NCJ Number
70008
Journal
Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency Volume: 17 Issue: 2 Dated: (July 1980) Pages: 245-253
Date Published
1980
Length
9 pages
Annotation
Gibb's and Short's analysis of the relation between criminal and occupational defferentiation among males in 1950 and 1960 as a test of social causation theory is replicated using 1970 data on both sexes.
Abstract
Data on arrests by type of offense and age, used in calculating values of criminal differentation, were obtained from 1970 Uniform Crime Reports. Data were collected on 28 offense categories. Data for measuring occupational differentiation in 12 occupational categories for both males and females were used from the 1970 census of population. As in the original Gibbs and Short study, an index of dissimilarity for measuring both criminal differentiation and occupational differentiation was used to test the following proposition: In the U.S., among age groups as of 1970, the greater the occupational differentiation, the greater the criminal differentiation. Results indicated that, despite the inclusion of additional age categories, the correlation remained low compared to Gibbs and Short's findings, that these two variables were positively strongly related in both 1950 and 1960. Correlations using both males and females were also weak. This finding is attributed to historical changes in occupational differentiation as compared with criminal differentiation. In addition, there was little or no change among the younger age groups in either criminal or occupational differentiation for older age categories. It is suggested that only additional research, using the units of analysis such as racial and ethnic groups, cities, counties, and countries will finally determine whether or not the relation between criminal and occupational differentiation is a recurrent empirical regularity. Tables, footnotes, and five references are provided.