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Age and the Explanation of Crime, Revisited
Age is one of the most robust correlates of criminal behavior. Yet, explanations for this relationship are varied and conflicting. Developmental theories point to a multitude of sociological, psychological, and biological changes that occur during adolescence and adulthood. One prominent criminological perspective outlined by Gottfredson and Hirschi claims that age has a direct effect on crime, inexplicable from sociological and psychological variables. Despite the attention this claim has received, few direct empirical tests of it have been conducted. We use data from Pathways to Desistance, a longitudinal study of over 1,300 serious youthful offenders (85.8 % male, 40.1 % African-American, 34.3 % Hispanic, 21.0 % White), to test this claim. On average, youths were 16.5 years old at the initial interview and were followed for 7 years. We use multilevel longitudinal models to assess the extent to which the direct effects of age are reduced to statistical and substantive non-significance when constructs from a wide range of developmental and criminological theories are controlled. Unlike previous studies, we are able to control for changes across numerous realms emphasized within differing theoretical perspectives including social control (e.g., employment and marriage), procedural justice (e.g., perceptions of the legitimacy and fairness of the legal system), learning (e.g., gang membership and exposure to antisocial peers), strain (e.g., victimization and relationship breakup), psychosocial maturity (e.g., impulse control, self-regulation and moral disengagement), and rational choice (e.g., costs and rewards of crime). Assessed separately, these perspectives explain anywhere from 3 % (procedural justice) to 49 % (social learning) of the age-crime relationship. Together, changes in these constructs explain 69 % of the drop in crime from ages 15 to 25. We conclude that the relationship between age and crime in adolescence and early adulthood is largely explainable, though not entirely, attributable to multiple co-occurring developmental changes.
Journal Article
On the edge
\"When Maddie Diaz witnesses the murder of a homeless man by members of a gang, she tells the cops what she saw without thinking about the repercussions of snitching, but a mysterious guy named Lobo comes to her defense and is determined to take down the gang and protect her\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Youth Gang Membership, Marginalized Identities, and Suicidality Disparities: Intersectional Implications for Research and Practice
Suicide is the second leading cause of death among adolescents in the U.S., and emerging evidence indicates that gang-involved youth may be at elevated risk. Yet, little is known about suicidality prevalence among subgroups of gang and non-gang youth due to limited measures of social identity in previous studies. Guided by an intersectional framework, this study examined gang and non-gang differences in suicidality across an array of social identities and tested the effect of gang membership on suicidality within the context of cumulative marginalization. Data come from a statewide, school-based sample of adolescents in the 8th, 10th, and 12th grades (N = 81,080). Chi-square and independent samples t-tests examined group differences in rates of self-reported suicidal ideation, planning, and attempts. Logistic regression models tested the moderating effect of multiple marginalized identities on the gang-suicidality link. Gang-involved youth reported significantly higher suicidality compared to non-gang youth, with between-group disparities observed across singular marginalized identities. However, moderation analyses found that the effect of gang membership on suicidal ideation and planning was less salient in the context of cumulative marginalization. Findings suggest that gang-involved youth represent a unique and diverse population at risk of suicide. At the same time, gang membership may also offer some degree of protection against early stages of suicide for those with a greater number of marginalized identities. Implications for social work science and practice within an intersectional framework are discussed.
Journal Article
The knife and the butterfly
After a brawl with a rival gang, sixteen-year-old Azael, a member of Houston's MS-13 gang and the son of illegal Salvadoran immigrants, wakes up in an unusual juvenile detention center where he is forced to observe another inmate through a one-way mirror.
Book
Dual Trajectories of Gang Affiliation and Delinquent Peer Association During Adolescence: An Examination of Long-Term Offending Outcomes
Prior research has demonstrated that both adolescent gang affiliation and perceived delinquent peer association are important predictors of individual offending. A crucial question is whether and how youth gang affiliation contributes to a spectrum of criminal acts above and beyond the influence of associating with delinquent peers. Using 14 waves of data from the Rochester Youth Developmental Study, an ongoing longitudinal panel study aimed at understanding the causes and consequences of delinquency and drug use in an urban sample of adolescents, the current study employs a relatively new modeling technique—dual trajectory analysis—to illustrate the dynamic relationship between these two measures among 666 male youth. The results suggest that the two measures, while overlapping, may constitute distinct concepts that operate in different ways. The most convincing evidence of gang effects, above and beyond the influence of perceived peer delinquency, is for violent behavior and by extension police arrest. Our findings contribute to developmental research and provide information that informs future gang control efforts.
Journal Article
Exploring the Link Between Neighborhood Violence and Health Among African-American and Latinx Youth Returning Home After Incarceration
BackgroundAfrican-American and Latinx youth are disproportionately exposed to neighborhood violence and are overrepresented in the U.S. juvenile justice system. Perceived neighborhood violence is associated with negative health outcomes.ObjectiveWe examined associations between African-American and Latinx youths’ perceived neighborhood violence and health during reentry after juvenile incarceration.MethodsYouth (n = 50) returning home after incarceration completed health questionnaires at one-month post-incarceration. A subset of participants (n = 25 youth) also participated in one-on-one, semi-structured longitudinal interviews.ResultsTwenty-eight (56%) participants reported neighborhood violence in quantitative surveys. Quantitative analyses revealed that perceived neighborhood violence was positively associated with reported asthma diagnosis, doctor recommendations for medical follow-up, perceived stress, and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Perceived neighborhood violence was negatively correlated with perceived family support. Stress ratings were associated with ACE total scores, moderate to severe depression symptoms, and family support. Moderate-to-severe depression symptoms were significantly correlated with lower ratings of family support. Qualitative interviews supplemented our quantitative findings and showed that responses to perceived neighborhood violence were linked to specific health-related behaviors, such as substance use or avoidance of gang activity.ConclusionsOverall, our quantitative and qualitative results indicate that perceived neighborhood violence is associated with many negative psychosocial factors that could impact overall health and wellbeing of youth undergoing reentry. Treatment implications include the development and testing of family-centered interventions that help improve the transition back into the community for youth undergoing reentry and especially, their access to evidence-based treatment, including leveraging family telehealth substance use interventions.
Journal Article
Knockout games
As a gang of urban teenagers known as the TKO Club makes random attacks on bystanders, Erica, who's dating the gang leader, wrestles with her dark side and \"good kid\" identity.
Book
Differences in Prevalence Rates of Hopelessness and Suicidal Ideation Among Adolescents by Gang Membership and Latinx Identity
Despite the ongoing challenge of preventing youth gang membership in diverse communities across the United States, and increasing recognition of associations between trauma and gang involvement, the nexus between hopelessness, suicide, and gang membership has largely been ignored. We created two random samples of 1000 participants, with 50% identifying as non-Latinx White, and 50% identifying as Latinx of any race from 91,265 participants of the 2014–2015 California Healthy Kids Survey. Four Chi square tests of independence tested differences in prevalence rates of chronic hopelessness and suicidal ideation for self-identified Latinx and non-Latinx White gang and non-gang member youth. Grounded in a systems responsiveness framework, we predicted that hopelessness and suicidal ideation would be higher for groups that are more marginalized, which was supported by our findings. Specifically, gang membership and ethnicity were both associated with suicide and hopelessness. An unexpected finding, not related to the research questions, was the high prevalence of gender and sexual minority (GSM) youth who identified as gang members. This study represents a unique contribution to the adolescent suicidal ideation literature base, as most studies focus on race or ethnicity and neglect gang membership when identifying disproportionalities in suicidal ideation. Implications for practitioners, researchers, and schools and communities are discussed.
Journal Article