EUKN - United Kingdom - Neighbourhood effects on youth delinquency and drug use

Neighbourhood effects on youth delinquency and drug use – UK

Introduction

Part of the Edinburgh Study of Youth Transition and Crime 2006, this report considers the effect of neighbourhood on youth offending and drug use.

Description

The research investigated whether the characteristics of residential neighbourhoods exert an influence on two forms of problematic adolescent behaviour: criminal offending, and drug use. It examines factors leading to involvement in offending and desisting from it, and the contrasts between males and females in offending. It explores individual development, interactions with formal agencies of control, and the social and physical structures of neighbourhoods.

Background information

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
to develop new theories to explain offending behaviour and to contribute to practical policies targeting young people

Methodology

The study used findings from the Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime, a longitudinal study exploring pathways into and out of offending of a cohort of young people starting secondary school in Edinburgh in 1998. 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.

Conclusions

The characteristics of the neighbourhoods in which young people live do play a role in influencing aspects of their delinquent and drug using behaviour, although other more individual characteristics such as gender and personality have a stronger influence. The study found that whereas delinquency and hard drug use are partially explained by negative neighbourhood characteristics, more frequent cannabis use is greater within prosperous neighbourhoods and in areas where there is a high turnover of population.

The findings of the research support crime control policies based on tackling structural deprivation such as unemployment and density of local authority housing. However, they also point to community-based strategies which take a uniform approach to tackling both crime and drug use not being entirely successful due to the different influences of neighbourhood factors.

Contact info

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

Publication date

01/09/2006

Project finished

Researcher

Susan McVie and Paul Norris

Links

Centre for Law and Society

Neighbourhood effects on youth delinquency and drug use (PDF, Eng, 279 KB)

Document type

research

Themes

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

Keywords

Youth crime