Social contexts, age and juvenile delinquency: a community perspective

Objective - Social disorganisation of communities, family bonds, school bonds, the peer group and age, have been shown to be related (either positively or negatively) to delinquency. This study addressed gaps in the literature by (1) using a large and randomly drawn sample of adolescents, within a large number of randomly selected communities; (2) investigating the influence of community social disorganisation directly on delinquency, while including in the same model the moderating effect of community social disorganisation on the micro-contexts of family, school, and peer group, as well as the direct effects of these micro-contexts; and (3) including age as a variable likely to have both direct effects on delinquency and moderating effects on the micro- and macro-level social contexts. Method - The public-use data set of Wave I of the (US) National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health was used. The model was tested using hierarchical linear modelling and included the social disorganisation of communities; adolescents' bonds to school and family, family controls and involvement with a deviant peer group; and age and its interaction with these social contexts. Results - Community social disorganisation was found to be positively related to delinquency, but effects of micro-level contexts were not found to be moderated by social disorganisation. Family bonds and controls, and school bonds, were negatively related to delinquency. No effect of peer group was found. Age was found to have a direct effect; effects of the interaction of age with family controls and age with school bonds were also significant. Conclusions - Results strengthen those from previous studies (using more limited samples) which show that integrated views of macro- and micro-level social contexts and developmental trends are necessary to understand delinquency.