Self-equity as a trustworthiness measure: The relationship among self-equity and security clearance eligibility adjudications in US Army recruits

ABSTRACT

The United States government’s clearance adjudication process examines past behavior to determine soldier eligibility for a security clearance. For young recruits with a short-documented history, however, little information is available. While informal social controls generally associate with criminal desistance, desistance speaks little about those who have yet to offend. This work extends informal social control theory to better understand military clearance eligibility adjudication outcomes as measured in terms of a self-equity construct. This analysis looks at a twelve-year cohort of US Army recruits who received clearance eligibility adjudication within the first five years of service, as recorded in military archival data in the Person-event Data Environment (PDE) database. Laub, Rowan, & Sampson’s (2018) age-graded theory of informal social control is tested to estimate models, capturing the self-equity effects of moral waiver, qualification-test percentiles, service time, rank, education, and childbirth–marriage interaction. The results demonstrate that self-equity substantively relates to security clearance eligibility adjudication outcomes. These findings carry policy implications for the creation of an objective trustworthiness measure in the absence of reliable documented history.

KEYWORDS:

• Self-equity
• trustworthiness
• informal social control theory
• security clearance eligibility

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the Army Analytics Group Research Facilitation Laboratory. Restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for this study. Data are available in the Person-event Data Environment (PDE) at pde.army.mil with the permission of the Department of Defense.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Variable measures in (parenthetical).

2. 2019 Defense Finance and Accounting Service (https://www.dfas.mil/dam/jcr:a8fe14fa-9234-406b-8b2a-27ab459a6666/MilPayTable2019_3.pdf)/Defense Travel Management Office (https://www.defensetravel.dod.mil)