A cross-national study of youth offending

Abstract

While testing criminological theories and concepts in cross national studies provides a chance to establish the scientific generalizability of specific causal mechanisms across different countries, comparative criminologists must overcome both theoretical and methodological challenges while conducting their research. Given that most criminological theories and measurement instruments are derived from the United States and Western cultural settings, critical issues arise when criminologists are conducting cross national research including non-Western countries. Cross national research should use instruments that measure the same psychometric construct in all countries in the same manner; therefore, this dissertation tests the measurement invariance of the indicators as an important first step prior to testing of the generalizability of a set of hypotheses across a number of national contexts. The dissertation attempts to integrate aspects of three criminological theories social bonding theory, lifestyle/routine activities theory, and self-control theory and to test its cross-national generalizability. Specifically, the mediating and moderating effects of social bonding and routine activities on delinquency are examined. Moreover, drawing from Institutional Anomie theory, this study examines the moderating effect of country level social contextual characteristics of economic dominance on the relationship between individuals predictors and their violent and property criminal offending. The data are 44,221 7th, 8th and 9th graders from 24 countries collected by the second wave of International Self-Report Delinquency Study (ISRD2). The findings from measurement invariance testing confirmed partial metric invariance among responses to the scales measuring attachment to significant others, delinquent peers, and low self-control. Consistent with earlier analyses of the ISRD2 data (Marshall & Enzmann 2012), the hypotheses derived from social bonding, self-control theory, and routine activity theory found support among the sample. On the other hand, the expected mediating variables did not mediate between adolescents level of low self-control and violent and property criminal offending. Examination of the moderating effect of country level economic institutions [i.e. Gini index and the index of economic freedom (developed by the Heritage Foundation)] provides some support for the implications of Institutional Anomie Theory. The results reported that adolescents low self-control, attachment to parents, school, and neighborhood, and delinquent peers had significant impact on their delinquent offending. In addition, the effect of low self-control on violent criminal offending was stronger among adolescents living in countries with higher level of economic dominance than the group of countries with a lower level of economic dominance. On the other hand, the effect of attachment to parents on violent criminal offending is stronger among adolescents living in countries with lower level of economic dominance. The findings indicate that measurement invariance testing, theory integration, and attempts to integrate micro- and macro-level theories are important to advance valid comparative criminological research and theory development.