Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice (2001) / Chapter Skim
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The Development of Delinquency
The Development of Delinquency
Pages 66-106
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From page 66... ...
Many children reach adulthood without involvement in serious delinquent behavior, even in the face of multiple risks. Although risk factors may help identify which children are most in need of preventive interventions, they cannot identify which particular children will become serious or chronic offenders.
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From page 67... ...
Nevertheless, over the past 20 years, much has been learned about risks for antisocial and delinquent behavior. This chapter is not meant to be a comprehensive overview of all the literature on risk factors.
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From page 68... ...
, the percentage of boys who self-reported serious delinquent behavior rose from 5 percent at age 6 to about 18 percent for whites and 27 percent for blacks at age 16 (Loeber et al., 1998~. A longitudinal study of a representative sample from highrisk neighborhoods in Denver also found a growth in the self-reported prevalence of serious violence from age 10 through late adolescence (Kelley et al., 1997~.
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From page 69... ...
Prenatal and Perinatal Factors Several studies have found an association between prenatal and perinatal complications and later delinquent or criminal behavior (Kandel et
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From page 70... ...
Mednick and colleagues (Brennan and Mednick, 1997; Kandel and Mednick, 1991; Raine et al., 1994) have conducted several investigations in an attempt to elucidate the relationship between criminal behavior and perinatal risk.
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From page 71... ...
Impulsivity and hyperactivity have both been associated with later antisocial behavior (Rutter et al., 1998~. The social behavior characteristics that best predict delinquent behavior, however, are physical aggression and oppositionality (Lahey et al., 1999; Nagin and Tremblay, 1999~.
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From page 72... ...
Few studies, however, have assessed cognitive functioning during the preschool years or followed the children into adolescence to understand the long-term link between early cognitive deficits and juvenile delinquency. The studies that did look at children's early cognitive development have shown that poor language performance by the second year after birth, poor fine motor skills by the third year, and low IQ by kindergarten were all associated with later antisocial behavior (Kopp and Krakow, 1983; Stattin and Klackenberg-Larsson, 1993; White et al., 1990~.
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From page 73... ...
Another disorder that is often associated with antisocial behavior and conduct disorder is major depressive disorder, particularly in girls (Kovacs, 1996; Offord et al., 1986; Renouf and Harter, 1990~. It is hypothesized that depression during adolescence may be "a central pathway through which girls' serious antisocial behavior develops" (Obeidallah and Earls, 1999:1~.
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From page 74... ...
SOCIAL FACTORS Children's and adolescents' interactions and relationships with family and peers influence the development of antisocial behavior and delinquency. Family interactions are most important during early childhood, but they can have long-lasting effects.
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From page 75... ...
, there is considerable debate about the meaning of the association. For example, longitudinal studies have found an increased level of conduct disorder and behavioral disturbance in children of divorcing parents before the divorce took place (Block et al., 1986; Cherlin et al., 1991~.
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From page 76... ...
Summarizing their work on race, family structure, and delinquency in white and black families, Matsueda and Heimer (1987:836) noted: "Yet in both racial groups nonintact homes influence delinquency through a similar process by attenuating parental supervision, which in turn increases delinquent companions, prodelinquent definitions, and, ultimately, delinquent behavior." It looks as if the effects of living with a single parent vary with the amount of supervision, as well as the emotional and economic resources that the parent is able to bring to the situation.
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From page 77... ...
Characteristics of women who become teenage parents appear to account for some of the risk. Longitudinal studies in both Britain and the United States have found that girls who exhibit antisocial behavior are at increased risk of teenage motherhood, of having impulsive liaisons with antisocial men, and of having parenting difficulties (Maughan and Lindelow, 1997; Quinton et al., 1993; Quinton and Rutter, 1988~.
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From page 78... ...
Child abuse, as well as neglect, has been implicated in the development of delinquent behavior. In three quite different prospective studies from different parts of the country, childhood abuse and neglect have been found to increase a child's risk of delinquency (Maxfield and Widom, 1996; Smith and Thornberry, 1995; Widom, 1989; Zingraff et al., 1993~.
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From page 79... ...
Children of antisocial parents are at heightened risk for aggressive, antisocial, and delinquent behavior (e.g., McCord, 1991; Serbin et al., 1998~. Social Setting Where a family lives affects the nature of opportunities that will be available to its members.
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From page 80... ...
One longitudinal study reported that involvement with antisocial peers was the only variable that had a direct effect on subsequent delinquency other than prior delinquency (Elliott et al., 1985~. Factors such as peer delinquent behavior, peer approval of deviant behavior, attachment or allegiance to peers, time spent with peers, and peer pressure for deviance have all been associated with adolescent antisocial behavior (Hoge et al., 1994; Thornberry et al., 1994~.
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From page 81... ...
For example, adolescents' lack of respect for their parents influenced their antisocial behavior only because it led to increases in antisocial peer affiliations (Simmons et al., 1991~. Patterson et al.
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From page 82... ...
Not only may association with delinquent peers influence delinquent behavior, but also committing a crime with others co-offending is a common phenomenon among adolescents (Cohen, 1955; Reiss and Farrington, 1991; Reiss, 1988; Sarnecki, 1986~. Much of this behavior occurs in relatively unstable pairings or small groups, not in organized gangs (Klein, 1971; Reiss, 1988~.
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From page 83... ...
How and why these are effective has received little attention. COMMUNITY FACTORS School Policies That Affect Juvenile Delinquency Delinquency is associated with poor school performance, truancy, and leaving school at a young age (Elliott et al., 1978; Elliott and Voss, 1974; Farrington, 1986b; Hagan and McCarthy, 1997; Hawkins et al., 1998; Huizinga and Jakob-Chien, 1998; Kelly, 1971; Maguin and Loeber, 1996; Polk, 1975; Rhodes and Reiss, 1969; Thornberry and Christenson, 1984~.
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From page 84... ...
School Suspension and Expulsion Unlike grade retention, which is a school policy primarily for young children in the early elementary grades who display academic problems,
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From page 85... ...
Furthermore, black students are likely to receive more severe forms of suspension than other students, even for similar behaviors requiring disciplinary action. In one study, for example, white students were more likely to receive in-school suspension than out-of-school suspension, whereas the reverse pattern was true for black students who had violated school rules (McFadden et al., 1992~.
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From page 86... ...
In recent years, expulsion has become a part of the debate on school discipline that has accompanied the rising concern about school violence, particularly that related to weapons possession and increasingly defiant, aggressive behavior by students in school. One result of this debate has been what Morrison et al.
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From page 87... ...
There is a fairly substantial group of younger schoolchildren expelled from school; most of them come from the higher age range of students in elementary school. Expulsion is, however, primarily a secondary school phenomenon.
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From page 88... ...
These emotional consequences greatly increase the likelihood of dropping out of school and engaging in delinquent behavior (both in and out of school)
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From page 89... ...
Although certain persons and families may be strongly at risk for criminal behavior in any environment, living in a neighborhood where there are high levels of poverty and crime increases the risk of involvement in serious crime for all children growing up there. This section reviews various strands of research on neighborhoods and crime and on the effects of environment on human development for the purpose of evaluating the contributions of neighborhood environment to patterns of youth crime and prospects for its prevention and control.
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From page 90... ...
The concentration of serious crime, especially juvenile crime, in certain neighborhoods within a given city is just as pronounced as the concentration in certain cities. A great deal of research over a period of many decades employing a wide range of methods has documented the geographic concentration of high rates of crime in poor, urban neighborhoods.
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From page 91... ...
Still, the concentration of serious juvenile crime in a relatively few residential neighborhoods is well documented and a legitimate cause for concern, both to those living in these high-risk neighborhoods and to the wider society. Neighborhoods as Mediators of Race and Social Class Disparities in Offending While studies using differing methods and sources of data are not in agreement on the magnitude of differences in rates of involvement in youth crime across racial, ethnic, and social class categories, most research shows that race, poverty, and residential segregation interact to predict delinquency rates.
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From page 92... ...
Without controls for concentrated poverty, this relationship is quite strong (Sampson, 1997; Short, 1997~. Such research strongly indicates that the unique combination of poverty and residential segregation suffered by black Americans is associated with high rates of crime through the mediating pathway of neighborhood effects on families and children.
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From page 93... ...
One type of pernicious neighborhood institution, the youth gang, has been studied extensively and is clearly associated with, though by no means synonymous with, delinquency and crime. Although it is true that an adolescent's involvement with youth gangs is associated with a greatly increased risk of criminal behavior, that risk also accompanies association with delinquent peer groups more generally.
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From page 94... ...
Drawing conclusions from these studies about neighborhood effects on child and adolescent development must be approached carefully, because these studies were primarily designed to describe systems of activity and interaction rather than processes of personal development. As a result, there are many limitations on using this body of research for the purpose of examining neighborhood effects on development, chief among them the predominant focus on single, high-crime areas and the focus within those areas on those engaged in delinquent and criminal activity.
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From page 95... ...
A number of studies demonstrate neighborhood concentrations of risk factors for impaired physical and mental health and for the development of antisocial behavior patterns. To date, little research has been able
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From page 96... ...
Thus it can be difficult to disentangle individual developmental risk factors from neighborhood risk factors. Similarly, some parenting practices that contribute to the development of antisocial and criminal behavior are themselves concentrated in certain areas.
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From page 97... ...
Various outcomes of this kind of exposure to community violence have been identified. The most commonly cited of these include depressive disorders and posttraumatic stress syndrome, but some links have also been found to increases in aggressive and antisocial behavior (Farrell and Bruce, 1997~.
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From page 98... ...
Thus, they are forced to provide for their own defense; a gun is a natural instrument. Since the drug markets are pervasive in many inner-city neighborhoods, and the young people recruited into them are fairly tightly networked with other young people in their neighborhoods, it became easy for the guns to be diffused to other teenagers who go to the same school or who walk the same streets.
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From page 99... ...
Prosocial as well as aggressive antisocial behavior has been inspired through the use of examples (Anderson, 1998; Eisenberg and Mussen, 1989; Eron and Huesmann, 1986; Huston and Wright, 1998; Staub, 1979~. Thus media models can be seen as potentially influencing either risk or protectiveness of environments.
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From page 100... ...
After the third time, those who had played the violent video game gave longer blasts of the unpleasant sound, a result mediated by accessibility of aggression as a cognitive factor. The authors concluded that violent video games have adverse behavioral effects and that these occur through increasing the aggressive outlooks of participants.
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From page 101... ...
Whether or not the rate of conduct problems and conduct disorder in girls is lower than that in boys remains to be definitively proven. Girls who do exhibit aggressive behavior or conduct disorder exhibit as much stability in that behavior and are as much at risk for later problems as are boys.
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From page 102... ...
, association with delinquent peers (Acoca and Dedel, 1998) , and problems in school (Bergsmann, 1994~.
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From page 103... ...
Risk factors at the individual, social, and community level most likely interact in complex ways to promote antisocial and delinquent behavior in juveniles. Although there is some research evidence that different risk factors are more salient at different stages of child and adolescent development, it remains unclear which particular risk factors alone, or in combination, are most important to delinquency.
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From page 104... ...
Recommendation: Federal programs should be developed to promote alternatives to grade retention and tracking in schools. Given that school failure has been found to be a precursor to delinquency, not enough research to date has specifically examined school policies, such as tracking, grade retention, suspension, and expulsion in terms of their effects on delinquent behavior in general.
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From page 105... ...
Much remains to be known about the extent to which potential problems can be identified at an early age. Recommendation: Prospective longitudinal studies should be used to increase the understanding of the role of factors in prenatal, perinatal, and early infant development on mechanisms that increase the likelihood of healthy development, as well as the development of antisocial behavior.
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From page 106... ...
At a minimum, this program should include: · Research on etiology, life course, and societal consequences of female juvenile offending; · Research on the role of childhood experiences, neighborhoods and communities, and family and individual characteristics that lead young females into crime; and · Research on the role of psychiatric disorders in the etiology of female juvenile crime, as well as its role as a consequence of crime or the justice system's response.
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