NCJ Number
193205
Journal
Canadian Journal of Criminology Volume: 44 Issue: 1 Dated: January 2002 Pages: 1-31
Date Published
January 2002
Length
31 pages
Annotation
This study examined information collected from 38 male and female juveniles in Canada to determine how they described their paths of deviance.
Abstract
The participants included youths under judicial authority and youths receiving drug treatment. The study used a phenomenological approach in which the participants specified the importance of their interpretations of social situations affecting them. The analysis focused on themes and sequences of events. The analysis described three main paths of juvenile deviance. These included a continuous path of the deviant type, a pleasure-seeking type who sought either continuous pleasure or increasing pleasure, and a discontinuous path of deviance that aimed at seeking pleasure to the extent of forgetting, as associated with the desire to forget, to connect with someone, to obtain revenge, or to self destruct. Results revealed that events that the youths considered to be exceptional could move them from a continuous path to a discontinuous one or from a discontinuous path to an even more fragmented path. The analysis concluded that an all-important factor was the youths’ dissatisfaction with their childhood experiences. Figure, notes, and 52 references