NCJ Number
102106
Journal
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Volume: 76 Issue: 3 Dated: (Fall 1985) Pages: 705-732
Date Published
1985
Length
28 pages
Annotation
This comparison of self-reported delinquency in a juvenile neighborhood sample and a juvenile correctional institution sample indicates that the neighborhood sample does not contain the type of delinquents present in the institutional sample.
Abstract
Data sources were a sample of all juveniles 12 through 19 years old living in private households in a large North Central Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area and a sample of the populations of three male juvenile institutions in the same State and the entire population of the only female juvenile institution in the State. A total of 942 interviews were completed for the neighborhood sample and 254 for the institutional sample. The self-report scale, based on items from the Elliott and Ageton inventory, included 27 offense items. Subjects indicated how many times during the past year they had committed each act. The various comparisons, whether on the basis of offense or sex, indicate that, without exception, the institutional offenders were significantly more delinquent than their neighborhood counterparts. Even after isolating an offender group in the neighborhood sample that appeared to be chronic delinquents compared to others in the sample, their delinquency involvement paled in comparison to that of institutionalized chronic offenders. The typical self-report survey, based on either a school or neighborhood sample, is unlikely to identify more than a handful of the kind of chronic offenders processed by official agencies. Tabular data and 28 footnotes.