NCJ Number
170536
Journal
Criminology Volume: 36 Issue: 1 Dated: (February 1998) Pages: 175-182
Date Published
1998
Length
8 pages
Annotation
This article critically examines the analytic procedure used by Piquero and Rosay to study self-control and crime in male and female offenders, argues that the authors' procedure for examining the same data set was more useful, and notes that both approaches have the same substantive implication.
Abstract
The authors' research used a revised set of items from the self-report measure developed by Grasmick and colleagues. The results revealed that the self-control measure seemed tenable with male offenders but not with female offenders. In addition, the predictive power of self-control was no better than that of existing constructs in criminological theory. Piquero and Rosay took a different approach to avoid the use of correlated error residuals. They obtained a one-factor solution for men and women and concluded that the data do in fact support a unidimensional view of self-control. However, this conclusion is inappropriate; the viability of this self-control measure for women is an open issue. In addition, the authors' analytic procedure is defensible and in some respects more appropriate than that of Piquero and Rosay. Nevertheless, both analyses have the same substantive implication: it is not yet clear that the self-control construct represents a conceptual advance over lower-order components such as risk seeking and impulsivity. 28 references