NCJ Number
225011
Journal
Justice Quarterly Volume: 25 Issue: 4 Dated: December 2008 Pages: 595-622
Date Published
December 2008
Length
28 pages
Annotation
This study explored whether economic and employment well-being could explain Black and White adolescents’ persistence in criminal activity into young adulthood.
Abstract
Results provide empirical confirmation of Elliott and Moffitt’s expectations that economic prospects generally, and the economic maturity gap in particular, account in large part for the observed race differences in criminal and violent offending in early adulthood. Four key finding emerged from the analysis: when examining criminal offending, generally, Blacks were more likely than Whites to offend and economic and employment prospects mediated the Black effect on criminal offending and rendered it insignificant; when persistence in criminal offending was explored, race by itself did not matter, suggesting that once involved in offending, there were no further race differences within offenders; when exploring the correlates of violent offending, Blacks were over-represented in self-reported violence; and when correlates of persistence in violence were explored, Blacks were more likely than Whites to persist in violence. These findings speak to more broad issues regarding young minority, especially African-American males, particularly those in low-income communities, where long-term employment disconnect related highly to poor future economic and familial prospects. Data were collected from a multi-survey, multi-wave study of a total of 12,000 U.S. adolescents, their parents, and each of their 132 high schools and their “feeder” middle schools. Tables, references