scholarly journals Youth crime as a ‘way of life’? Prevalence and criminal career correlates among a sample of juvenile detainees in Australia

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 460-476
Author(s):  
Jason L Payne ◽  
Nadienne Roffey

For more than 60 years, scholars have often likened chronic and persistent offending to ‘living a criminal way of life’, yet these evocative motifs have not received much empirical scrutiny. In particular, the so-called criminal life-style is often conceptualized as something the chronic young offender opts into as an alternative to other pro-social pathways. Whereas for older offenders, it is something into which they find themselves trapped and unable to escape. The idea that crime is a chosen ‘way of life’ among chronic young offenders has not yet received sufficient empirical scrutiny. In this study, we use archival data of nationally representative cohort ( n = 373) of young offenders in Australian custodial centers who were each asked whether crime was their ‘way of life’. From this, we estimate its prevalence and criminal-career correlates, finding that one in three strongly identify with crime as their way of life. Self-identification is also found to be strongly correlated with Indigenous status even after controlling for different features of the juvenile criminal career. In all, our data paint a vivid portrait of a criminal identity that, for the young offender, likely signals a perceived inevitability that evolves in the context of structurally and culturally conditioned opportunities. Understanding this phenomenon among youthful offenders is important if we are to be successful in our attempts to curtail criminal continuity through desistance informed interventions.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Leslie Payne ◽  
Nadienne Roffey

For more than 60 years, scholars have often likened chronic and persistent offending to ‘living a criminal way of life’, yet these evocative motifs have not received much empirical scrutiny. In particular, the so-called criminal lifestyle is often conceptualised as something the chronic young offender opts into as an alternative to other pro-social pathways. Whereas for older offenders, it is something into which they find themselves trapped an unable to escape. The idea that crime is a chosen ‘way of life’ among chronic young offenders has not yet received sufficient empirical scrutiny. In this study, we use archival data of nationally representative cohort (n=373) of serious young offenders from Australia who were each asked whether crime was their ‘way of life’. From this, we estimate its prevalence and criminal-career correlates, finding that one in three strongly identify with crime as their way of life. Self-identification is also found to be strongly correlated with Indigenous status even after controlling for different features of the juvenile criminal career. In all, our data paint a vivid portrait of a criminal identity that, for the young offender, likely signals a perceived inevitability that evolves in the context of structurally and culturally conditioned opportunities. Understanding this phenomenon among youthful offenders is important if we are to be successful in our attempts to curtail criminal continuity through desistance informed interventions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (7) ◽  
pp. 2184-2204
Author(s):  
Lauren Bird ◽  
Amanda Sacker ◽  
Anne McMunn

Changes in paid labor in families have occurred within the wider context of societal changes in gendered attitudes to work. However, changes in behavior and attitudes are not necessarily correlated with each other, and their associations with family relationships are complex. This study uses data from over 12,000 two-parent families in the U.K.’s Millennium Cohort Study, a nationally representative cohort of children born during 2000–2002. The study investigates the potential association between relationship satisfaction and discordance between attitudes to maternal employment and mothers’ actual participation in paid labor, as well as agreement in attitudes within couples. Results show that attitudes in favor of maternal employment and actual maternal employment are generally associated with better relationship satisfaction for both mothers and fathers. In addition, discordance between an individual’s attitudes and behavior in relation to maternal employment, and discordant attitudes within couples, is both associated with significantly lower relationship satisfaction compared with concordant couples.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haibin Li ◽  
Changwei Li ◽  
Anxin Wang ◽  
Yanling Qi ◽  
Wei Feng ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Associations between the frequency of social and intellectual activities and cognitive trajectories are understudied in Chinese middle-aged and older adults. We aimed to examine this association in a nationally representative longitudinal study.Methods: The China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) is a nationally representative sample of Chinese middle-aged and older participants. The frequency of social and intellectual activities was measured at baseline. Interview-based cognitive assessments of orientation and attention, episodic memory, and visuospatial skills and the calculation of combined global scores were assessed every 2 year from 2011 to 2016. Cognitive trajectories over the study period were analyzed using group-based trajectory model, and the associations of the trajectory memberships with social and intellectual activities were analyzed using multinomial logistic regression. Odd ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were reported.Results: Among 8204 participants aged 50-75 years, trajectory analysis identified three longitudinal patterns of cognitive function based on the global cognitive scores: “persistently low trajectory” (n = 1550, 18.9%); “persistently moderate trajectory” (n = 3194, 38.9%); and “persistently high trajectory” (n = 3460, 42.2%). After adjustment for sociodemographic variables, lifestyles, geriatric symptoms and health conditions, more frequent intellectual activities (OR: 0.54, 95% CI: 0.38-0.77) and social activities (OR: 0.79, 95% CI: 0.65-0.95) were both associated with a lower likelihood of being in the “persistently low trajectory” for global cognitive function.Conclusions: These findings suggested that more frequent social and intellectual activities were associated with more favorable cognitive aging trajectories.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura J. Samuel ◽  
Sarah L. Szanton ◽  
Jennifer L. Wolff ◽  
Katherine A. Ornstein ◽  
Lauren J. Parker ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-149
Author(s):  
Ariane Pailhé ◽  
Lidia Panico ◽  
Marieke Heers

This paper characterises families where the father is not living (or not living permanently) with the child from around birth, and identifies the drivers of the evolution of father contact over the first year of life across different types of household. We use a recent, nationally representative cohort of children born in France in 2011, Elfe (the Etude longitudinale française depuis l’enfance), and latent clustering techniques to identify different groups of households characterised by non-residential fatherhood. We show that non-residential fatherhood from around birth is not a marginal phenomenon in France, and it corresponds to a heterogeneity of situations, describing both advantaged and low involvement fathers, as well less disadvantaged but involved groups. Over the first year of life, most non-resident fathers managed to keep in contact with their child, including relatively disadvantaged groups such as migrant and young parents, although groups characterised by low father involvement shortly after birth lost contact. On the other hand, among a group of very involved non-resident fathers who were in a relationship with the mother, we observed high levels of contact and indeed co-residence when the child was one year of age. A number of channels emerged to explain the correlations between our latent groups and father contact at one year: notably, father engagement around birth, especially whether the father formally recognised the child. Trajectories of father–child involvement and of parental relationships are therefore at least as important as socio-economic conditions to understand future father contact.


2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Buck ◽  
Kamalich Muniz-Rodriguez ◽  
Sarah Jillson ◽  
Li-Ting Huang ◽  
Atin Adhikari ◽  
...  

1989 ◽  
Vol 34 (7) ◽  
pp. 675-679
Author(s):  
Alan W. Leschied ◽  
Ken E. Thomas

The current study reviews the personal characteristics of 32 consecutive admissions to a secure custody centre in one southwest Ontario jurisdiction under the Young Offenders Act. Results indicated that there was considerable variability amongst the group regarding court history and the seriousness of the charge on which committal was made. Background history data suggested that the problems of youths committed to secure custody reflect considerable difficulties within families and school. The discussion questions whether the youths in this group are better served through the dispositions emphasizing custody-deterrence or rehabilitation-treatment. Implications for young offender policy are also presented.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document