TIME TRENDS AND AGE TRENDS IN ARRESTS AND SELF-REPORTED ILLEGAL BEHAVIOR*

National estimates of time trends and age trends in self-reported illegal behavior in the United States are compared with corresponding figures for arrests. The self-report data are from Monitoring the Future, an annual national survey of high school seniors. The analysis of time trends covers 1975 through 1985 for a sample of over 3,000 respondents per year, studied at a constant age. The analysis of age trends covers ages 17 through 23 for samples of 300 to 1,200 per year. Both self-report and arrest measures reveal substantial declines in illegal behavior throughout this age span, with the exception of arrests for assault. Both methods also indicate that rates of assault increased from 1975 through 1985, a finding that has not previously been reported. Time trends for other offenses were erratic.     

EXPLAINING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EMPLOYMENT AND JUVENILE DELINQUENCY*

Most criminological theories predict an inverse relationship between employment and crime, but teenagers' involvement in paid work during the school year is correlated positively with delinquency and substance use. Whether the work–delinquency association is causal or spurious has been debated for a long time. This study estimates the effect of paid work on juvenile delinquency using longitudinal data from the national Monitoring the Future project. We address issues of spuriousness by using a two-level hierarchical model to estimate the relationships of within-individual changes in juvenile delinquency and substance use to those in paid work and other explanatory variables. We also disentangle the effects of actual employment from the preferences for employment to provide insight about the likely role of time-varying selection factors tied to employment, delinquency, school engagement, and leisure activities. Whereas causal effects of employment would produce differences based on whether and how many hours respondents worked, we found significantly higher rates of crime and substance use among nonemployed youth who preferred intensive versus moderate work. Our findings suggest the relationship between high-intensity work and delinquency results from preexisting factors that lead youth to desire varying levels of employment.     

YOUTH CRIME IN POSTINDUSTRIAL SOCIETIES An Integrated Perspective

Taking a few well-known facts about youth crime, the authors propose a more comprehensive theoretical framework, synthesizing other theories and attempting to describe the link between macro- and microdeviance analysis. Employing Durkheim's concepts of social integration, it is proposed that integration be viewed through patterns of role relationships. When adolescents have meaningful kin, community, educational, and work role relationships, they become socialized to the dominant norms. Conditions in the structural level of society affect the nature and quality of these relationships. Youth crime is specifically related to the salience of the peer relationships and the structural conditions imposed by the society on youth.