DIFFERENTIAL SUSCEPTIBILITY? IMMIGRANT YOUTH AND PEER INFLUENCE*

There is reason to suspect that lower levels of exposure to criminogenic peer‐based risks help explain why immigrant youth are less involved in crime and violence. However, it also is possible that if and when they do encounter these risks, immigrant youth are more vulnerable to them than are native‐born youth. Drawing from literature on the adaptation experiences of immigrant adolescents, we hypothesize that immigrant youth will be relatively more susceptible to the effects of both 1) exposure to deviant peers and 2) unstructured and unsupervised socializing with peers when compared with their nonimmigrant counterparts. Using a sample of approximately 1,800 adolescents from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) study, we find support for our first hypothesis but not the second. Specifically, in both cross‐sectional and longitudinal models, we find that exposure to deviant peers has a greater impact on violence among immigrant youth than it does for native‐born youth. Furthermore, this pattern of results is supported with supplemental, sensitivity analysis using the AddHealth data. In contrast, there are no statistically significant differences across immigrant generation status with regard to the effect of informal socializing with peers on violence.     

The influence of prisons on inmate misconduct: A multilevel investigation

This article presents the results of multilevel analyses of prisoners' misconduct for the population of over 120,000 federal prisoners incarcerated in June 2001. Prior research has focused on individual-level explanations of inmate misconduct, but this study explicitly examines whether prisons vary in their influence on such misconduct. The study demonstrates that model specification makes a difference in our understanding of which variables are related to misconduct, that the type of misconduct is important for understanding the effects of covariates of misconduct, and that results of multilevel models can easily be used to compare the performance of prisons.     

HEART RATE AND ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR: THE MEDIATING ROLE OF IMPULSIVE SENSATION SEEKING

Although a low resting heart rate is considered the best‐replicated biological correlate of antisocial behavior, the mechanism underlying this relationship remains largely unknown. Sensation‐seeking and fearlessness theories have been proposed to explain this relationship, although little empirical research has been conducted to test these theories. This study addressed this limitation by examining the relationship between heart rate and antisocial behavior in a community sample of 335 adolescent boys. Heart rate was measured during a series of cognitive, stress, and rest tasks. Participants also completed self‐report measures of state fear, impulsive sensation seeking, and both aggressive and nonaggressive forms of antisocial behavior. As expected, increased levels of aggression and nonviolent delinquency were associated with a low heart rate. Impulsive sensation seeking, but not fearlessness, significantly mediated the association between heart rate and aggression. This study is the first to show that impulsive sensation seeking partly underlies the relationship between aggression and heart rate, and it is one of the few to examine the mechanism of action linking heart rate to antisocial behavior. Findings at a theoretical level highlight the role of impulsive sensation seeking in understanding antisocial behavior and at an intervention level suggest it as a potential target for behavioral change.     

困境与出路:失足未成年人思想观念教育误区探究

未成年人失足是一个严重的社会问题,未成年人违法犯罪给国家、社会、家庭都带来了严重的危害。未成年人思想观念的误区和困境是造成其失足的重要因素。可借鉴域外国家思想观念培育方面的做法,以儒家伦理思想为基,推进法治引导,筑造家庭、学校、社会教育网络,强化暂住、流动人口管理,依法惩戒未成年人犯罪,建构针对失足未成年人特殊群体思想观念教育的长效机制,更好地适应和谐社会的发展。     

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.     

Young and armed: a cross-sectional study on weapon carrying among adolescents

The purpose of this study was to identify empirically, for the first time in France, the prevalence of adolescent weapon carrying with particular focus on the contribution of a broad range of social bonding, strain, social learning, and sociodemographic predictors. A multivariate logistic regression model was conducted using a backward elimination procedure to identify the significant predictors of weapon carrying controlling for age, gender, and SES in a sample of 12,706 French youth aged 11–19 years. Results revealed that the odds of weapon carrying increased among adolescents who suffered from past victimization, who had a negative relationship with their mother, and who repeated a grade at school. Moreover, holding pro-delinquent beliefs and having delinquent peers also increased the odds of weapon carrying. Our findings highlight the importance of the interpersonal and social context when examining the determinants of weapon carrying and showed a unique contribution of components of social bonding, strain, and social learning in weapon carrying among adolescents.     

From Maltreatment to Delinquency: Service Trajectories After a First Intervention of Child Protection Services

The relationship between maltreatment in childhood and delinquency in adolescence is recognized. However, the data available do not reveal what proportion of children under the supervision of child protection services (CPS) later transfer to youth legal services, nor the sequence of services provided by these two systems. This study sketches a preliminary portrait of Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) incidence among Quebec children and adolescents as a consequence of a first crime after initial CPS case closure (N = 14,252). It quantifies the scope of the phenomenon and identifies the best predictors of YCJA incidence from among the administrative data available. Survival analysis revealed a 15.4% YCJA incidence for the entire cohort in the five and a half years following termination of initial intervention; boys between 12 and 17 years old when their initial CPS cases were closed were at the greatest risk (27.2%).     

我国末成年入社区矫正制度探析

当前,已有人将未成年人犯罪与毒品、环境污染并列为世界三大公害。面对日趋严峻的未成年人犯罪形势,近年来,法学理论界与司法实践部门进行了一系列的探索,社区矫正作为未成年人司法改革的一项内容,代表了未成年人司法制度的一种发展趋向。对未成年人实施社区矫正,一方面可以使其减轻对社会的抵抗情绪,另一方面也能在互相谅解的基础上促进罪犯与社区的融合。建立未成年人社区矫正制度既是适应我国当前未成年人刑事政策的现实需要,也是国际未成年司法准则的客观要求。为此,我国应当完善立法．为未成年犯社区矫正提供有力的法律依据,并建立相应的机构来执行。     

论犯罪断念与青少年犯罪预防

犯罪断念是抛却未成年阶段暂时性偏离社会规范要求的行为模式变化。成功塑造犯罪断念的首要依据是处于转型时期的越轨青少年的内部条件改适,外部因素激励犯罪断念的渐次展开。规律的作息、接受正规的职业教育、正常的就业,能够减少与沾染不良习气同龄人的非正当接触。政策控制是塑成犯罪断念的第三层次的影响因素。聚焦于心理帮助、道德规范指引、技术培养、能力训练等项目的政策控制相对更能引导青少年与反社会行为决裂。     

关于校园暴力的规劝——社区矫正施予青少年不良行为的可能性

校园暴力既是国际社会青少年犯罪的特殊类型,也是青少年受害的主要因素,它威胁着象牙宝塔的神圣和安全,也对处在心理生理发育期的青少年造成了极端负面的影响。对青少年不良行为施予社区矫正,既能立足于青少年犯罪的原因,发挥积极的教育作用,同时也能推进我国少年司法工作的发展。