their offenses are both a product of considering these offenses as distinct episodes and an indication of the way they temporally distinguish robberies or carjackings from their time tracks. This functions in much the same way as our previous example concerning holidays. We may think or act differently on a holiday because it has been temporally defined as different than other days and we may also call the day a holiday because we are thinking and acting differently during it. In the present case, through considering armed robberies or carjackings as temporally distinct, predatory offenders do not think of the future and thereby gain feelings of control; by experiencing feelings of control during such offenses, they mark these episodes as distinct from their everyday lives wherein they do not experience such feelings.

Resisting the dominant sociotemporal order

The third way interviewees subjectively perceived time was by defining episodes in their lives outside of their offenses as their “own time.” Unlike the temporal episodes of their offenses, which gained their meaning through their difference from the interviewees’ time tracks, they defined their “own time” by contrasting it to the demands of the dominant sociotemporal order.

This was suggested in their replies to queries about whether they would work if possible. Although some desired employment, others were unwilling to take licit employment because of its demands on their time. Goldie described why he preferred robbery over a legit job, “It’s [robbery] more relaxed. I got my own time. I ain’t gotta wake up for no motherfucker. Wake up when I feel like it.” Nicole claimed she “wasn’t gonna find no job” because she “didn’t like the hours.” Mo stated, “At a job you’ve…got to punch the clock, do what somebody else tells you...I ain’t got time for that.”

Moreover, the interviewees emphasized their “own time” also allowed them to do whatever they wanted to do when they wanted to do it. Describing her day to day, Sexy Diva said, “Basically, it’s just…me. It’s like whatever I feel like fucking doing. Sometimes I feel like not doing shit.” Carjacking provided Pookie this opportunity:

You do it the way you want to do it…You want to do it at night, you can do it at night. If you want to do it in the day, you can do it in the daytime. You want to do it first thing in the morning…well you can do it at that time. There ain’t nothing that specify what time of day you do this… you want to get out of bed at three o’clock in the morning to go carjacking…you can….Don’t make no difference. I do it morning, lunch, afternoon, first thing at [the] crack of dawn.

When they had money, this involved the heedless pursuit of illicit action (Wright and Decker 1997). Describing what he did with money in his pocket, Menace said, “Sit back. Everything, get drunk, high, that’s mainly what we do when we get the money. Buy dope.” Tall exemplified the rest of the interviewees in portraying himself as an “extremist” who would “take it to another level” and spend all his money on “having a nice time, women,” and “some weed, some drink or some heroin.”

Defining their own time also provided the interviewees with a sense of control. It first did so through truncating their future time horizons and thus limiting their consideration of negative future outcomes. This was particularly the case when these episodes involved partying. Once they dedicated an episode to partying, they did not think past the temporal bounds of the episode, which allowed them to avoid thoughts of hard times, prison, and early death. Being in control of the moment, they could then enjoy themselves. Ray Holmes described just such a situation. “I gave my landlord some money and sent a little money…to the electric company, and a little bit…to the gas company,” he said. “I still had… $20 or $30…I got me some beer, cigarettes, and some on a stone [crack cocaine]. Enjoy myself for a minute.” Furthermore, in limiting their thoughts solely to partying, they also avoided thoughts of consequences that could come from partying (e.g., financial desperation, withdrawal symptoms) which might otherwise discourage them from partying to excess, depleting their resources, and thus returning to states of financial desperation.

The second way their own time gave them a sense of control was through its symbolism as an act of resistance against the normative demands of the dominant sociotemporal order. Recall that the interviewees could not control their sociostructural positions and the economic and employment marginalization and fatalistic time tracks stemming from these positions. They could, however, control what they did and when they did it on a day-to-day basis. This, in turn, facilitated their self-identification as agentic persons. Po-Po put it eloquently when stating, “I’m just too goddamn bad for me to take rules from any-motherfucking-body. That’s just how I am.” Thus, by not working and partying whenever they felt like it, the interviewees rejected conventional temporal demands (i.e., working “regular hours,” partying at “reasonable” times, not “wasting” their time) and thereby claimed positive moral identities.

DISCUSSION

The aims of this article were to examine how a group of active armed robbers and carjackers subjectively perceive time and to explore how these perceptions guide their decision-making. Our findings demonstrate that these offenders view their lives as fatalistic time tracks owing to present financial insecurity and unstable futures. We also find that they define the foreground of their offenses as temporal episodes and that doing so shapes and is shaped by the feelings of control they experience during these episodes. Finally, they define the episodes of their lives outside of their offending by contrasting them to the dominant sociotemporal order.

So, what do these findings tell us about the role of subjective time in the decision-making processes of violent, predatory offenders? First, the context of predatory offending is partially characterized by offenders’ time tracks. The way they think of time—their lack of regard for the future or consequences therein—allows them to contemplate involvement in acts potentially leading to imprisonment or death. Second, offenders’ movement from the context of offending (which primes them for criminal involvement) to its foreground (wherein they commence criminal action) is guided by shifts in the way they view time. Specifically, by restricting their time horizons to the temporal episodes of predatory crimes they gain situation-specific feelings of control that allow them to initiate these offenses. Third, by subjectively distinguishing the episodes of their lives as separate from the dominant sociotemporal order, predatory offenders gain feelings of control and autonomy which facilitate their decisions to party and otherwise heedlessly spend their money, flying in the face of the accepted cultural precepts of larger society.

Finally, armed robbers and carjackers’ subjective views of time also play a role in their movement from the foreground of one offense into the context and initiation of another. This pattern is a hallmark of the concept of an etiological cycle of offending (see, Lofland 1969; Wright and Decker 1994). In constructing views of their offenses, not working, and partying as temporal episodes, these offenders gain feelings of control and agency. However, such behavior obviously leads to longer term consequences. Robbing people at gun point actually gives the police reasons to find and arrest them. Not working and partying rapidly depletes their financial resources. Thus, although they gain feelings of control and agency, these are fleeting, and they do so at the cost of increasing their perceptions of (and anxiety regarding) the likelihood of arrest and financial insecurity. In doing so, they stoke their belief that the future is out of their control and bound to continue or end badly. Continuing to see their lives as fatalistic time tracks then returns them to cognitive states wherein criminal involvement is acceptable if not inevitable.

Over three decades ago, Jack Katz (1988) argued against the “dominant political and sociological understanding that crime is motivated by materialism” (1988) by suggesting that that those who participate in crime also often seek rewards such as excitement or a sense of moral righteousness. Our findings build on this foundational work by highlighting how one of the rewards of predatory crime can be a sense of control over the environment (see also, Luckenbill 1980, 1981; Wright and Decker 1997). That control likely contributes to the strong sense of criminal self-efficacy demonstrated by seasoned offenders (Brezina and Topalli 2012). We add to this literature by noting that these feelings are derived from offenders’ subjective views of time. By distinguishing offenses from their time tracks, offenders can avoid thinking of the future and thus give themselves a sense of control otherwise unavailable to them.

Extant research has shown that the lifestyles of street criminals are centered on not only criminal action but also on other forms of deviance and risky behaviors. These include, but are not limited to, avoiding legitimate work, gambling, sexual promiscuity, and using drugs and alcohol (e.g., Bourgois 2003; Shover 1996; Wright and Decker 1994, 1997). This research suggests that such lifestyles are a cultural response to the socioeconomic deprivation that stems from structural disadvantage. But they are also embedded within a particular orientation to the future. For instance, Anderson (1999) argues that one of the reasons street offenders conspicuously consume and drink and do drugs to excess is to show others in their communities that they have the wherewithal to do so. This provides them a source of status unavailable through more conventional means such as education or occupation. Anderson also notes that such considerations are grounded within a particular way of thinking about time (as finite and short, see also Brezina et al. 2009 discussion of anticipated early death). In doing this, it also communicates to others (including rivals) that such individuals are immune to the existential threats of violence that might cause others to back down from a challenge or steer them away from their path of conspicuous consumption and risk-taking (see, Jacobs et al. 2000). Our study bolsters this literature by noting that participating in these “deviant” actions is also a way that individuals in disadvantaged socioeconomic circumstances can stake out their own autonomy. More specifically, we show that by committing predatory offenses, not working, and partying when desired, street offenders resist the demands of the dominant sociotemporal order and thereby create and manage positive, albeit fleeting, feelings of control and agency in a lifestyle that produces none of these things.

Our findings also speak to current understandings of present and future orientation across individuals. As previously noted, scholars studying crime have long argued that present-oriented individuals are more likely to participate in crime or to do so in ways that have a high probability of netting negative future consequences (e.g., Nagin and Paternoster 1994; Zimbardo and Boyd 2008). These arguments have been supported across studies exploring a wide range of demographic groups and offending types (e.g., Gottfredson and Hirschi 1990; Loughran, Paternoster, and Weiss 2012; Stoddard, Zimmerman, and Bauermeister 2011; van Gelder, Hershfield, and Nordgren 2013). While important, this literature overwhelmingly focuses on the benefits of a future orientation. Our study joins a small body of research highlighting that, at times, a present orientation may also be beneficial (e.g., Beiser and Hyman 1997; Epel et al. 1999; Fieulaine and Apostolidis 2015). By thinking only of the present, the predatory offenders we studied avoided dwelling on negative future events over which they had no perceived control. This facilitated their participation in crime—which addressed their immediate needs—and also resulted in them experiencing positive cognitive and emotional effects: feelings of control and agency. Thus, in disadvantaged and unstable socioeconomic circumstances, a present rather than a future orientation may be a more adaptive strategy by which individuals can achieve positive mental outlooks and survive.

The questions that remain are, to what extent are such orientations the product of background and context? Are these orientations situationally produced or do they reflect more stable differences between individuals? Certainly, what takes place in the foreground of offending is the culmination of these forces. How we conceptualize them will have implications for how we address offending in the future. For example, we may view time discounting as the product of early childhood experiences with violence. Or we may think of individuals as having future time discounting personalities which bifurcate them into those who seek risky behaviors (like crime) and those who do not. The interplay between situational and dispositional influences on how people view time will impact their choice to engage in crime differentially across various contextual factors. This relationship – between the prevailing conditions of where street crime commonly takes place and the individuals who have been subject to its objective and cultural influences – would seem to situate time as a central, organizing construct for understanding offender decision-making, one that requires scholars to more consciously acknowledge its influence for a fuller exploration of the motivations behind criminal behavior.

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