Poster #66 - Not Who You Know, But What They’ve Done: A Dyadic Analysis of Juvenile Co-Offending Involvement

• In Event: Poster Session I (posters 1 - 79)

Abstract

Although co-offending is a pivotal feature of juvenile crime, accomplice selection mechanisms within personal networks remain poorly understood. Prior research has largely examined who co-offends at the individual level, leaving unanswered the question of which specific ties within the same personal network are activated for co-offending. Using ego-centered network data from 696 adjudicated youth in South Korea, this study addresses this gap by analyzing co-offending partner selection as a dyadic process embedded within personal networks. Among the five different dimensions of network ties, three produced consistent effects on co-offender selection. First, criminal justice capital, reflecting an alter's prior contact with police and courts, emerges as the single strongest predictor, consistent with the interpretation that formal criminal justice exposure functions as a credible signal of criminal competence within peer networks. Second, junior relationships asymmetrically predict co-offender selection, documenting downward recruitment patterns. Lastly, decomposition of network embeddedness reveals that network embeddedness operates exclusively as a macro-level social control resource at the between-ego level rather than as a dyadic selection criterion. Together, these findings reframe juvenile offenders’ co-offender selection as shaped by the co-offender’s experiences in the criminal justice system, relational hierarchy, and structural context.

Author

• Alice Kim, University of Florida