|
Reframing the Research and
Policy Agenda
Multilevel research designs and theories that reflect a variety of analytic methods can further the study of serious and violent juvenile crime, especially when attempting to identify and account for ethnic and racial differences. The insights gained from such research have policy-related implications. Public policy aimed at reducing serious and violent juvenile offending should adopt the goal of transforming urban communities, especially in light of past trends in the concentration of urban poverty.
This approach requires that theories of community social organization be linked with theories of political economy. Researchers should examine the dynamics between the sociostructural characteristics of urban neighborhoods and the community's ability to regulate the behavior of its residents in the context of larger social and political processes. This approach suggests that changes in black communities, such as increased poverty and disorganization in the late 1970's and 1980's, may have affected family functioning, which in turn has contributed to more recent increases in juvenile delinquency. Recent urban violence may thus be partly attributable to childhood socialization processes in place at that time.
New research should take into consideration a number of other factors. Exposure to violence may also contribute to the involvement in serious crime of youth in disadvantaged communities. Intergenerational violence may lead to psychosocial stress and higher rates of victimization and offending (see Maxfield and Widom, 1996). More generally, victimization and offending have been shown to have reciprocal influences on one another (see Lauritsen, Sampson, and Laub, 1991).
Situational factors such as alcohol and drug use, drug trafficking, or use of weapons may contribute to some of the racial and ethnic differences in serious crime rates (Clarke, 1983; Gabor, 1986; Harries, 1990; Monahan and Klassen, 1982). Individual-level and community-level theories alone cannot account for situational factors. Miethe and Meier (1994) and others have suggested that most theories and research designs do not account for the situational interplay between victims and offenders, which may be essential in the study of adolescent offending. Addressing situational factors also can contribute to the development of prevention and intervention protocols.
Multilevel research would benefit from research methods that are used less today, such as ethnography (Anderson, 1994; Jankowski, 1995; and Sullivan, 1989), an analysis of culture that can be used to identify and analyze the situational links between inequality and crime. When combined with arrest or self-report data, ethnographic methods can be valuable in understanding group differences in crime and violence rates.
The effects of gender also need to be considered when explaining differences in rates of serious and violent offending. Harris (1996), for example, used a survey research design to assess the attitudes and aggressive behaviors of males and females. In her sample of Anglo, Hispanic, and African American respondents, she found that aggressive behavior was influenced by individual, contextual, and cultural variables and sometimes by the interaction between ethnicity and gender.
Finally, researchers need to use more diverse samples of offenders and victims. Even though official records and choices of research sites give researchers reason to focus on the differences between blacks and whites, the United States has become increasingly diverse. An examination of the relatively high rates of violence among some groups of Native Americans and Latinos and the relatively low rates of violence among some groups of Asian Americans could help in the development of policies aimed at reducing violence among African Americans.
The size of nonwhite racial groups in the United States and the ethnic mix within them have increased. Many people of Latin American, Middle Eastern, and Asian ancestry have immigrated to the United States over the past two decades. In some cities, population changes may have already altered the ethnic-racial profile of serious and violent offenders, many of whom have been found to be involved in youth groupings and gangs of Eastern European, Asian, Latin American (other than Mexican), and Caribbean (other than Puerto Rican) ancestry. Researchers need to disaggregate data from national sources and use multilevel quantitative and qualitative data to draw the fine-tuned comparisons called for in this Bulletin.
OJJDP Study Group on Serious and Violent Juvenile
Offenders
In 1995, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) convened a Study Group on Serious and Violent Juvenile Offenders (Study Group), a distinguished panel brought together to build a research base for policymakers and practitioners who deal with juveniles who engage in serious and violent conduct. The group, chaired by Drs. Rolf Loeber and David P. Farrington, included 22 leading juvenile justice and criminology scholars selected on the basis of their expert knowledge of different aspects of serious and violent juvenile (SVJ) offenders. The OJJDP Study Group documented existing information about SVJ offenders, examined programs for SVJ offenders, evaluated the programs' performance, and recommended further research and evaluation efforts needed to prevent and control SVJ offending.
The Study Group's final report, Never Too Early, Never Too Late: Risk Factors and Successful Interventions for Serious and Violent Offenders, was completed in 1997 under grant number 95-JD-FX-0018. The conclusions of the Study Group were subsequently set forth in a volume entitled Serious and Violent Juvenile Offenders: Risk Factors and Successful Interventions, edited by the Study Group's cochairs, Rolf Loeber and David P. Farrington, and published by Sage Publications, Inc., in 1998. Chapter 3 of the book, "Race, Ethnicity, and Serious Offending" (by Darnell F. Hawkins, John H. Laub, and Janet L. Lauritsen), is the subject of this Bulletin.
|
|
|
| Race, Ethnicity, and Serious and Violent Juvenile Offending |
Juvenile
Justice Bulletin • June 2000 |
|
