Do Routine Activities Explain Deviance Above and Beyond Low Self-Control? A Test of Two Criminological Theories Across Thirty Countries

• In Event: Situational and Routine Activities Perspectives on Criminal, Deviant and Anti-Social Behaviors

Abstract

The current study used two competing theories of crime and deviance to examine variability in adolescent deviant behaviors, using a multilevel analytic framework in data from the Second International Self-Report Delinquency Study (ISRD-2; 12 to 15-year-old youth, N = 67,883). Predictor variables that were tested were based on Felson and Cohen’s (1979) routine activities theory as well as on Gottfredson and Hirschi’s (1990) low self-control theory. More specifically, we tested whether adolescent routine activities (family, peer, solitary, and community activities) explained variance in deviance, above and beyond low self-control. We also examined whether low self-control moderated the effects by routine activities on deviance. Hierarchical linear models used to test these questions; findings indicated that 4% of variation in deviance was located at a country level, whereas the remainder (96%) was due to individual level predictors. Out of 28.5% of the total explained variance in deviance by all individual level variables (grade level, sex. SES, low self-control), 4.95% was uniquely and significantly added by routine activities, slopes of which, in turn, were conditioned by mean-routine activities (level 2 contextual variables ). In addition, low self-control significantly moderated the effects of family-, peer-, and solitary activities’ on deviance.

Authors

• Magda Javakhishvili, University of Kentucky

• Alexander T. Vazsonyi, University of Kentucky

• Albert J. Ksinan, University of Kentucky