The idea of peer influence as a cause of delinquency has been around since the 1930s, when Edwin Sutherland offered his theory of differential association. Although that theory and similar ones remain popular and have strong empirical support, more recent theories reject the idea completely. This book surveys the research literature on peer influence, reveals that most offenders are imbedded in a network of friends and accomplices, and describes numerous possible mechanisms of peer influence.

This book examines the control of prison disorder through the application of situational crime prevention principles. It spans two subject areas--crime prevention and corrections--and may interest academics as well as practitioners in these fields. On one hand, the book presents a new model of situational prevention that has applications beyond institutions to community settings. On the other, the examination of particular problem behaviors provides a comprehensive review of the prison control literature that does not depend upon a specific interest in situational crime prevention.

This book presents a study of co-offending relations among youths under 21 suspected of criminal offenses in Stockholm during 1991-1995. In total, the study includes just over 22,000 individuals suspected of around 29,000 offenses. Jerzy Sarnecki employs the method of network analysis that makes it possible to study the ties, social bonds, interactions, differential associations and connections that are central to many of the sociologically oriented theories on the etiology of crime. Up to now, network analysis had been used only rarely in the criminological context.

This book challenges the conventional view that disadvantage causes crime because it motivates people to offend. It argues that disadvantage causes crime because it disrupts the parenting process. The theory put forward in the book maintains that it takes a long time for disadvantage to increase the level of crime in a neighborhood. However, once the level of economic and social stress in a neighborhood reaches a critical level, it can set off an epidemic of juvenile offending.

This book presents a comprehensive overview of anti-social behavior prevention programs in pregnancy and infancy, pre-school, parent education and school programs (including the prevention of bullying). It emphasizes preventing the intergenerational transmission of antisocial behavior by focusing on family violence. It reviews whether risk factors and prevention programs have different effects on females as compared to males. Cost-benefit analyses of early prevention programs conclude that adult antisocial behavior can be counteracted effectively and cost-efficiently.

Why do youths commit crimes? Delinquency and Crime contains essays by nine leading criminologists that seek to answer this question by describing current theories of crime and the research evidence that supports them. The contributors offer perspectives on antisocial peer socialization, social development, interactional theory, behavior genetics, and community determinants. Each essay explores the practical implication of the authors' theoretical work for crime prevention and control.

Why do youths commit crimes? Delinquency and Crime contains essays by nine leading criminologists that seek to answer this question by describing current theories of crime and the research evidence that supports them. The contributors offer perspectives on antisocial peer socialization, social development, interactional theory, behavior genetics, and community determinants. Each essay explores the practical implication of the authors' theoretical work for crime prevention and control.

This field study features intensive personal interviews of more than four hundred young people who have left home and school and are living on the streets of Toronto and Vancouver. The study examines why youth take to the streets, their struggles to survive there, their victimization and involvement in crime, their associations with other street youth, especially within "street families," their contacts with the police, and their efforts to rejoin conventional society. Major theories of youth crime are analyzed and reappraised in the context of a new social capital theory of crime.

Written by a scholar with extensive research experience, this book applies an original approach to assessing criminal justice policies, based on their impact on errors of justice. The study covers the error of failing to bring offenders to justice as well as the errors of imposing costs on innocent people and excessive costs on offenders. Ultimately, it develops a new framework for each major sector of the justice system: policing, prosecution, adjudication and the jury, sentencing and corrections.

The nature of criminal punishment has undergone profound change in the United States in recent decades. This case study of women serving time in California in the 1960s and 1990s examines this recent history. Drawing on archival data, interviews, and surveys, the authors' analysis considers the relationships among official philosophies and practices of imprisonment, women's responses to the prison regime, and relations between women prisoners.