Crime propensity and self-reported delinquent behavior: Testing SAT across cities and contexts

• In Event: Testing Theory and Exploring Crimes of High Public Concern through Cross-National Research (ISRD)

Abstract

Situational action theory (SAT) has been developed to explicate the key social and situational mechanisms that explain criminal actions as a special case of moral rule breaking. According to SAT, a key mechanism on the level of the individual is crime propensity, which consists of morality and the ability to employ self-control. Crime propensity is expected to increase the likelihood to perceive and choose crime as an action alternative and is thus a major predictor of delinquent behavior.
Based on data of the International Self-Report Delinquency (ISRD3) study of 12-16 year old juveniles from over 40 cities in 20 countries the effect of crime propensity on self-reported delinquency is investigated. Multilevel modeling shows that the effect of crime propensity (and its interaction with lifestyle risk exposure and external controls) differs across contexts and cultures. The cross-national variation of the effect of crime propensity can partly be explained by a country’s norm transmission strength of non-economic institutions against market morality. The theoretical implication of integrating social effects of the macro-level into SAT will be discussed.

Authors

• Dirk Enzmann, University of Hamburg

• Ilka Kammigan, University of Hamburg

• Lieven Pauwels, Ghent University