Substance Use Versatility and Offending among Girls: Examining the Mediating Role of Informal Social Controls

• In Event: Emerging Scholars on Emerging Adulthood: Explicating the Relationship between Social Environment and Offending

Abstract

Substance use is regularly targeted by interventions designed to address the risk of reoffending among girls involved in the criminal legal system. However, the causal connection between substance use and offending by girls is much less clear, with some theories describing this relationship as indirect rather than direct. Specifically, from a cumulative disadvantage perspective, substance use may disrupt the development of informal social controls which in turn directly affects continued offending. Alternatively, general strain theory suggests that girls experiencing marginalization may concurrently engage in substance use and offending as coping mechanisms in response to the violent victimization that they often endure, especially in the absence of other coping resources such as a positive social environment. Based on data from the Incarcerated Serious and Violent Young Offender Study, the current study used structural equation modeling to examine whether girls’ substance use versatility directly related to continued offending in adulthood or whether this relationship was at least partially mediated by their social environment in early adulthood. Results offer implications for youth justice practitioners regarding the necessity to improve informal social controls in the lives of girls to address recidivism.

Authors

• Alannah McPherson, Simon Fraser University

• Evan McCuish, Simon Fraser University