GENDER,FRIENDSHIP NETWORKS,AND DELINQUENCY: A DYNAMIC NETWORK APPROACH

Researchers have examined selection and influence processes in shaping delinquency similarity among friends, but little is known about the role of gender in moderating these relationships. Our objective is to examine differences between adolescent boys and girls regarding delinquency‐based selection and influence processes. Using longitudinal network data from adolescents attending two large schools in AddHealth (N = 1,857) and stochastic actor‐oriented models, we evaluate whether girls are influenced to a greater degree by friends’ violence or delinquency than boys (influence hypothesis) and whether girls are more likely to select friends based on violent or delinquent behavior than boys (selection hypothesis). The results indicate that girls are more likely than boys to be influenced by their friends’ involvement in violence. Although a similar pattern emerges for nonviolent delinquency, the gender differences are not significant. Some evidence shows that boys are influenced toward increasing their violence or delinquency when exposed to more delinquent or violent friends but are immune to reducing their violence or delinquency when associating with less violent or delinquent friends. In terms of selection dynamics, although both boys and girls have a tendency to select friends based on friends’ behavior, girls have a stronger tendency to do so, suggesting that among girls, friends’ involvement in violence or delinquency is an especially decisive factor for determining friendship ties.     

White-Collar Crime in Socialism: Myth or Reality?

Previous research on the determinants of police expenditures has not risen to the level of empirical understanding in large part because it has failed to explain substantively important variation among local jurisdictions. This suggests a need to reevaluate research strategies and to examine closely those cases which cannot be predicted using traditional, social, economic, and environmental approaches. Incorporating deviant case analysis, the authors outline an alternative approach to determine whether policy maker variables should be added to more broadly based models.