The report looks at the extent to which young people's perceptions of their residential neighbourhoods, as compared with the physical features, have an effect on their property crime offending trajectories, focusing on adolescents from an Edinburgh cohort aged 13-17. It presents an analysis of the prevalence and variety of young people's involvement in property crime (vandalised buildings, fire damaged cars etc), and provides the results of trajectory modelling which reveals four property crime pathways. Comparisons of the characteristics of the four trajectory groups (chronic offenders, early onset desisters, late onsetters, and non-offenders) are presented, using individual and neighbourhood level variables. The results of multilevel logistic regression models are set out, in order to identify the factors that predict involvement in different property crime trajectories during adolescence, focusing on the importance of neighbourhood perceptions as compared with actual neighbourhood measures.

The aims of the research programme were: to investigate the factors leading to offending and desistance from offending; to examine the striking contrast between males and females in offending; and to develop new theories to explain offending behaviour and to contribute to practical policies targeting young people.

Longitudinal data was collected from a single age cohort of 4,328 young people covering the whole city. It was collected via self report questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, school, social work and children’s hearings records, teacher questionnaires, police juvenile liaison officer and Scottish criminal records, a parent survey, and a geographic information system.

Property crime is fairly uncommon amongst young people, although a small minority are involved from an early age and offend persistently. Vandalism is the most common form of property crime, with housebreaking and fire-raising less common. Neighbourhood characteristics do influence whether twelve year olds start property offending during early adolescence. Perceptions that neighbourhoods are poorly controlled by the adults who live there can also increase the likelihood of offending at an early age. Those young people who offend property frequently are most likely to live in an area where there is high population turnover and a high density of young people. The findings of the research provide support for initiatives which aim to empower communities to deal with offending at a local level by emphasising intolerance towards crime and disorder.

Centre for Law and Society, University of Edinburgh
Phone: +44 131 650 2006
edinburgh.study@ed.ac.uk

01/09/2006

//

Susan McVie; Paul Norris

research

Urban Policy > Security & crime prevention > Anti-crime policy

Youth crime