SITUATIONAL CAUSES OF OFFENDING: A FIXED‐EFFECTS ANALYSIS OF SPACE–TIME BUDGET DATA

Situational theories of crime assert that the situations that people participate in contain the proximal causes of crime. Prior research has not tested situational hypotheses rigorously, either for lack of detailed situational data or for lack of analytical rigor. The present research combines detailed situational data with analytical methods that eliminate all stable between‐individual factors as potential confounds. We test seven potential situational causes: 1) presence of peers, 2) absence of adult handlers, 3) public space, 4) unstructured activities, 5) use of alcohol, 6) use of cannabis, and 7) carrying weapons. In a two‐wave panel study, a general sample of adolescents completed a space–time budget interview that recorded, hour by hour over the course of 4 complete days, the activities and whereabouts of the subjects, including any self‐reported offenses. In total, 76 individuals reported having committed 104 offenses during the 4 days covered in the space–time budget interview. Using data on the 4,949 hours that these 76 offenders spent awake during these 4 days, within‐individual, fixed‐effects multivariate logit analyses were used to establish situational causes of offending. The findings demonstrate that offending is strongly and positively related to all hypothesized situational causes except using cannabis and carrying weapons.     

The Economic Cost of Crime in Chile

This study estimates that the economic cost of crime in Chile, using the accountancy method, is $1.35 billion as at 2002; that is, this cost is equivalent to 2.06% of Chile's GDP. Crimes included in the estimation are murder, robbery, larceny–theft, burglary, wounding, rape and sexual assaults, domestic violence and economic felonies such as fraud, forgery and so on. Consequential costs are the most important, representing 68% of the total cost of crime. Government spending represents 23% of the total and anticipatory cost account for the remaining 9%. Chile presents higher level of crime than most developed countries—though less than most developing nations—but government's spending on citizen's security is considerably lower than that of the US and several other European countries.     

无聊症候群与青少年犯罪

随着青少年犯罪率的猛增,青少年犯罪问题越来越受到社会及学术界的关注。同时青少年无聊症候群作为一个新兴的研究热点进入了人们的视野。通过对无聊的研究及无聊与青少年犯罪之间的相关研究,发现无聊可能从情绪、药物成瘾等多方面影响青少年的犯罪行为。     

Empathy through Animals: Generating Evidence‐based Outcomes for Empathy Development

Low empathy is a prominent trait associated with juvenile offenders. Many juvenile justice service providers strive to reduce risk factors associated with juvenile delinquency, while producing evidence‐based outcomes for targeted programming. The Youth Services Agency (YSA) Nature Center provides empathy development through animal therapy to adjudicated youth. This project generates evidence‐based outcomes and quantifies the impact of animal therapy on empathy development of adjudicated youth at the YSA Nature Center by utilizing self‐assessment tools. Results indicated trends that animal therapy increases the emotional empathy of YSA clients. Qualitative evidence implied that animal therapy had notable therapeutic value to YSA clients.     

FETAL TESTOSTERONE AND CRIMINALITY: TEST OF EVOLUTIONARY NEUROANDROGENIC THEORY

Evolutionary neuroandrogenic (ENA) theory asserts that criminality is a crude form of competitive behavior over resources, status, and mating opportunities. Theoretically, males have been selected for resource acquisitiveness as a result of female preferences for mates who are successful at resource provisioning. ENA theory also asserts that brain exposure to both prenatal and postpubertal androgens (particularly testosterone) promotes all forms of competitiveness, including those that victimize others. The present study was undertaken to test ENA theory by correlating 14 self‐reported measures of offending with a biomarker for fetal testosterone exposure based on the ratio of the 2nd and 4th digits of the right hand (r2D:4D), in a nonrepresentative sample of 445. Both Spearman correlations and negative binomial regressions produced results that largely supported the hypothesized connection between offending and high prenatal androgen exposure, even when findings were analyzed separately by sex. Also, offending was significantly associated with r2D:4D for both males and females. Overall, this study supports the view that exposing the brain to high levels of testosterone and other androgens prenatally elevates the probability of offending later in life.     

THE ROLE OF NEIGHBORHOOD CONTEXT IN YOUTH CO‐OFFENDING

Despite co‐offending being a core criminological fact, locating suitable peers has many challenges. Chief among these, given the risky nature of co‐offending, is finding trustworthy accomplices. We propose that neighborhoods serve as youths’ most ready source of accomplices, and as such, their composition affects the likelihood of identifying suitable co‐offenders. In particular, youth are more likely to co‐offend in contexts with more peers of their race/ethnicity, less disadvantage, and greater residential stability—all of which promote trust among neighbors. We test our hypotheses using multilevel models applied to census data and official court records for 7,484 delinquent youth in a large metropolitan area. The results offer support for our hypotheses and provide greater insight into how individual and contextual factors combine to affect co‐offending behavior. An implication of these findings is that many of the same neighborhood characteristics that reduce crime lead to a greater proportion of co‐offending.     

青少年犯罪若干问题探析

青少年犯罪已成为现代社会犯罪中一个越来越突出的问题。特别是近几年来，青少年犯罪率一直居高不下，已引起各国政府的高度重视和社会的广泛关注。青少年作为一个特殊的群体，他们的健康成长，直接关系到社会的健康发展和稳定。但在我国现行的有关犯罪的法律条文中还没有出现“青少年犯罪”这一称谓。故此，很有必要从法理上对“青少年犯罪”进行界定，结合青少年犯罪的现状，分析引发青少年犯罪的主要原因，并提出预防和减少青少年犯罪的对策，以期对其立法有所帮助。     

THE TIMING AND MECHANISMS OF THE OFFENDING‐DEPRESSION LINK*

Why is juvenile delinquency associated with depression in young adulthood? One possibility is that delinquency interferes with socioeco‐nomic attainment and disrupts entry into adult roles, perhaps because of official labeling processes or adolescent socialization into deviance, and these repercussions of delinquency lead to depression. Another possibility is that grown delinquents may show high levels of depression because they tend to offend in adulthood, and adult offenders tend to be depressed. I use data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to examine the timing and mechanisms of the offending‐depression relationship. The results suggest that delinquency is negatively associated with later status attainment and that the status attainment deficits of grown delinquents are not fully explained by justice system contacts or by adolescent delinquent peer influence. A portion of the longitudinal delinquency‐depression link is explained by the low levels of education of grown delinquents and by their involvement with the justice system. Still, young adult depression is more closely tied to recent offending than it is to juvenile delinquency, official labeling, or the status attainment consequences of delinquency.     

COMMUNITY STRUCTURE AND ADOLESCENT DELINQUENCY IN ICELAND: A CONTEXTUAL ANALYSIS*

The current study examines the contextual effects of community structural characteristics on adolescent delinquency in Iceland, focusing on how specific individual‐level mechanisms work to mediate the contextual effects. Using multilevel data on 68 school communities and 6,458 adolescents, we find a contextual effect of community social instability (residential mobility, family disruption) on delinquency. Moreover, the findings indicate that specific individual‐level social control mechanisms (Coleman, 1988) explain a part of this effect, namely, embeddedness in community‐based social ties linking parents and adolescents and normlessness. Also, the findings indicate that the individual‐level effect of unsupervised peer activity on delinquency is contingent on embeddedness in social ties as well as on community social instability. The findings have bearing on the cross‐societal generalizability of social disorganization theory.