Why Youth Convergence Places are Important

• In Event: Crime and Place: Teen Hangout Places and Cyberspaces

Abstract

Felson and Gottfredson (1984) asked sharp questions about how people spent time at age 17, and with whom. The data indicated (even then) a major generational shift towards more time with peers present and parents absent. The importance of teen hangouts (“adolescent convergence settings”) was later introduced. Delinquency varies directly with the time youths converge in the absence of adults. Although most of the time nothing much happens in teen hangouts, they sometimes set the stage for crime and delinquency by spinning off small groups of youths. Thus hanging out produces situational drift, sometimes with an illicit result. However, this process is not monolithic. Considerable variation is found in youth escape from parental supervision, including occasional attendance at afternoon hangouts, evading teachers on school grounds, leaving school grounds temporarily, leaving and returning to school later, occasional truancy, regular truancy, and total runaways. Indeed, many youths shift between parental conformity and parental evasion, even on the same day.

Authors

• Jose R. Agustina, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya

• Marcus Felson, Texas State University