Social Correlates of Delinquency

1
Social Correlates of Delinquency

• Social Class

2
Traditional Understanding

• Lower class is responsible for most crime and
  delinquency
• This view comes from several sources
• Selective focus on crime in the streets (these
  are crimes more characteristic of lower class
• When MC commits these crimes, almost always
  presented as the exception (e.g., Columbine
  shooting)
• Police surveillance more close in lower class
  areas
• Early empirical studies which focused on lower
  class

3
Some Early Self-report EvidenceIndividual
Social Class

• Study by Empey and Erikson
• Methodology
• Self-report data from 180 males 15-17 years old
• 50 HS boys never in court (non-delinquents)
• 50 HS boys once in court (one-timers)
• 50 HS boys on probation
• 30 HS boys incarcerated
• Measures
• Social class (fathers occupation)
• 29 lower class
• 55 middle class
• 16 upper class
• Delinquency--22 separate offenses asked if (1)
  ever committed (2) how often committed (3) ever
  caught (4) how often caught

4
Study by Empey and Erikson (cont.) Overall
Findings
5
Study by Empey and Erikson (cont.) Findings for
Specific Offenses
6
Some Early Self-report EvidenceCommunity Social
Class
Clark and Wenninger Study

• Focus of study
• Compares delinquency rates across communities
  with social class characteristics
• Also compares between social classes within the
  same community
• Hypotheses
• Will be differences in delinquency across
  communities of different social class composition
• Will be differences in delinquency among similar
  social classes in different communities
• Will not be differences across social classes in
  the same community

7
Clark and Wenninger Study (cont.)

• Methodology
• 1154 children in grades 6-12 were given anonymous
  questionnaires
• Represented 4 different kinds of communities
• Rural farm--communities where farming was primary
  occupation. Considered working class
• Lower Urban--located in inner city Chicago
• Industrial City--blue collar community
• Upper Urban--wealthy suburb of Chicago
• All respondents were asked if they had committed
  any or all of a list of 38 specific offenses and
  how many times they had committed that offense
• Offenses were then compared across the cities,
  and across social classes within each city.
• Findings

Upper Urban
Industrial City
Similar Delinquency Patterns
Lower Urban
Rural Farm
Different Delinquency Patterns
8
Some Early Self-report EvidenceRising Affluence

• Study by Jackson Toby
• Focus of Study
• Observed that delinquency rates were increasing
  just as rapidly in affluent societies as in poor
  societies. Sought to explain this phenomenon
• Methodology
• Used as indicator of affluence
• of radios/100 population
• of TVs/100 population
• of cars/100 population
• Ranked countries from most to least affluent (USA
  most, Pakistan, least)
• Ranked increase in affluence from 1954 to 1964
• Measured delinquency through this time

9
Study by Jackson Toby (cont.)

• Findings
• rising affluence is directly associated with
  delinquency (linked with rising expectations)
• rising affluence results in less parental control
  (because of more women in the labor force
• as a mitigating factor, rising affluence results
  in greater education, which is linked with lower
  levels of delinquency

10
Reassessing Social Class and Delinquency I
Criticisms of Prior Research

• Problems with measures of delinquency
• Much of early self-report studies used trivial
  offenses in addition to more serious offenses.
  These sorts of offenses will be disbributed more
  evenly
• Prevalence rather than incidence figures were
  used in early studies
• Prevalence refers to how many people have ever
  engaged in delinquency
• Incidence refers to the number of acts committed
• Early studies focused on delinquency over an
  entire lifetime
• Problems with measures of social class
• Most studies has been measured with status
  attainment variables--parents occupation,
  education, etc.
• Alternative measures, such as unemployment or
  welfare status, are more likely to show a
  relationship between social class and delinquency

11
Reassessing Social Class and Delinquency
IIRecent Studies
Joseph Weis Study

• Methodology
• Used a portion of the National Youth Study (from
  Seattle)
• Asked respondents how many times (incidence) they
  had committed a delinquent act
• Compared relationship between social class and
  delinquency in different communities
• Findings
• Weak associations between social class and
  delinquency, regardless how either of these
  variables are measured (strongest associations
  found when using parents education as measure of
  SC
• Neighborhood comparisons did not affect social
  class-delinquency relationship.