The sociological imagination revisited: lessons from <Emphasis Type="Italic">America’s Safest City</Emphasis>

In America’s Safest City, Simon Singer embraces the sociological imagination to situate juveniles’ personal troubles within the context of middle-class affluence and modernity. In so doing, he departs from the standard research paradigm that seeks to explain delinquency by using secondary data sets that contain limited measures of theoretical constructs identified by reigning perspectives. Singer’s decision has resulted in a rich analysis that is replete with criminological lessons about the nature of delinquency. Four such lessons are presented here, which include: (1) a lower-class bias has clouded thinking about crime; (2) the reaction to crime differs across classes; (3) parents matter in producing adolescence-limited antisocial youths; and (4) suburban delinquency may be a precursor to white-collar crime.     

THE TIMING OF DELINQUENT BEHAVIOR AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR AFTER-SCHOOL PROGRAMS*

Research Summary: This study examines self-reports from two samples to assess the timing of delinquency. Results imply that the after-school hours are a time of elevated delinquency, but that the peak is modest compared with that observed in official records. Additionally, children who are unsupervised during the after-school hours - the primary target population for after-school programs - are found to be more delinquent at all times, not only after-school. Policy Implications: This finding suggests that factors (including social competencies and social bonding) in addition to inadequate supervision produce delinquency during the after-school hours and that the effectiveness of after-school programs for reducing delinquency will depend upon their ability to address these other factors through appropriate and high quality services.     

Delinquency theory and prevention: A radical alternative

Twentieth century America has seen several delinquency prevention programs come into vogue and then collapse under the pressure of ever increasing rates of delinquency; pressuring policy makers to continue their search for new and better programs. Yet, new prevention programs are not pulled out of a hat. Because these programs are based on certain assumptions about human behavior they are, for the most part, derived from theories of crime and delinquency causation. Pursuing this relationship between theory and practice, this paper grounds the emergence of delinquency prevention with the development of positivist criminology, identifies the conceptual and practical deficiencies of positivist theories of crime and subsequent prevention strategies and presents the prevention directive of contemporary Marxist “Critical Criminology.”     

THE CAUSES OF GIRLS’ DELINQUENCY AND THEIR PROGRAM IMPLICATIONS

This article summarizes some of the literature reviewed by the Girls Study Group, which is a federally funded project aimed at assessing the causes of girls’ delinquency as well as evaluating programs to address it. The literature reveals that a number of factors such as family dysfunction, involvement with antisocial peers, and living in disadvantaged neighborhoods are correlated with delinquency for both boys and girls. Some factors, however, are gender sensitive, meaning that either girls are more exposed to a given risk factor than boys or react somewhat differently to a given risk factor. Girls have higher rates of exposure to sexual assault, which is associated with delinquency and, although more research is needed, they are more affected by the impacts of early puberty, when it is coupled with harsh parenting and disadvantaged neighborhoods. This article discusses some implications of the research on correlates of delinquency for programming for girls and makes recommendations for program selection.     

PEER GROUP INTERVENTIONS TO REDUCE THE RISK OF DELINQUENT BEHAVIOR: A SELECTIVE REVIEW AND A NEW EVALUATION*

Evaluations of correctional treatment programs for criminal offenders and of school-based delinquency prevention programs based on Guided-Group Interaction (GGI) and similar interventions are critically reviewed. One study—the Provo Experiment—provided convincing evidence for the superiority of a community treatment program involving GGI over incarceration (for persons who would otherwise be incarcerated) and modest superiority over probation (for persons who would otherwise be assigned probation). Some evaluations of school-based prevention programs involving GGI derivatives that have been cited as supporting the efficacy of these programs are flawed and may be misleading. A new experimental evaluation of a school-based intervention based on a GGI derivative implies that it increased delinquent behavior among students exposed to it.     

THE METHODS OF DELINQUENCY THEORY*

Delinquency theory must come to terms with experimental studies of causation and with existential studies of delinquents in situ The three are closely related. Existential studies provide insight into both the forms of delinquency and its causal matrix, and causal studies suggest both the relevant context and lawful regularities in the nature of delinquency. Moreover, using the concepts of domain and generality, one sees that strain “theory” is not a theory but a causal paradigm and that it is not competitive with control theory. One also finds that social control theory and cultural deviance are parallel in that both deal essentially with conforming behavior.     

Participation of the Public in the Prevention and Control of Crime and Delinquency

[Editor's Note] No criminologist today would deny the importance of public participation in crime control. Public involvement—through the family, neighborhood, schools, private businesses and public agencies—are potential assets in curbing rising crime and delinquency rates. In this article the basic concerns are two in nature: 1) how to best utilize community resources, including meaningful participation of citizens; and, 2) how public and community organizations can effectively participate in preventing, treating and controlling offenders on parole or probation. In all these endeavors, public support—moral, financial and otherwise are necessary for success.

What is more important is to achieve the most salutary form of public participation, and to obtain the most beneficial balance between local participation and the actions of many government agencies involved. Not all pure local participation is at all times positive, as is illustrated by the actions of a lynch mob. It is also true that the closer one is to local institutions, the more difficult it is to achieve any degree of impartiality. On the other hand, highly centralized judicial and law enforcement structure often tends to be arbitrary and impersonal. This balance although essential, is difficult to achieve. The community agency (welfare boards, citizen's groups, parole boards), independent of the judicial and law enforcement institutions, plays an increasing role in enlightened public participation. Other important factors include education for crime prevention and reporting of offenses, and the relative closeness individuals feel toward their local groups (family, clan, school, neighborhood), as well as the efficiency of the police and judicial organs. No effective public participation in crime control programs can be achieved when there is a wide divergence between the value systems of local and national groups, and when there are great differences of opinions as to exactly what the public can do to prevent crime.

Broadly speaking, there are four ways in which community groups can participate in crime prevention: 1) political support for social defense programs; 2) public co-operation with social defense programs; 3) delegation to community groups of elements of social defense programs; and 4) provision by community groups of autonomous social defense programs.

Much more work must be done to collect reliable data and make significant critical analyses and evaluations of the myriad ways of public participation in crime prevention throughout the world. [Source: “Participation of the Public in the Prevention and Control of Crime and Delinquency,” Fourth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders (Tokyo, Japan, 17–26 August 1970)]     

Justice in relationships: Calgary community conferencing as a demonstration project

Contemporary and alternative justice paradigms lead to definitions of wrongdoing as "lawbreaking" and "harm to social relationships" respectively. The retributive model within the contemporary justice paradigm results in strategies to accomplish justice that focus almost exclusively on the wrongdoer. In contrast, the restorative model within the alternative justice paradigm yields justice practices that focus on the relationships among all individuals harmed by the wrongdoing. Calgary Community Conferencing is an example of a restorative approach to wrongdoing. The relational emphasis of this program is operationalized through its organizational location, intended outcomes, and program activities. The challenges faced by Calgary Community Conferencing provide other agencies with ideas about dilemmas they might encounter in attempting to develop restorative justice programs.     

Victim survey research: Implications for criminal justice planning

The historic use of offense reports by police agencies for decision making is examined in the light of another data source — victim surveys. Survey information data can be used to: (1) more reliably estimate the extent and distribution of crime in a community; (2) evaluate the effectiveness of innovative programs; (3) develop police-sponsored public education programs; (4) describe the characteristics of victims and high crime areas; (5) sensitize police to the needs of the victim; and (6) develop police training programs that include dealing with the victim.     

Crime and Delinquency Prevention in Some European Countries

As part of a larger study on crime and delinquency prevention programs in North America, the authors visited four European countries, Belgium, France, Germany and Switzerland in order to compare prevention programs and their evaluation.

The authors found that the systematic study of the programmatic effectiveness and efficiency of crime and delinquency prevention is unknown to European practitioners and researchers.

The authors describe in this article six European crime and delinquency prevention programs: family case-work, leisure activities, community organization, crisis intervention centers, information for victims and prevention police activities.     

Cognitive ability and delinquent behavior among inner-city youth: a life-course analysis of main,mediating, and interaction effects

Drawing on the emerging life-course paradigm in criminological theory, this study examines the relationship between cognitive ability and delinquent behavior within a sample of inner-city youth. The results indicate that net of statistical controls, cognitive ability maintains a robust inverse relationship with the likelihood of the onset of delinquency, the early onset of delinquency, and the persistence of delinquency during the 18-year period covered by the dataset. Furthermore, cognitive ability mediates the effect of concentrated disadvantage on both the onset and early onset of delinquency. Overall, the results of this study suggest that cognitive ability is an important criminogenic risk factor that has important implications for both correctional interventions and the continued development of structural and multilevel theories of crime.     

Fledgling Psychopathic Features and Pathological Delinquency: New Evidence

Fledgling psychopathy is a construct that has proven useful in organizing the nomological network of conduct problems and psychopathology in children and adolescents. Drawing on data from an institutionalized sample of delinquents (n?=?252), the current study compared ADHD, CD, and ADHD+CD youth on psychopathic personality features and their association with pathological delinquency. Youths with ADHD+CD were significantly more psychopathic than their peers. Although callousness, unemotionality, and remorselessness are generally theorized to define the fledgling psychopathic youth, ROC-AUC models found that thrillseeking and impulsiveness were the strongest classification variables for delinquency and violent delinquency at the 90th percentiles. Implications for research and practice with antisocial youth are proffered.     

Administrative,legal, and ethical practices in the psychological testing of law enforcement officers

Recently, more law enforcement agencies have chosen to use psychological testing as an important component of their preemployment screening programs. Important legal and ethical issues have been raised by the increased use of psychological testing for this purpose. These issues include the applicant's right to privacy, the validity of the psychological instrument(s) used, the definition of what constitutes an “unsuitable” candidate, and the existence of racial and/or sexual bias. This article presents ten suggestions that address some of these issues and that may aid law enforcement agencies in adopting the spirit of the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures and other psychological-testing standards.     

The Moderation Effects of Family Structure and Low Self-Control

Gottfredson and Hirschi??s (1990) theory of low self-control (LSC) asserts the etiology of LSC lies in the ability of parents to correctly control their children. These parental behaviors are crucial to understanding how LSC may or may not be transmitted from parents to children. Little research has explored the potential moderating effects of family structure regarding parenting, LSC, and delinquency. Multi-group structural equation modeling is used with data from the National Evaluation of the Teens, Crime, and the Community/Community Works (TCC/CW) program (n?=?1,409) to assess these relationships. Results show LSC mediates the relationship between family structure and delinquency. Additionally, the relationships between parenting, LSC, and delinquency are invariant for children from intact or broken homes. It is suggested that future research explore the origins of parental efficacy and LSC beyond family structure while considering self-control as a multidimensional concept. Policy recommendations are also discussed.     

Are Behavioral Measures of Self-Control and the Grasmick Self-Control Scale Measuring the Same Construct? A Meta-Analysis

The Grasmick attitudinal scale of self-control (Grasmick, Tittle, Bursik, & Arneklev, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 30, 5–29, 1993) is one of the more commonly used measures in research on Gottfredson and Hirschi’s (1990) self-control concept. What has yet to be determined is whether the Grasmick scale correlates as well with crime and delinquency as behavioral measures of self-control and whether the Grasmick scale correlates better with these behavioral measures than it does with crime and delinquency. A meta-analysis was performed on 13 samples obtained from published research where the Grasmick scale, a behavioral or consequences measure of self-control, and an estimate of crime or delinquency were all administered to participants. All analyses were computed with Comprehensive Meta-Analysis, Version 2 (Borenstein, Hedges, Higgins, & Rothstein, 2005) software. The results of the meta-analysis revealed that the Grasmick scale and behavioral/consequences measures of self-control achieved comparable correlations with concurrent measures of crime and delinquency but correlated no higher with each other than they did with crime and delinquency. Four possible interpretations of these results are considered: (1) the self-control concept advanced by Gottfredson and Hirschi is a tautology; (2) the attitudinal and behavioral/consequences measures of self-control are measuring different constructs; (3) self-control is a multidimensional construct; (4) self-report measures of behavioral self-control are inadequate for assessing low self-control.     

Knocking on the Door: Juvenile and Family Courts as a Forum for Facilitating School Attendance and Decreasing Truancy

While there is debate about whether courts should be involved in truancy reduction efforts, less recognized is how courts can impact school attendance without lengthening their reach or further penalizing children and families. Courts are already involved with school‐related decision making in child welfare and delinquency cases. This article reports on data from a qualitative study of stakeholder perspectives (N = 64) on school attendance in Maryland. Respondents suggested that courts adopt engagement‐focused approaches to guide their work such as family assessments, school attendance plans, monitoring coordination and delivery of services, and ensuring that agencies meet their obligations to children.     

About the authors

In recent years, afterschool programs have received support for their potential to reduce juvenile delinquency and victimization. This support stems largely from reports based on police incident data indicating that juvenile crime and victimization peak during the afterschool hours. However, prior studies of victimization surveys and self‐reports of crime suggest that delinquency is more elevated during school hours. Utilizing self‐report data from a sample of juveniles participating in an evaluation of afterschool programs in Maryland, this study shows that juvenile victimization and delinquency peak during the school hours, while substance use peaks during the weekend. Disaggregating by offense reveals, however, that the more serious violent offenses are elevated during the afterschool hours, while simple assault offenses are most elevated during school hours. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

THE INTERACTIVE EFFECTS OF PEER VARIABLES ON DELINQUENCY

Drawing on relevant theory and research, it is argued that the impact of delinquent peers on delinquency is conditioned by (1) attachment to peers, (2) time spent with peers, and (3) the extent to which peers present delinquent patterns (i.e., present definitions favorable to delinquency, model delinquent behavior, and differentially rein force delinquency). Regression analyses with data from the National Youth Survey provide partial support for these arguments. When the above variables are at their mean or lower levels, a measure of association with peers who engage in serious delinquency has no impact or a negative impact on delinquency. When the above variables are at higher levels, delinquent peers (serious) has a strong, positive impact on delinquency. A measure of association with peers who engage in minor delinquency, however, is not conditioned by the above variables.     

Modeling the suppression effect of correctional programs on juvenile delinquency

Studies of the effects of correctional programs on juvenile delinquency have observed that delinquents exhibit a sharp rise in their arrest rates up to the time of intervention. The drop to a lower rate following intervention has been labeled a suppression effect. A controversy has arisen regarding the nature of the suppression effect; some scholars attribute it to the effectiveness of the correctional programs, while others claim that it is due to a selection artifact. In this study, we examine attempts to model such phenomena and point out that the general terms in the model are not identifiable. Without identifiability, one can construct models that attribute the suppression effect either to the correctional program or to the selection artifact. Some identifiable models are proposed and their associate likelihood functions are used to present a process of model-based analysis to analyze data collected originally by the American Institutes for Research. Discussion of the feasibility of this type of probabilistic modeling approach to criminal justice phenomena is also given.