NCJ Number
190490
Journal
Justice Quarterly Volume: 18 Issue: 3 Dated: September 2001 Pages: 543-567
Date Published
September 2001
Length
25 pages
Annotation
This study used cross-sectional survey data from a nationally representative sample of adolescents in Iceland to examine the claim that differential social relations, which are the same factors that cause deviant behavior, partly guide the patterning of routine activities.
Abstract
Current versions of the routine activity approach to deviance do not account for the social context of situational motivation and opportunity. This research used concepts from social bonding and differential association theories to argue that the effect of routine activities on deviant behavior was contingent on people’s differential social relations. The study used unstructured peer interaction in the absence of authority figures as the indicator of routine activities. The participants included all students born in 1981 and 1982 who attended the compulsory 9th and 10th grade of Icelandic secondary school. The youths were ages 15 and 16 years. Data collection took place in class on one day in March 1997. Valid questionnaires came from 7,785 students and amounted to 91 percent of all the students in the original cohorts. Results supported the study’s arguments. Results revealed a considerable decrease in the effect of the routine activities indicator on both violent behavior and property offending when the analysis controlled for differential social relations in terms of bonding with conventional agents and associations with deviant peers. Findings also indicated that differential social relations had a crucial role in moderating the effects of routine activities on deviance. The analysis concluded that routine activities were embedded in social context and that social context determined the extent to which routine activities generated situations conductive to deviance. Tables, figure, footnotes, and 40 references (Author abstract modified)