A COMPARISON OF MALE AND FEMALE DELINQUENCY IN A BIRTH COHORT.

Format:

Book

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

OTTEN, LAURA ANN.

Contributor:

University of Pennsylvania.

Subjects (All):

Criminology.

0627.

Local Subjects:

0627.

Physical Description:

410 pages

Contained In:

Dissertation Abstracts International 46-12A.

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

text file

Summary:

This research is an investigation of the similarities and differences in the delinquent careers of males and females in a birth cohort. The 4315 male and 1972 female delinquents were members of a larger 1958 birth cohort, all of whom resided within the county limits of Philadelphia between their tenth and eighteenth birthdays--the age delimitors of delinquency. Delinquent status and career records were established through records and incident reports of the Philadelphia Police Department. Results showed patterns of both likeness and difference. Overall, males were found to dominate as offenders and to engage more frequently in illegal acts. When, however, subjects were grouped according to the content of their careers and the frequency of their offending, variations occurred in that overall finding, even to the point of finding females surpassing males in numbers of offenders and quantity of offensivity. Overall, females dominated "petty" offending--primarily status offenses--but variations occurred for specific offenses. Males and females who committed only one criminal act had parity ratios for some offenses and male-controlled ratios for others. Two groups of recidivists--those who committed criminal offenses only and those who committed both criminal offenses and "petty" offenses--were, primarily, dominated by males. Age of onset was tested as a possible explainer of the various patterns and was found not to hold: logical relationships between age of onset and patterns of dominance were not found. There was, however, a strong showing that offending for males and females sometimes followed traditional expectations and sometimes departed from those expectations with females repeatedly engaging in behaviors commonly viewed as the traditional purview of males. This finding, combined with the failure of age of onset to explain the different patterns of male versus female delinquency, led to the suggestion that societal expectations may influence the profile of male and female criminality more than actual differences in male and female inclination or ability.

Notes:

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 46-12, Section: A, page: 3869.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Pennsylvania, 1985.

Local Notes:

School code: 0175.

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.