Lifetime offending behaviour among UK military personnel

Abstract: Background: Research has shown that 17% of UK military personnel have a conviction record compared to 28% of similarly aged males from the general population (1). Previous research has focused on specific time-periods, including in-service and post-service separately, but has not explored offending behaviour and trajectories across the life-course of military personnel. This study builds on previous research to further examine offending behaviour prior to joining service, throughout the service period and beyond. Objectives: There were three main study objectives: First, to describe and compare the prevalence of and risk/ protective factors for offending behaviour preservice, during service and post-service; second, to examine the offending trajectories of military personnel who offend at each period; and third, to identify different offender groups and their respective profile characteristics. There were three main study objectives: First, to describe and compare the prevalence of and risk/protective factors for offending behaviour preservice, during service and post-service; second, to examine the offending trajectories of military personnel who offend at each period; and third, to identify different offender groups and their respective profile characteristics. Methods: This was a data linkage study using data from the King’s Centre for Military Health Research (KCMHR) Health and Wellbeing cohort study and the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) Police National Computer (PNC) database. The study linked the criminal offending records of 11,418 male and female UK military personnel with their responses to the KCMHR cohort questionnaires. Offences were categorised based on their legal definition into four main mutually exclusive categories: violent, alcohol/drug, risky driving and non-violent offences. Offenders were categorised as “violent offenders” if they had any record of a violent offence irrespective of whether they also had a non-violent offence. Offenders were categorised as “non-violent offenders” if they only had records of non-violent offences.Offences were categorised as having occurred pre-service, during service and post-service based on dates of hire and actual or projected date of termination supplied by Defence Statistics. A variety of risk and protective factors were explored to assess their association with offending behaviour. These included sociodemographic, military related and mental health variables. Discussion: Offending behaviour was prevalent in the preservice, in-service and post-service periods, with the most common of offences at each timeperiod being non-violent offences, followed by minor interpersonal violent offences. Incidence of offending was highest during the post-service period, suggesting that while offending behaviour is occurring at all three time-periods, based on the first offence in each time period, there are a larger number of new offenders during the post-service period compared to pre-service and in-service periods. 70% of offenders had a record of an offence during service, 65% of whom (n=513) only offended during service. During the in-service period, theft related offences such as stealing and burglary accounted for almost 20% of in-service offences, followed by minor interpersonal offences such as common assault and battery at 15%, and other motor vehicle offences such as driving whilst disqualified and failing to stop after an accident at 12%. This mirrors research in the general population that suggests that acquisitive crimes are the most common offences (36-38) and is echoed in the pre-service offending statistics in this study. This project demonstrated that among those who offend, offending behaviour is prevalent throughout their life course. While this may be due to younger males enlisting in the military at the time at which they are at the peak age for offending, this could also be a result of something that is occurring during military service (a period spanning the enlistment process, training, deployments etc). The risk and protective factors that we found to be associated with offending behaviour were consistent with previous research. Younger males, with lower levels of educational attainment, who had a history of pre-enlistment ASB, who were members of the Army, held lower ranks and had a history of prior offending were at an increased risk of offending. It is noteworthy that these factors did not solely increase the risk of any offending behaviour, but also specifically violent and nonviolent in-service offending. Being a male with ACEs, who were members of the Army, held NCO ranks and had a history of prior offending increased the risk of post-service violent offending. By comparison, holding an NCO rank and having a history of prior offending were associated with post-service non-violent offending.Having a history of offending behaviour as a predictor of further offending was a consistent finding throughout this project. It is the strongest predictor of subsequent offending. Indeed, the more frequent offending in-service the stronger a predictor of post-service offending it was and highlights the need to address offending behaviour by military personnel while in service and understand and address the individual factors contributing to the behaviour.