Self-Control and Lifestyles: Associations to Juvenile Offending, Violent Victimization, and Witnessing Violence

Abstract

The extent to which well-established theories of offending apply to violent victimization is increasingly studied. Measures of indirect victimization are rarely included in this literature. This study examined the concurrent relation of self-control components and lifestyle measures to juvenile offending, direct victimization, and witnessing violence among 233 Hispanic and African American 11th-grade students. Findings revealed strong support for the role of a deviant lifestyle; support for prosocial lifestyle effects was weaker. Support for the applicability of the general theory of crime was more mixed compared to lifestyle theory because findings revealed high specificity in variable associations for individual components of self-control.

Keywords:

• violence exposure
• offending
• self-control
• lifestyles
• adolescents

Additional information

Funding

This research project was conducted under the direction of the first author and partially supported by funds from a Faculty Research Excellence Award awarded by the College of Education at the University of Houston. The principal investigator gratefully acknowledges the assistance of graduate research assistants Ronda S. Reyna, Kathan Shukla, and John T. Spoede with the data collection and coordination with the participating high schools.