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Abstract
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VioLit summary:
OBJECTIVE:
The aim of this study by Peeples and Loeber was to test whether individual factors and neighborhood context explain ethnic differences in juvenile delinquency. The authors were specifically interested in whether residency in an underclass neighborhood makes a significant contribution to the explanation of juvenile delinquency after accounting for individual factors which have been associated with underclass neighborhoods such as poverty and single parent homes.
METHODOLOGY:
A non-experimental design was employed. The authors interviewed an eligible (eligibility was not specified) group of male youth from seven public middle schools in Pittsburgh, who were also the oldest of the three grade cohorts in the ongoing longitudinal Pittsburgh Youth Study. The boys were randomly selected for an initial screening; 850 of the seventh grade boys and their parents agreed to participate. The initial screening consisted of reports of the boys prosocial and antisocial behavior, reported by the boy, his primary caretaker, and his teacher. A risk score was calculated based on the boy's commission of possible indictable offenses according to the three respondents. The final sample consisted of the 30% with the highest risk scores and approximately an equal number of randomly selected boys from the remainder, for a total of 506 subjects.
The data for the study was based on the initial screening information as well as measures from a follow-up interview. The measures included: (1) a self-report delinquency scale, adapted from Elliott et al. (1985), (2) a frequency of delinquent behavior which included a serious delinquency frequency score, and a total frequency score both of which were classified into four groups by the number of reported acts, zero, one, two to five, and six or more, (3) a hyperactivity scale which measured the extent to which the boy was restless, impulsive, inattentive, and irresponsible which was based on the reports of the boy's parent and teacher (reliability=85), (4) family poverty/welfare use, a family was poor if the parent reported receiving welfare at the time of screening (all others were classified as not poor), (5) single-parent home, (6) parental supervision of outside activities, and (7) an underclass index and a neighborhood classification. A definition of underclass terms was included in the appendix. Multiple regression analysis was used to analyze the data.
FINDINGS/DISCUSSION:
The authors found that neighborhood context was significantly related to delinquent behavior and ethnicity was not. First, the authors found that African American youth were more frequently and more seriously delinquent than white youth, but only when the two groups were compared without regard to neighborhood context. When African American youth did not live in underclass neighborhoods, their delinquent behavior was similar to that of the white youth. Other findings included the correlation between delinquency and the boy's hyperactivity and parental supervision. Poverty/welfare use and single parent homes were not found to be significant. When controlling for the individual variables residence in underclass neighborhoods was related to all three measures of delinquency, while ethnicity was not related to any. The author concluded by noting the importance of including neighborhood context when studying the delinquency of African American youth.
(CSPV Abstract - Copyright © 1992-2007 by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, Regents of the University of Colorado)
Low Income Youth
Low-Income Community
Community Risk Factors
Class Factors
Poverty
Single Parent
Family Risk Factors
Juvenile Offender
Juvenile Violence
Juvenile Delinquency
Juvenile Crime
Crime Causes
Delinquency Causes
Violence Causes
Neighborhood Environment
Community Environment
Family Environment
Family Relations
Sociocultural Factors
Socioeconomic Factors
African American Offender
African American Crime
African American Juvenile
Pennsylvania
Longitudinal Studies
Early Adolescence
Ethnic Differences
Racial Differences
Racial Comparison
Caucasian Crime
Caucasian Juvenile
Caucasian Offender
Black-White Comparison
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