Schools And the Problem of Crime

by Boxford; Stephen

• ISBN13: 9781843921783
• ISBN10: 1843921782
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-07-01
• Publisher: Willan

Summary

What causes young people to offend? What influence do schools have on young peoples' offending behaviour in relation to other possible causal factors? These are the critical criminological and educational questions addressed in Schools and the Problem of Crime.The book examines the causes of offending in the school context among 3,103, male and female, Year 10 pupils (age 14-15), in twenty state schools in Cardiff. The findings of one of the largest empirical studies of its kind in the UK are used to examine the role of schools, family background, neighbourhood, young peoples' social situation and dispositions, and lifestyles on pupils' offending behaviour.Schools and the Problem of Crime disentangles the interplay and relationships between causal factors in its approach understanding why young people offend in the school context and why young people do not, as well as examining why some schools experience higher offending rates than others. The book employs an integrative analytical approach which is theoretically led. Through gaining an understanding of the factors that cause young people to offend it is envisaged that future crime prevention strategies can be better informed and targeted.Schools and the Problem of Crime will be essential reading for anybody with an interest in the issues schools face, the causes of crime and in understanding why young people offend.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	viii
List of figures and tables	ix
1 The Cardiff School Study	1	(7)
Contribution to knowledge and research aims	4	(1)
Analytical framework	5	(3)
2 The Cardiff School Study: research design and methods	8	(19)
The city of Cardiff	8	(2)
Conducting the research	10	(5)
The research design	15	(8)
A comparison of adolescents' general prevalence of offending between the Cardiff School Study and the Peterborough Youth Study	23	(3)
Summary	26	(1)
3 Offending in schools: key issues	27	(42)
Crime in schools: a review of previous research	29	(20)
Towards a theoretically grounded analytical framework	49	(19)
Summary	68	(1)
4 Offending in Cardiff's schools: individual and between-school differences	69	(16)
Offending	70	(6)
The nature of offending in Cardiff's schools	76	(7)
Summary	83	(2)
5 Neighbourhood context	85	(10)
Neighbourhood contextual effects	85	(6)
Multiple regression analysis	91	(1)
Summary	92	(3)
6 Family social position	95	(29)
Family socioeconomic status and offending in schools	96	(4)
Pupils' family structure and offending in schools	100	(3)
Pupils' family size and offending in schools	103	(3)
Pupils' family ethnicity/immigrant status	106	(6)
Family social position risk score	112	(4)
The relationship between area of residence structural risk and pupils' family social position score	116	(2)
Aggregate-level analysis	118	(2)
Multiple regression analysis	120	(2)
Summary	122	(2)
7 The school context	124	(30)
School context	126	(15)
Two measures of school context	141	(6)
Multiple regression analyses	147	(6)
Summary	153	(1)
8 Individual characteristics	154	(48)
Social situation: bonds and monitoring	157	(10)
Individual dispositions	167	(16)
The creation of an individual risk-protective scale based on pupils' social situation and disposition	183	(11)
The relationship between pupils' individual risk-protective scores and offending in schools	194	(2)
Multiple regression analyses	196	(5)
Summary	201	(1)
9 Lifestyle	202	(41)
The concept of lifestyle	202	(5)
Peer delinquency	207	(3)
School peer delinquency	210	(4)
Substance use	214	(7)
The overall lifestyle risk measure	221	(5)
Lifestyle risk, other explanatory factors and pupil offending in school: multiple regression analysis	226	(4)
The interaction between individual risk-protective factors and lifestyle risk and offending in schools	230	(10)
Summary	240	(3)
10 Between-school differences	243	(8)
Creating a measure of school context risk	243	(2)
School context risk by pupils' offending behaviour in schools	245	(3)
Pupils with protective individual risk-protective characteristics are significantly affected by their school context	248	(1)
Summary	249	(2)
11 Key findings and implications	251	(10)
Pupils' involvement in school crime	252	(2)
Explanatory factors	254	(6)
A final summary	260	(1)
References	261	(11)
Index	272