Assessing the effects of social and individual differences on delinquency: An international challenge to criminological precepts

Abstract

By Jacob Lentsch, Criminal Justice

Advisor: Joseph Nedelec

Presentation ID: AM_A62

Abstract: A wide swath of literature within criminology has linked individual differences in factors such as religiousness, family attachment, neighborhood perceptions, and personality to delinquency. The majority of this research, however, suffers from two primary limitations. First, the association between delinquency and individual differences has been assessed in an isolated fashion that leads to the potential for omitted variable bias. Second, past research has been predominately conducted on samples collected from Western populations. The current study addresses these limitations by assessing both the independent and collective effects of the independent variables on delinquency utilizing an international sample of college students from India (n = 695). Overall, the multivariate analyses yielded primarily null findings. However, a handful of statistically significant associations were observed but were conditioned by offending type and sex. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for criminological theory and recommendations for future research are provided.