Family, welfare, and delinquency

Data from a five-wave panel probability sample of families in the State of Washington were analyzed to test the hypothesis that female headship and welfare experience increased participation in and frequency of juvenile delinquency. Appropriate statistical models of random effect probit and negative binomial were employed. Results indicated that there were no direct effects of female headship and welfare experience on either prevalence or frequency of juvenile delinquency. Instead, it was found that the number of adult presence in a household and the child's school attachment significantly reduced the probability of delinquency and the tendency of being referred again in court.     

Similarities and differences between perceptions of peer delinquency,peer self-reported delinquency,and respondent delinquency: An analysis of friendship dyads

Purpose

Despite the peer delinquency measurement debate having profound implications for research, looming questions remain about the validity of various forms of peer delinquency operationalizations. This study examines whether perceptions of peer delinquency form identical latent constructs to both respondent and peer self-reported delinquency.

Methods

Using a dyadic dataset of friendship pairs, confirmatory factor analysis and model comparison tests are used to determine the degree of similarity between perceptions of peer delinquency, respondent self-reported delinquency, and peer self-reported delinquency.

Results

Peer self-reports and respondent perceptions of peer delinquency load on unique constructs across a number of different behaviors. For most behaviors, respondent perceptions of peer delinquency and respondent self-reports load on separate constructs. Results further indicate that respondent and peer self-reported delinquency are separate latent constructs. Finally, the strength of the association between respondent and peer delinquency is substantively smaller in magnitude, by as much as a factor of three in some instances, when peer delinquency is measured via peer self-reports in place of respondent perceptions.

Conclusions

Reports of peer delinquency provided directly from peers demonstrate strong discriminant validity in relation to self-reported delinquency, while perceptions of peer delinquency demonstrate poorer discriminant validity, particularly for theft and violence constructs.     

School environment, self-esteem, and delinquency

The positive and negative effects of one's school environment (and interracial contact within this environment) have been widely debated. A question of great concern is whether the racial composition (e.g., school environment) of a school affects one's self-esteem. The present study explored whether self-esteem, race-esteem, school commitment, and delinquency differ by the racial composition of a school. Self-report questionnaires were administered to a random sample of 1,100 high school students in a large midwestern city of the United States. The findings (a) suggest that all four measures differ by school environment, and (b) provide partial support for earlier studies claiming that, within racially homogeneous school environments, African American students, in particular, enjoy higher self-esteem. Moreover, this finding might suggest that racial diversity within certain school environments (e.g., mostly Caucasian or equally mixed) carries with it lower levels of self-esteem. Higher rates of self-reported delinquency, however, were found in the equally mixed school environment than in racially homogeneous school environments.     

Incarceration, Health, and Racial Disparities in Health

This article addresses two basic questions. First, it examines whether incarceration has a lasting impact on health functioning. Second, because blacks are more likely than whites to be exposed to the negative effects of the penal system—including fractured social bonds, reduced labor market prospects, and high levels of infectious disease—it considers whether the penal system contributes to racial health disparities. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and both regression and propensity matching estimators, the article empirically demonstrates a significant relationship between incarceration and later health status. More specifically, incarceration exerts lasting effects on midlife health functioning. In addition, this analysis finds that, due primarily to disproportionate rates of incarceration, the penal system plays a role in perpetuating racial differences in midlife physical health functioning.     

Changing contexts: A quasi-experiment examining adolescent delinquency and the transition to high school

In a quasi-experiment, we examine whether changing schools during the transition from 8th to 9th grade influences adolescent delinquency, using a sample of more than 14,000 students in 26 public school districts (PROSPER study). The dataset follows students for eight waves from 6th through 12th grade and facilitates a unique, direct comparison of students who change schools with those who remain in the same school during this period. Results show that students who transition between schools report significantly less delinquency after the shift than those who do not, and that this difference persists through 10th grade. This decline is most pronounced when adolescents from multiple middle schools move to a single high school (i.e., multifeeder transitions). Students who transition between schools have fewer delinquent friends and participate in less unstructured socializing following the change in school environment, which partially mediates their reduced delinquency. Results provide some support for theories of differential association and routine activities. Our findings highlight the role of a crucial, yet understudied, life transition in shaping adolescent delinquency. The results from this quasi-experiment underscore the potential of alterations in social context to significantly dampen juvenile delinquency throughout high school.     

Debt,Incarceration, and Re-entry: a Scoping Review

American Journal of Criminal Justice - People involved with the criminal justice system in the United States are disproportionately low-income and indebted. The experience of incarceration...     

Sex differences, parental attachment, and juvenile delinquency

This study examined the relationship between parental attachment and delinquent behavior among adolescents between the ages of 13 and 18. 133 subjects completed self-report questionnaire packets, which included a demographic survey, an attachment inventory (assessing parental attachment and attachment to the father and mother separately), and a delinquency questionnaire. The relationship between sex, delinquency level, and attachment score was statistically tested using a multivariate analysis of variance. Results indicated a significant relationship between delinquency level and parental attachment, attachment to father, and attachment to mother, suggesting that the more attached adolescents are to their parents, the less delinquent they are. The effects of sex on attachment were not significant, nor were the effects of sex by delinquency on attachment. Mean attachment scores to the mother were not significantly higher than mean attachment scores to the father and females reported far less criminal activity, but more delinquent activity, than did males. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

Gangs and delinquency

This study explores the meaning of police estimates of gang membership, by reviewing the characteristics of youth labeled as gang members in one western state, Hawaii, during 1991. Arrest patterns of these youth do not support the notion that they constitute a seriously violent subset of criminals. Indeed, nearly a third had not been arrested in the previous three years; notable too is the absence of a large number of weapon or drug arrests. These findings are amplified by data from a comparison of youth who were not labeled as gang members; these indicate that youth (in the City and County of Honolulu) who are delinquent differ little from those youth suspected of gang membership in terms of the frequency or severity of their offenses. Finally, the groups most commonly labeled by police as gang members are Filipino and Samoan males, but self-report data on gang membership indicate a somewhat different ethnic composition. The policy implications of these findings are also discussed.A previous version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology, November 1992, New Orleans, Louisiana     

Class and self-reported juvenile delinquency: Evidence from Turkey

This study examined the relationship between social class and self-reported various juvenile delinquent acts in Ankara, the capital of Turkey. Data included 1,710 high school students using a two-stage stratified cluster sample. Such uncommon measures of social class as students' perceptions of their family economic status, the type of place where middle school was finished, home ownership, and car ownership were employed as well as often used measures of social class. The findings indicated that most of these new measures were not related to delinquency and that the class variables had low explanatory power. Various indicators of social class also presented contrary results. While some indicators of class showed that the relationship between class and delinquency was positive, other similar measures indicated the opposite.     

Criminal Case Outcomes, Incarceration, and Subsequent Intimate Partner Violence

Given the centrality of court interventions to the U.S. response to intimate partner violence (IPV), it is crucial to evaluate their impact on reabuse. To do so, this study examined whether female IPV victims’ experiences of abuse in the year following a criminal court case against their partner varied by case outcome or by whether the batterer had or had not been incarcerated. Consistent with prior research, we found no main effect differences in reabuse trajectories by court case outcome or by incarceration. We also examined variables that might moderate the impact of case outcome and incarceration on reabuse and found that although batterer legal history did not affect the impact of case outcome, his age, Time 1 employment status, the couple’s Time 1 living arrangement, and duration of abuse did interact with case outcome. No variables tested moderated the relationship between incarceration and reabuse over time. Findings suggest that in certain cases there may be benefits to case outcomes that leave potential consequences hanging over the offender’s head. These results also add to the growing body of evidence questioning the efficacy of one-size-fits-all approaches to IPV cases.     

Gender differences in gang participation,delinquency, and substance use

The purpose of this paper is to respond to gaps in our knowledge about patterns of female gang participation and its causes and consequences. Data from the Rochester Youth Development Study, a panel study that overrepresents adolescents at high risk for delinquency, are used to compare gang participation and delinquent involvement of female and male adolescents. We then examine the role of theoretical variables associated with both female and male gang membership. The results lead us to conclude that, for females as well as males, involvement in gangs is associated with substantially increased levels of delinquency and substance use. There is also some similarity in the factors associated with gang membership for both sexes, although lack of school success emerges as a factor of particular salience for female adolescents. The results suggest that theory and intervention need to address the phenomenon of female gang membership as an important component of urban youth problems.Authors' names are listed in alphabetical order.     

Race,female headship,and delinquency: A longitudinal analysis

Two recent studies support the hypothesis of a positive association between the “broken family” and crime; one repeats an earlier finding that this relationship is stronger for blacks than for whites. The alarm over the upsurge in female family headship in the United States led to a test of the hypothesis with previously neglected longitudinal data. For the years 1971 to 1986, despite tremendous increases in female family headship among blacks, only one of eight index offenses (arrests) showed an increase among black juveniles. Among white juveniles, increases in three of eight index offenses accompanied the increase in female headship. More important, multiple regression analysis yielded no significant relationship between female headship and any of the eight index offenses or total index offenses for black or white juveniles. The findings may be explained in part by changing attitudes toward birth outside marriage, divorce, and women's competence to rear children by themselves. Also, proposed explanations of the broken family/crime association, such as ineffective supervision by single parents and weakened attachment to single parents, are rendered irrelevant by our findings.     

Incarceration and Recidivism among Sexual Offenders

The relationship between incarceration and recidivism was investigated in a sample of 627 adult male sexual offenders. Incarceration for the index offense was unrelated to sexual or violent recidivism. This was the case whether incarceration was examined as a dichotomous variable (incarceration vs. community sentence) or as a continuous variable (length of incarceration). Risk for sexual recidivism was assessed with a modified version of the Rapid Risk Assessment for Sexual Offense Recidivism. There was no evidence that the relationship between incarceration and recidivism was confounded or moderated by risk or that length of incarceration and recidivism were non-linearly associated. Sentencing sexual offenders to terms of incarceration appears to have little, if any, impact on sexual and violent recidivism following release.     

Social psychological risk factors,delinquency and age of onset

Based on data from the 2014 Communities that Care Youth Survey (CCYS), the authors examine the association between risk factors of tenth graders and age of onset (never, 14 or older, 13 or younger) of three antisocial behaviors/delinquency (got arrested; carried a handgun to school; and attacked someone with the intent of seriously hurting them). Risk factors are under four domains: family, community, school, and peer. The age of onset and risk literature are discussed. The purpose of this research is to examine what risk factors are associated with age of onset. Individual risk factors under the peer domain had the strongest association with all three antisocial behaviors.     

Parental Incarceration during Childhood, Family Context, and Youth Problem Behavior across Adolescence

Over the past several decades, the number of youth with parents in prison in the U.S. has increased substantially. Findings thus far indicate a vulnerable group of children. Using prospective longitudinal data gathered as part of the population-based Linking the Interests of Families and Teachers (LIFT) randomized controlled trial, adolescents who had an incarcerated parent during childhood are compared to those who did not across four key domains: family social advantage, parent health, the parenting strategies of families, and youth externalizing behavior and serious delinquency. Past parental incarceration was associated with lower family income, parental education, parental socioeconomic status, and parental health, and with higher levels of parental depression, inappropriate and inconsistent discipline, youth problem behaviors and serious delinquency. The effect sizes for significant associations were small to moderate.