NCJ Number
98150
Journal
American Journal of Sociology Volume: 90 Issue: 6 Dated: (May 1985) Pages: 1151-1178
Date Published
1985
Length
28 pages
Annotation
A neo-Marxian, class-based, power-control theory of the relationship between gender and delinquency was formulated and tested using survey data, gathered during the first 4 months of 1979, for 485 Toronto secondary school students and their parents.
Abstract
Respondents were located in class categories in terms of their control over means of production, control over work of others, and relation to labor power. Class categories included employers, managers, workers, and surplus population. Subjects were administered a self-reported delinquency measure and measures of parental control, taste for risk, and perceived sanction risk. As hypothesized, the relative power that derives from being male and situated in the employer class produced somewhat higher rates of common delinquency. Moreover, differences in parental control accounted for the higher delinquency of males in the employer class than in the managerial or working class. In all three of the higher classes males were more delinquent than females even when parental control was taken into account. For the surplus class, there was no evidence of a gender-delinquency relationship when parental control was taken into account. Overall, results confirm that freedom from parental controls has much to do with differences within and between classes in the effect of gender on delinquency. The taste for risk variable had significant effects on delinquent behavior in all four classes, while perceptions of sanction risk substantially reduced the effect of gender on delinquency only in the employer class. The assumption that the presence of power and absence of control create conditions for delinquency is shown by employer-class males being more delinquent than females and believing they are freer and less likely to be punished.