Social Status and Delinquency - Do Self-Reports and Official Reports Match? (From Measurement Issue in Criminal Justice, P 71-88, 1983, Gordon P Waldo, ed. - See NCJ-92338)

• NCJ Number: 92342
• Author(s): D G Rojek
• Date Published: 1983
• Length: 18 pages
• Sale Source: Sage Publications, Inc
• Publication Type: Statistics
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Neither police data nor self-report surveys provide a totally valid measure of juvenile delinquency, which is a complex phenomenon rather than a single type of behavior associated with a particular social class.

Abstract

Study data came for 825 status offenders randomly selected from the clients of a diversion program in Pima County, Ariz. A complete offense history was constructed for each youth. In addition, the youths completed a social adjustment instrument and a 27-item self-report delinquency questionnaire. The youths were asked to report how many times during the past 6 months each act had been committed and whether an arrest was made. Factor analysis showed three general categories of offenses: property offenses, the use of soft drugs, and the use of hard drugs. No factor emerged that could be labeled crimes against persons or status offenses, however. Police data and self-report data gave different results regarding the numbers and types of offenses committed and the correlates of delinquency. Social status was not a significant correlate of delinquency. Combining disparate offenses into a single measure of adolescent deviance may seriously jeopardize any meaningful research. Most theories of juvenile delinquency suffer from this crude blending of offenses, which lead to the impression that diverse crimes have similar causes. Data tables, notes, and eight references are provided.