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Differences in the crime involvement of immigrants and the native population have been a major topic in criminology for decades. This interest stems from the fact that immigrants are overrepresented in the crime statistics of many European countries. Our study compares delinquency among native and immigrant youth in Finland. The analysis is based on the 2012 sweep of the Finnish Self-Report Delinquency Study ( N = 8914). The results show that several forms of delinquency were more prevalent among immigrants than among native youth. Multivariate analyses indicate that routine activities and parental control were related to the immigrant youths’ higher risk of active delinquency. After adjusting for a wide range of background variables, the immigrants’ higher risk of delinquency decreased, but remained significant.

The article presents a quantitative look at the European homicide research published in selected main international journals in the field of social science criminology (SSC) since 2000. Building on our previous, mainly narrative work (Kivivuori et al., 2012), we use search string targeting article titles in selected SSC journals. The aim is to capture the basic features and patterns of homicide research conducted by scholars affiliated with European institutions and departments. Research activity is then examined in terms of its quantity, patterns and trends, with attention to theoretical approaches and emphases. Our analyses suggest that European homicide research is increasing, is relatively concentrated to specific countries with strong homicide research traditions, and shows a rising percentage of female scholars. In terms of method and substance, qualitative and mixed methods appear to be ascendant, and research increasingly focuses on sub-types of homicide rather than on homicide in general. The most frequent topic of special homicide research is intimate partner homicide, with genocide and homicide-suicide studies also drawing European attention. The theoretical traditions of SSC-based homicide research are nearly always acknowledged and often explicitly developed. Social control theory emerges as the most discussed and ascendant theory. In addition to narrative commentary of emerging themes, we describe the ‘uses of theory’ in European homicide research, and detect a fruitful tension between nomothetic and idiographic approaches.

Research on socioeconomic differences in violent victimization has relied on surveys. Nationally representative register-based data sets, increasingly used in Nordic criminology, have not been used in such research. We analyse socioeconomic differences in violent victimization in Finland using both survey and register-based data, and assess whether these differences vary by severity of violence. The results show that the data source and the inclusivity of the definition of violence affect the observed socioeconomic differences, with differentials being larger for more severe violence in both data sets and in register rather than in survey data. We conclude that the link between socioeconomic status and victimization is unquestionable when the risk of severe violence is studied.

Crime victimization surveys are important sources of trend information and provide data for basic criminological research. In recent years, victim surveys have proliferated and their strengths are well known. The aim of this study is to increase the methodological literature on victim surveys by analysing framing effects, defined as the way the survey instrument communicates its topic and aim, especially in terms of the gendered nature of violence. Three experimental frames were applied to independent, random samples of the adult Finnish population: male-to-male violence frame, female-to-male violence frame, and male-to-female violence frame. The impacts of these frames were analysed in relation to two outcome variables: self-assessed propensity to report hypothetical borderline incidents in a victim survey and reporting of prior personal violent victimization. Thus, we utilized measures of both intended survey reporting behaviour and real survey reporting behaviour. The findings indicate that the male-to-female violence frame increases the willingness of the respondents to report borderline cases to survey researchers, regardless of other factors. It also increases the prevalence of reported prior victimizations. The female-to-male frame has a similar but weaker framing effect. The findings are discussed from the point of view of the ‘conversation’ paradigm of survey methods research.

This article examines the correlates of self-assessed re-offending probability (SARP) in a sample of Finnish short-term prisoners. The research focuses on the role of factors related to social control when individual self-control is held constant, and explores how selected prison activities relate to SARP. The associations between social control and re-offending probability manifest some erosion when self-control and criminality are factored in, a finding that replicates prior studies. However, several variables capturing a person’s ties to social control institutions remained robust correlates of SARP. Having many siblings, living in a nuclear family during childhood, parental supervision during childhood and youth, and avoiding negative events in adulthood appear to reduce the number of offences projected to the future. In prison, work participation, participation in alcohol abuse treatment, and remorse for past crimes are associated with reduced SARP. We draw on cross-sectional data combining a quantitative survey ( N = 351) and qualitative interviews ( N = 37).

Social capital has emerged as a widely used concept both in empirical studies and in theoretical debate in social science. In the field of criminology, several studies have found support for the association between various forms of social capital and criminal behaviour. This study examines the association between social capital and self-reported delinquency when structural and individual-level factors are controlled. Indicators of social capital, family structure, economic situation, self-control, cognitive ability and participation in delinquent behaviour are explored in a nationally representative sample of 15-16-year-old Finnish adolescents ( N = 5142). The results of the multivariate analysis indicate that (as indicators of social capital) low parental support, low teacher control and low interpersonal trust are associated with delinquent behaviour when structural and individual-level variables, including self-control, are controlled. Parental control, teacher support and intergenerational closure are associated with delinquency only in bivariate models. It seems that parents’ weak ties connecting the adolescent to the part-time labour market do not protect him or her from the risk of delinquency. Compared with social capital and structural indicators, the level of self-control seems to have a stronger association with the risk of delinquent behaviour. Cognitive ability also emerges as a robust correlate of delinquency. The article concludes by discussing the need to take individual-level propensities into account when examining the effects of social capital.