Citation

Lesieur HR, Lehman PM. Br. J. Criminol. 1975; 15(1): 69-80.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1975, Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, Publisher Oxford University Press)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Almost ten years ago Sellin and Wolfgang wrote The Measurement of Delinquency. Since then the ratio scale they composed in the book has been used by criminologists in studying delinquency and its causes. The scale was replicated using a sample of 563 students at several universities in New England. In the process of replication several major deficiencies were found in the scale itself Internal consistency of the scale was determined by comparisons of gross statistics between groups of raters rather than by comparison of the ratios themselves. Also, it appears questionable whether "seriousness" is scalable at all and, if it is scalable, whether it is a unidimensional phenomenon.