TWO ROUTES TO DELINQUENCY: DIFFERENCES BETWEEN EARLY AND LATE STARTERS IN THE IMPACT OF PARENTING AND DEVIANT PEERS*

This paper tests hypotheses concerning differences in the determinants of involvement with the criminal justice system for adolescents who show early versus late onset of delinquency. Four waves of data collected on 177 adolescent boys living in small towns in the midwest were used to test the hypotheses. For late starters, quality of parenting predicted affiliation with deviant peers, which was associated in turn with criminal justice system involvement. Oppositional/defiant behavior was unrelated both to affiliation with deviant peers and to involvement with the criminal justice system. For early starters, on the other hand, quality of parenting predicted oppositional/defiant behavior. This behavior pattern predicted affiliation with deviant peers, which in turn predicted criminal justice system involvement. Further, we found evidence of an interaction effect for early starters: criminal justice system involvement was highest for those youths who both were oppositional/defiant and had deviant friends. Overall the findings support the idea of different routes to criminal behavior and arrest for early versus late starters.     

Reforming Criminals in China: Implications for Corrections in the West

Visits to three prisons in China revealed that the Chinese penal system, although conceived within a Marxist context, is humanistic, naturalistic, and practical in emphasis. Considering the cultural differences between Orient and Occident, specifically the Chinese respect for power and authority and their belief that the State and its officials serve as guardians of socialist ideology, the author discusses some implications for the West. It concludes that we may have to perceive rehabilitation in more realistic terms. Instead of abandoning rehabilitation, we can learn from the Chinese and translate the concept into providing assistance to offenders that is compatible with the external environment.