Juvenile Delinquency

Social Capital and Juvenile Delinquency: Assessing the Role of Family, School and Regional Context

Michael Hanslmaier, from the Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony, made a contribution to the 2012 Annual Conference of the European Society of Criminology, in the category “Traditional and New Forms of Crime and Deviance,” under the title “Social Capital and Juvenile Delinquency: Assessing the Role of Family, School and Regional Context”. Here is the abstract: The social capital approach emphasizes on the crime reducing effects of social capital. The link between social capital and deviant behavior can be modeled via the social disorganization approach and control theory. Based on a German representative survey conducted in 2007/2008, the present paper examines the impact of social capital on reported violent behavior of 9th grade pupils at three different levels (family, school, region). Using multilevel models it is shown that parental supervision and intergenerational closure are reducing violent behavior. The same holds for indicators of school social capital. The examination of the interplay between family and school social capital shows that parental supervision and school capital are reinforcing each other: pupils with a high degree of parental supervision are benefitting more from a positive school capital in terms of a reduced risk of violent behavior. Social capital at the regional level seems to play only a minor role for committing violent behavior.[rtbs name=”criminology”]

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Further Reading

• “Social Capital and Juvenile Delinquency: Assessing the Role of Family, School and Regional Context”, by Michael Hanslmaier (Proceedings)