Juvenile Crime

Bullying and harassment of peers are the first possible forms and signs of criminal behavior in the future. That’s why this book is starting from the bases, because the fight against adolescent crime should be addressed to prevention already in the earliest and “harmless” phase. Bullying behavior continues to be a salient social and health-related issue of importance to educators, criminal justice practitioners, and academicians across the country. First Chapter describes a study which examines school safety measures and students’ perceptions about school environments, especially school rules and punishment. Found variables were statistically significant predictors of bullying victimization. Implications of these findings for school anti-bullying programs as well as directions for future research are discussed.

The second chapter deals with the relationship between parental absence and juvenile delinquency to determine if a link exists between the two variables. The overall model was found to be statistically significant. Chapter 3 deepens this topic and looks into differences between bullies, victims, and bully victims in terms of the quality of their relationship with their parents and school performance. In Chapter 4, they tried to investigate whether the quality of attachment with parents and peers predicts bullying and victimization. Secondly, they also attempted a moderation analysis in order to examine whether the relationship between quality of attachments and bullying is moderated by the child’s gender. Finally, they explored whether there are significant differences in the quality of attachment between children identified as bullies, victims, bully/victims, and uninvolved.

Although the link between routine activities and victimization has been tested and well established, criminologists have questioned if routine activities can explain adolescent violence across different social contexts in Chapter 5. Chapter 6. takes a step back being oriented to pre-school kids. With Chapter 7 we go to serious juvenile offenders. Factors that precipitate gang membership has contributed substantially to our understanding of gangs and gang-related activity, yet we know little about the factors influencing intentions to rejoin a gang after having being incarcerated. The study in Chapter 8. explores how perceptions of teacher and student intervention as well as perceptions of school safety and connectedness influence students’ likelihood of responding aggressively (i.e., retaliating) or seeking support from an adult.

Chapter 9 examined peer victimization and bullying preventions...