Male and Female Youth Crime in Canadian Communities: Assessing the Applicability of Social Disorganization Theory

• NCJ Number: 213533
• Journal: Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice Volume: 48 Issue: 1 Dated: January 2006 Pages: 31-60
• Author(s): Joanna C. Jacob
• Date Published: January 2006
• Length: 30 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: Canada

Annotation

This study examined whether and to what degree social disorganization theory applied to factors in both male and female juvenile crime in Canadian communities.

Abstract

This study found that higher levels of poverty and other measures of social disadvantage were associated with higher rates of female juvenile offending as well as male juvenile offending. Social disorganization theory links a community's ability to exert strong informal social controls to the behavior of juveniles who live in the community. This implies that the risk for juvenile delinquency increases in communities where residents do not have strong common moral values and a shared commitment to address commonly experienced problems of public safety. Community characteristics related to juvenile crime tended to vary by type of crime rather than by juveniles' gender. Findings support the social disorganization hypothesis that occupational status of a community translates into social status, which in turn impacts the rates of property and violent juvenile crime for both genders. The same result held true for the educational attainment level of a community. Unexpectedly, the findings showed that when educational and occupation levels were controlled, communities with higher incomes were linked with higher juvenile crime rates for both males and females. Other community factors found to be associated with juvenile crime for both males and females were residential mobility, ethnic heterogeneity, urbanization, and family supervisory influences. The study obtained data on juvenile crime from arrests of juveniles reported in Canada's Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) for 1996. Data on community characteristics were obtained from the 1996 Canadian Census. An integrated database was produced and analyzed by combining variables from the 1996 census with variables from the 1996 UCR survey. 3 tables, 7 notes, and 62 references