Routine Activity Patterns, Contextual Factors, and Youth Deviance

• In Event: 371 - Regular Session. Deviance and Social Control

Abstract

In this paper we extend prior research on routine activities and delinquency by focusing on a range of routine activity patterns (RAPs) and on how their effects on youth deviance are shaped by both bonds to society and peer context. A series of general linear regressions, estimated using data from the second and third waves of the National Educational Longitudinal Survey (NELS:88), indicated that all of the six RAPs examined (school-related, athletic, social, religious/community, hobby-oriented, and computer-based) significantly affected adolescents’ risks for deviance. As hypothesized, the RAPs with the most consistent effects across measures of alcohol use, marijuana use, and more serious (formally-sanctioned) problem behaviors were those lowest, or highest, in both structure and visibility to agents of social control. Although bonds to society had little impact on adolescents’ levels of delinquency across analyses, having peers who valued conventional behavior reduced a number of the effects of the RAPs on delinquency in the predicted manner.

Authors

• Lizabeth Ann Crawford, Bradley University

• Katherine B. Novak, Butler University