Culture, Gender, and Delinquency: A Study of Youths in the United States and India (From Exploring Delinquency: Causes and Control, P 69-79, 1996, Dean G Rojek and Gary F Jensen, eds. -- See NCJ-165981)

• NCJ Number: 165989
• Author(s): C A Hartjen; S Kethineni
• Date Published: 1996
• Length: 11 pages
• Sale Source: Roxbury Publishing Co.
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study analyzes the official and self-reported delinquency rates of juveniles in the United States and India, with attention to gender and cultural issues.

Abstract

Four primary sources of data were used: official arrest rates for India (Bureau of Police Research and Development, 1988) and the United States (FBI, 1984); a self-reported delinquency survey of Indian boys and girls; and a comparison subsample of American high school youths extracted from the National Youth Survey (1978). The data show that a considerably greater number (both absolute and relative) of American than Indian juveniles are apprehended by authorities. The total number of Indian juveniles arrested is less than 3 percent of those apprehended in the United States. This is especially true of Indian girls, since they equal only 1.25 percent of the American girls' arrests, and the proportion of Indian boys arrested equals about 3.4 percent of the number of boys arrested in the United States. American boys register significantly higher prevalence rates than girls for all but four offenses. A similar observation can be made in the comparison of Indian boys and girls. In contrast to the American sample, somewhat stronger coefficients were found for some offenses, but no significant differences exist for four offenses and very small differences resulted for most other offenses. Overall, the self-report findings suggest that in both India and the United States boys are somewhat more delinquent than girls, both with regard to types of behavior and relative proportions involved; the extreme differences in arrest rates may not necessarily reflect extreme differences in actual behavior, however. Along with other cross-cultural research, this study suggests that a certain universality exists in delinquency to the extent that such conduct is found in societies with very different social, cultural, and economic characteristics. Still, cultural differences do influence delinquency rates in the two countries, particularly regarding girls. Both the cultural orientation toward women and the structural arrangement of Indian society make delinquent behavior unlikely to be attempted by Indian girls and even less likely to be successfully accomplished. 3 tables, 4 notes, and 76 references