Violence as an Environmentally Warranted Norm amongst Working-Class Teenage Boys in Glasgow

This study aimed to contribute to knowledge about contexts of violent assault perpetrated by white working-class teenage boys in Scotland. Despite studies exploring Scotland’s adolescent street gangs, there remains a gap in research where the collateral damage caused by gangs to others of the same class, age, and gender has gone unrecognized. Drawing upon insights from qualitative interviews with young, male, former offenders in Scotland we found that violence contained a strategic logic designed to foster bonding to a delinquent group, whilst offering a celebrity status and manliness. The co-presence of a violent culture worsened the likelihood of ameliorating mentalities associated with anti-social behaviors, which appear endemic to masculinity. That context of violence is associated with the criminal offending of boys who, though they may not be gang members, were nevertheless ‘contaminated’ by the aggressive shadow cast by the protest masculinity of gang-conflicted territories in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

Social use of alcohol among adolescent offenders: a fundamental approach toward human needs

This study examined some basic health care approaches toward human needs, with a particular focus on nursing. We aimed to incorporate these approaches into the discussion of the mental health of adolescent offenders who consume alcohol. We discuss specific needs of the delinquent group, critique policies that prioritize coercion of adolescent offenders, and the role that nurses could play in the sphere of juvenile delinquency.

Similarities and Differences Between Aggressive and Delinquent Children and Adolescents in a National Sample

Objective: To examine differences in the correlates, comorbidity and use of services between aggressive and delinquent children and adolescents. Method: An Australian representative sample (n = 4083) of parents of children and adolescents were administered a psychiatric diagnostic interview, the Child Behaviour Checklist, and other instruments to measure service use. The characteristics of children with high scores (top 5%) in the aggressive and delinquent syndromes or both were then examined. Results: The proportion of aggressive children decreased with increasing age while that of delinquents increased. The aggressive group was specifically associated with the impulsivehyperactive subtype of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (OR = 12.63; 95% CI = 5.97–26.74). Comorbidity between ADHD, aggression and delinquency was less frequent among adolescents than in children, with the exception of the inattentive subtype in which comorbidity was higher. Both aggressive and delinquent groups had a considerable overlap with conduct disorder. Aggressive and delinquent youths used services more often, but parents perceived aggressive children as more in need of help than delinquent ones. Living in a sole parent family was specifically associated with the delinquent group (OR = 3.34; 95% CI = 2.25–4.96). Conclusions: The results suggest that these empirically derived syndromes while sharing many features also differ in important ways, highlighting the need for further convergence between categorical and dimensional classifications. Their differential association with the subtypes of ADHD requires further examination and may help to understand the relationship between ADHD and conduct problems. The importance of aggressive behaviour in children should not be underestimated since it is associated with significant psychopathology, parental distress and use of services.

Developmental trajectories of boys' delinquent group membership and facilitation of violent behaviors during adolescence

Being part of a delinquent group has been shown to facilitate the expression of an individual's own delinquent propensities. However, this facilitation effect has not been investigated from a developmental perspective within a population heterogeneity model. Using a semiparametric mixture model with data from the Montreal Longitudinal Experimental Study, this article addresses important issues in the developmental trends of membership to delinquent groups. We explore how the rate of violent behaviors follows delinquent peer group trajectories and investigate a differential facilitation effect of delinquent peers on violence across multiple developmental pathways. Results suggest that 25% of males followed a childhood or an adolescence delinquent group affiliation trajectory. These two groups account for most of the violent acts assessed during adolescence. In addition, the rate of violent behaviors follows these developmental trajectories. Controlling for these delinquent group trajectories, we also found that being involved in a delinquent group at any specific time during adolescence is associated with an increased rate of violent behaviors, and that leaving these groups results in a decrease in violent behaviors. This facilitation effect appears homogeneous over time and across developmental trajectories. Results are discussed from a social interactional perspective.

Psychopathy and moral development: A comparative study of delinquent and nondelinquent youth

Sixty male adjudicated juvenile delinquents between the ages 14–17, and 20 nondelinquent controls were administered measures of moral reasoning, social convention understanding, interpersonal awareness, socialization, empathy, autonomy, and psychopathy in an effort to explore the relations between moral reasoning, moral sentiment, and antisocial behavior. Not only did the delinquent group evidence developmental delays on all of these direct and indirect tests of morality functioning, but their performance on certain of these measures also differentiated those offenders who were more or less psychopathic. By demonstrating the special contribution of measures of moral will or sentiment to the study of antisocial behavior, these findings serve to underscore the multidimensional character of moral development, and the complexity of the relations between thought and action.

Group Involvement in Delinquent Acts

This article focuses on the nature of group delinquency by examining the proportion of delinquency committed in groups and by exploring the size and sexual content of the groups in which delinquency is carried out. The data for the study were collected in the juvenile court in Montgomery County, Maryland. There are 225 cases in the sample. The sample was selected randomly. The notion of delinquency as group behavior is well supported by the finding that 63% of all offenses in this sample showed group involvement rather than individual behavior in the commission of delinquency. The data show that violent offenses are more likely committed by youths acting alone than in groups. Non-violent offenses are more likely committed in groups. Of female delinquencies, 57% were committed in groups, a proportion only slightly less than the proportion of male delinquencies committed in groups. Delinquencies of both males and females are more likely to involve groups of only two or three youths rather than larger group behavior. The main difference found between male and female delinquent group behavior is that females seem less likely than males to participate in groups which include more than two or three youths. It is suggested that additional information concerning the sexual structure of the group and the properties of group dynamics should be accumulated to describe the delinquent group of the 1970s and 1980s.