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Digital communication poses challenges for scholars interested in the link between peers and crime since youth are often less inhibited online and can more easily share their opinions and experiences with offline activities. Drawing on longitudinal data from middle and high school students, this study explores how online communication impacts the sharing of personal and peer delinquency. Criminogenic risk factors are largely unrelated to the digital disclosure of personal delinquency among those who offend; however, peer online disclosure is related to self-reported delinquency, independent of perceived peer delinquency. These findings suggest cyberspace may extend offline mechanisms of peer influence beyond providing a unique source of online influence.

As criminologists explore the link between bullying victimization and delinquency, they must grapple with measurement issues related to the operationalization of in-school bullying and cyberbullying. Accurately identifying victims has implications for school safety and implementation of policies to reduce the consequences of bullying. Using a longitudinal sample of over 2,000 students, we find youth who do not self-identify as victims of bullying but report peer victimization are likely to experience a number of criminogenic risk factors, and these “mismatched” victims are more likely than non-victims to engage in delinquency. While the observed consequences of victimization are similar across bullied and mismatched youth, we find that certain criminogenic risk factors are associated with failure to self-identify one’s victimization as bullying.

The Federal Commission on School Safety has proposed a number of school security measures, including that trained teachers be allowed to carry concealed weapons at school. Prior to implementing suc...

Objectives: This study examines the influence of online peers who are not regularly seen in person by considering if online, pro-delinquent support is associated with self-reported delinquency independently of delinquent peers. Methods: Data come from a longitudinal, panel survey of two cohorts of middle and high school students located within six school districts (N = 1,177). Analyses first examine the overlap between online peer support for delinquency and perceived peer delinquency. Next, models consider how measures of online peer support for delinquency are associated with the prevalence (logit), variety (negative binomial), and changes (first difference) in self-reported delinquency. Results: Online peers generally do not enable exposure to new messages supportive of delinquency; rather, they supplement influences derived from delinquent peers. Little evidence was found that online peer support was associated with general delinquency and violence, although changes in online peer support were associated with changes in these outcomes. Partial evidence was found that online peers are associated with the prevalence, variety, and changes in self-reported theft and substance use. Conclusions: The influence from unique online peers is largely secondary to offline peers, although this depends upon the crime type under investigation.

A longstanding debate in criminology concerns whether peers influence delinquency or if they are of no significance because criminal propensity develops independent of associations. Matza (1969) cr...

Youth gangs have traditionally been conceptualized as groups of youth who congregate or hang out on the street. The Eurogang definition, in fact, includes “street-orientation” as one of the criteria used to classify a youth group as a gang. With the advent of the Internet and subsequent expansion of social media, to what extent, if any, has this technological innovation resulted in a change in the underlying group dynamics of youth gangs? That is, does interaction and communication with others online affect behavior? In this chapter, we explore similarities and differences in the role of online communication on gang and non-gang youth. We find that gang youth have a stronger proclivity toward online communication relative to non-gang youth, and exposure to online-only peers who support crime is initially associated with self-reported delinquency and violence. However, the effect of online peers no longer endures after controlling for traditional peer delinquency, suggesting the online context is an extension of peer processes that take place within the street.

Originality/value – This study explores how external events may influence student perceptions of school safety. Moreover, this study offers a methodological contribution by demonstrating an assessment of the Parkland shooting as a potential threat to internal validity.

Objectives: This study examines the effects of traditional bullying, cyberbullying, and dual-bullying victimization on subsequent delinquent outcomes. Method: Data come from a longitudinal sample of middle school students ( N = 3,271) as part of the evaluation of the Gang Resistance Education and Training (GREAT) program. A hybrid random effects model is used to estimate the between- and within-individual effects of traditional, cyber-, and dual-bullying victimization while controlling for other predictors of delinquency. Outcomes include general delinquency, violent and nonviolent delinquency, and substance use. Results: The findings demonstrate that those who are cyberbullied exhibit a higher propensity for substance use and nonviolent delinquency compared to those who are traditionally bullied. Changes in dual victimization within respondents over time are most strongly related to general delinquency. With one exception, the effect of traditional bullying victimization remained weakest in all of the models. Conclusions: This study finds evidence that victims of cyberbullying may be more likely to engage in delinquent and deviant behavior compared to victims of traditional bullying. Criminologists and antibullying prevention efforts should consider the broader role of cyberbullying victimization in the developmental processes of adolescents.

ObjectivesThe current study replicates prior national-level research on the relationship between crimes committed for monetary gain and inflation in a sample of 17 U. S. cities between 1960 and 2013. Methods A random coefficients model is used to estimate the effects of inflation on the change in acquisitive crime over time, controlling for other influences. Results The estimates yield significant effects of inflation on acquisitive crime rates in the 17 cities. City-specific coefficients reveal nontrivial variation across the cities in the significance, size, and impact of inflation on acquisitive crime.Conclusions Continued low inflation rates should restrain future crime increases in many US cities. U. S. monetary policy should be evaluated with respect to its effect on crime.

Purpose An emerging body of literature suggests online social networks (SNS) have the capacity to influence individual criminal behavior. However, there are fundamental differences between SNS and traditional peer groups. It is therefore likely that peer influence operates differently in SNS. The present study examines the role of network size and functional form of the relationship between individual and peer deviance in online networks. Methods Data for these analyses come from a survey of 583 undergraduates at a mid-southern university. Empirical analyses rely on a series of multivariate negative binomial regression models. Results Findings indicate there is a nonlinear relationship between exposure to criminal behavior online and self-reported offending. Network size moderates this relationship. Respondents embedded in the smallest networks exhibit a linear association between peer and individual behavior, while those in the largest networks display a saturation point, after which exposure to additional deviance becomes redundant. Conclusions The current study expands upon the emerging body of criminological research exploring the implications of online environments as venues for social learning. We showcase how processes of peer influence operate in online social networks and potentially affect criminal behavior.

Substance use has been closely linked with the structural characteristics of adolescent social networks. Those who drink, smoke, and use drugs typically enjoy an elevated status among their peers. Rates of substance use vary substantially across schools, and indicators of school structure and climate account for at least part of this variation. Emerging research suggests peer-group processes are contingent on school context, but questions remain regarding the school-level mechanisms which condition the influence of network characteristics on substance use. The present study uses multilevel logistic regression models to examine the moderating influence of school connectedness, school drug culture, and global network density on the association between peer network status and marijuana use. The analyses draw on self, peer, and parental data from a sample of 7,548 high-school aged youth nested within 106 schools participating in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (mean age = 15.2; % white = 59 %; male = 45 %). The results indicate that school connectedness significantly reduces the effect of social status on marijuana use. This provides evidence that school-level mechanisms can reduce the instrumentality of marijuana consumption in the status attainment process in adolescence.

The study of peer-group processes has a rich history in criminology. The dramatic growth in online social network websites has fundamentally changed peer-group interaction; however, relatively little research has considered how socialization processes observed in traditional interaction translate to online interaction. Using a sample of 583 undergraduate students from a mid-southern university, this study explores the concurrency between self-reported offending and exposure to criminal behavior in social network websites. Results demonstrate a strong, positive association between individual behavior and exposure to criminal behavior in online networks, suggesting that the processes underlying traditional social interaction also characterize online interaction. These results underscore the importance of online networks for understanding the etiology of criminal behavior.

Residential mobility is often implicated as a risk factor for delinquency. While many scholars attribute this to causal processes spurred by moving, recent research suggests that much of the relationship is due to differences between mobile and non-mobile adolescents. However, studies in this area often operationalize mobility as a single move, limiting researchers to comparing outcomes between mobile and non-mobile adolescents. This approach is rather broad, considering heterogeneity in mobility frequency as well as variation in sending and receiving neighborhood characteristics. We propose a more nuanced framework to help anticipate how characteristics of mobility experiences may mitigate, exacerbate, or fail to influence adolescent behavior. Drawing on data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) and the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1997 (NLSY97), we demonstrate that “hypermobility” has detrimental behavioral consequences, increases in neighborhood disadvantage between sending and receiving neighborhoods are associated with reductions in self-reported offending, and long-distance moves reduce delinquency, but only among adolescents with prior behavioral problems. These results underscore the complex association between residential mobility and delinquency during adolescence.