Crime continuity from mid- to late adolescence: the mediating roles of perceived peer delinquency, moral neutralization, and victimization

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to determine whether perceived peer delinquency, moral neutralization, and criminal victimization mediated the connection between past and future criminality. Using data from the first five waves and all 1,725 participants (918 boys, 807 girls) in the National Youth Survey (NYS), this study tested a two-mediator pathway modeling on the peer influence effect (delinquency → peer delinquency → moral neutralization → delinquency), and a two-mediator pathway modeled on the person proximity effect (delinquency → peer delinquency → victimization → delinquency). The total indirect effect of both pathways and a shortened pathway that ran from delinquency to peer delinquency to delinquency were significant regardless of whether the full delinquency score or a dichotomized version of that score served as the outcome measure. Shortened pathways mediated solely by moral neutralization or victimization, however, failed to achieve significance. These results provide further support for a cognitive mediation interpretation of the past crime-future crime relationship. The cognitive mediation effect of perceived peer delinquency is discussed in relationship to previously identified processes known to give rise to crime continuity – namely, population heterogeneity, state dependence, and psychological inertia.

KEYWORDS:

• Crime continuity
• peer delinquency
• moral neutralization
• victimization

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data used in this study can be obtained through the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/pages/).