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Date: November 25, 2024 Mon
Time: 8:08 pm
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Results for demographic trends (scotland)
2 results foundAuthor: Smith, David J. Title: The Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime: Key Findings at Ages 12 and 13 Summary: The rise in crime is one of the most striking social changes since the Second World War. Police recorded crime rose dramatically between 1950 and the mid 1990s in all developed countries (except Japan) and, because of the shape of the age-crime curve, this is to a large extent the result of an increase in misconduct and ordinary crimes committed by young people (Smith, 1995). This increase in problem behaviour among young people has also been paralleled by post-war increases in other psychosocial disorders during the teenage years, such as suicide, eating disorders and personality dysfunctions (Smith & Rutter, 1995). These major societal changes have meant that youth crime, and indeed issues in relation to young people in general, have become a salient political issue As a result of these societal and political developments, studies into changes in criminal offending over the life course are critical to contemporary criminology. By far the most important previous British study in this field is the Cambridge Study of Delinquent Development, a major longitudinal study which continues to study the determinants and predictability of criminal offending among a group of people who were 8 years old in 1961 (Farrington and West, 1990). However, the origins of this study are somewhat outdated and contemporary studies are needed, combining both psychological and sociological approaches, to focus on a substantially different set of intellectual and policy questions. The Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime is a major longitudinal of around 4,300 young people who started their first year of secondary school in the City of Edinburgh in August 1998, when most of them were around 11½ and 12½ years of age. The study aims to further our understanding of criminal behaviour among young people by studying them over a key period of development. There are four key objectives underpinning the study: To investigate and identify the factors which impact on young people’s offending behaviour and the processes which are involved; To examine these factors and processes within 3 main contexts: individual development through the life course; the impact of interactions with formal agencies of social control and law enforcement; the effect of the physical and social structure of the individual’s neighbourhood; Within each of the above three contexts, to examine the striking differences between the extent and patterns of criminal offending between males and females; and To contribute towards the development and empirical evaluation of theories which explain people’s involvement in criminal offending behaviour, particularly those who go on to become serious and persistent offenders. Details: Edinburgh, Scotland: School of Law, University of Edinburgh, Centre for Law and Society, 2001. 202p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 17, 2012 at http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/cls/esytc/findreport/wholereport.pdf Year: 2001 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/cls/esytc/findreport/wholereport.pdf Shelf Number: 91566 Keywords: Demographic Trends (Scotland)Juvenile Delinquency (Scotland)Juvenile Offenders (Scotland) |
Author: Smith, David Title: Gender and Youth Offending Summary: There is a substantial difference between boys and girls in levels of serious delinquency, but a relatively small difference in levels of broad delinquency, including trivial as well as serious incidents. Among young people included in the Edinburgh Study, delinquency increased sharply through sweeps 1 to 3 (age 12 to 14) but then started to decline. The increase was greater among girls than among boys, so that the gender gap in offending was smallest around the age of 14, and then began to increase again. Girls are involved in certain specific forms of delinquency—theft from home, writing graffiti, and truancy—more often than boys. Certain specific forms of delinquency—carrying a weapon, housebreaking, robbery, theft from cars, cruelty to animals—are much more common among boys than girls. The explanations for delinquency involve many different factors in at least six different domains of explanation. For the most part the explanatory model for broad delinquency is much the same among boys and girls. The explanatory factors captured by the Edin-burgh Study explain all of the difference in broad delinquency between boys and girls at the age of 15. The high rates of broad delinquency among boys compared with girls are largely ex-plained by situational opportunities and peer influence, higher rates of crime victimiza-tion, and weakened tutelage and moral beliefs. By contrast, boys remain much more likely to be involved in serious delinquency at the age of 15, even after taking account of 20 explanatory variables captured by the Edin-burgh Study. This finding suggests that the difference in serious delinquency between boys and girls is caused by a factor not measured in the study. In spite of some broad similarities, there are substantial differences between the models needed to explain serious delinquency in boys and girls. The findings are consistent with the theory that broad delinquency tends to be limited to adolescence, whereas serious offending is more likely to persist throughout the life course, and to be caused by deep-seated neuropsychological deficits, which are more common in boys than girls. Details: Ediburgh, Scotland: Centre for Law and Society, The University of Edinburgh, 2004. 24p. Source: The Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime, Report Number 2: Internet Resource: Accessed July 18, 2012 at http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/cls/esytc/findings/digest2.pdf Year: 2004 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/cls/esytc/findings/digest2.pdf Shelf Number: 102905 Keywords: Demographic Trends (Scotland)Gender (Scotland)Juvenile Offenders (Scotland) |