Abstract
Purpose: This study aimed to test whether adolescents' delinquency is related to the geographic, functional and social diversity of the behavior settings that they are exposed to. Methods: Data were collected in a two-wave panel study amongst 616 adolescents. In the first wave, diversity was measured using a space-time budget interview recording their activities from hour to hour during four days. Self-control, morality, peer deviance, unsupervised peer activity, and parental supervision were measured using a self-report questionnaire. Delinquency was measured using self-report questions in the second wave. Results: The findings demonstrated that setting diversity is positively related to delinquency. For geographic and functional setting diversity, a substantial part of the positive association is independent of gender, age and the other explanatory variables. Conclusions: Adolescents' delinquency is not only affected by the overall contents of the settings that they encounter, but also by how much the content of settings varies over the course of the day.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 357-378 |
| Number of pages | 22 |
| Journal | Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology |
| Volume | 46 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Dec 2013 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
AcknowledgementsWe thank Per-Olof Wikstro¨m for sharing the questionnaire and the space-time budget interview
developed in the Peterborough Adolescent and Young Adult Development Study (PADS+), Beth
Hardie, Caroline Moul and Neema Trivedi for helping train our interview staff, and Kirsten
Grandia, Evelien Hoeben and Lieneke Spel for coordinating the data collection and managing
the fieldwork. Finally, we thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and useful
suggestions.