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Is It Who You Know, or How Many That Counts?: Criminal Networks and Cost Avoidance in a Sample of Young Offenders

NCJ Number
229531
Journal
Justice Quarterly Volume: 27 Issue: 1 Dated: February 2010 Pages: 130-158
Author(s)
Martin Bouchard; Holly Nguyen
Date Published
February 2010
Length
29 pages
Annotation
The aim of the current study is to assess whether criminal networks can help young offenders avoid contacts with the criminal justice system.
Abstract
We examine the association between criminal network and cost avoidance specifically for the crime of cannabis cultivation in a rural region in Quebec, Canada. A self-report delinquency survey, administered to the region's quasi-population of high-school students (N = 1,166), revealed that a total of 175 adolescents had participated in the cannabis cultivation industry (a 15 percent lifetime prevalence rate). Forty-seven respondents (27 percent), including 29 who were arrested, reported having participated in a cultivation site that was detected by the police. Results indicate that "who you know" matters in the cultivation industry, and is an important independent predictor of arrest: very few young growers who were embedded in adult networks were apprehended. Conversely, embeddedness in a youth network emerged as an independent risk factor, especially embeddedness in larger networks. Tables, figures, references, and appendix (Published Abstract)