Brent B. Benda

Gender Differences in Life-Course Theory of Recidivism: A Survival Analysis

This study of 300 women and 300 men graduates of a boot camp finds that there are noteworthy gender differences in predictors of tenure in the community without criminal recidivism in a 5-year follow-up. The Cox proportional hazards models show that urban residence, childhood and recent abuses, living with a criminal partner, selling drugs, stress, depression, fearfulness, and suicidal thoughts are stronger positive predictors of recidivism for women than for men. Men are more likely to return to prison because of criminal peer associations, carrying weapons, alcohol abuse, and aggressive feelings. Job satisfaction and education lengthen time in the community more for men than women, whereas the number of children and relationships are more important to tenure in the community for women. The implications for the findings for theory are discussed.

Religion and delinquency : The relationship after considering family and peer influences

This study of 724 adolescents from four public high schools indicated that any relationship between religion and delinquency is complex. Indeed, it indicates that the significance of the relationship depends on what measures of religion are used, on whether other important familial and peer influences are considered, and on the form of delinquency analyzed. When only controlling for demographics, while examining measures of church attendance and religiosity, the present study supports the usual conclusion that religion is related to status offenses and not to crime (see reviews, Burkett 1993; Cochran et al. 1994). However, evangelism is not related to either form of delinquency when only considering the effects of demographic variables. On the other hand, when elements of control theory were added to demographic factors with hierarchical regression procedures, church attendance and religiosity ceased to be relevant to status offenses and remained irrelevant to crime, whereas evangelism was related to crime. The implications of those findings for future investigations were discussed.

Recidivism Among Adolescent Serious Offenders Prediction of Entry Into the Correctional System for Adults

This is a 2-year follow-up study of 414 adolescents, age 17 years, to determine what static and dynamic factors predict recidivism or entry into the correctional system for adults. The strongest predictor is prior incarcerations, followed by age persons started committing crime, gang membership, age they started using alcohol/drugs, their MMPIpd scores, and chemical abuse score. The denial and asocial subscales of the Jesness Inventory and all the subscales of the Carlson Psychological Inventory are significantly associated with recidivism. Implications of the study are discussed.

A study of recidivism of serious and persistent offenders among adolescents

This was a study of 244 adolescents who had been in a Serious Offender Program operated by the Arkansas Division of Youth Services (DYS) to see what psychological, demographic, and theoretical factors predicted: (1) return to DYS; and (2) days in the community without return to DYS within a one year follow-up period. None of these psychological scales were relevant to return to DYS when other study factors were considered in the same analysis. The significant predictors indicated that the odds of return to DYS were increased: 13.5 by prior commitments, 3.35 by carrying a weapon, 2.38 for those neglected or abused by parents, 2.27 for those with peers present at the time of their committing offense, 2.03 for gang members, 1.75 for males (versus females), 1.68 for those whose mothers abuse substances, 1.63 for those with poor parental relationships, 1.41 for those who are not residing in a home with two parents (either biological or stepparents), and 1.40 for persons of color (versus Caucasians). The predictors of days in the community were prior commitments to DYS and gender. Implications of those findings for intervention were discussed.

The Robustness of Self-Control in Relation to Form of Delinquency

This study of a statewide, stratified random sample of 3,335 public high school students is designed to examine the robustness of self-control in predicting alcohol consumption, other drug use, crimes against persons, and property offenses. Comparisons in prediction of these forms of delinquency are made between two measures of self-control, social characteristics, and elements of other theories. An examination also is made of whether self-control accounts for commensurate amounts of variance within categories of social characteristics. A behavioral measure of self-control generally is a stronger predictor of delinquency than a cognitive measure. Inconsistent findings are observed in analyses of whether self-control accounts for commensurate variation in delinquency between and within categories of these social characteristics. Both measures are significant predictors of delinquency when they are simultaneously analyzed with many factors extrapolated from other theories. Implications of the findings are discussed in terms of future theory and research.

An integration of theory: Adolescent sexual contacts

The purpose of the present study was to examine the predictive validity of several theoretical factors drawn from control, social learning, and differential association theories for explaining adolescent sexual behavior. The sample consisted of 1478 adolescents who attended ten private schools located in different areas of this country. When examined together in multivariate regression equations, the theoretical factors accounted for 47.2% and 42.7% of the respective variances in frequency of sexual intercourse among males and females. The single factor of differential association with peers accounted for most of the respective variances (males, 33.1%; females, 26.8%). The discussion addressed the theoretical implications of the present findings for future research.

Testing competing theoretical concepts: Adolescent alcohol consumption

A study was made of alcohol consumption among 1,093 adolescents who attended high schools in Baltimore, Maryland, Little Rock, Arkansas, or rural high schools in Arkansas and Oklahoma. Hierarchical regression procedures were used to test competing factors from social control and social learning theories. The significant predictors, in order of importance, were: (1) interaction between age and neutralizing definitions, (2) interaction between age and beliefs, (3) interaction between age and peer association, (4) religiosity, and (5) perception that the rewards of deviant acts outweighed the costs.

Comparison of four theories of adolescent sexual exploration

This study tested competing theoretical concepts derived from social learning, differential association, social control, and containment theories, using hierarchial regression statistical procedures to examine their use in explaining whether or not adolescents had experienced sexual intercourse. It consisted of cross‐sectional data solicited from 1496 private high‐school students. Bivariate and multivariate analyses supported the assumption that selected concepts from different theories of deviance were relevant to adolescent sexual activity. Concepts from differential association, social learning, and social control theories were supported with evidence, and differential peer association accounted for two thirds of the total explained variance in adolescent sexual intercourse. An integrative theoretical model is proposed, based on the results of this study.

A theoretical model of religiosity and drug use with reciprocal relationships: A test using structural equation modeling

Abstract This study of 1093 adolescents from 6 public high schools was designed to test a hypothesized model formulated by theoretical elaboration of control theory with elements from social learning theory using structural equation modeling procedures. The primary purpose was to establish that religion is relevant to illicit drug use when its direct, indirect and reciprocal effects are tested within a more complete system of relationships than found in existing studies. Most aspects of the model were supported by data and religion had direct inverse effects on illegal drug use for all adolescents studied. However, the feedback effects of drug use on religion were significant only among younger adolescents and females. Other age and gender differences were observed when the hypothesized model was tested with structural equation modeling procedures. The implications of these findings were discussed in regard to future conceptual work and intervention.

Are the Effects of Religion on Crime Mediated, Moderated, and Misrepresented by Inappropriate Measures?

ABSTRACT The present study consists of random sampies from two publie schools in the innercity of a large metropolitan area on the East coast, involving 3 60 adolescents, and random sampies from three rural publie high schools in a state in the South involving 477 adolescents. The purpose of the study is to testgen eralizations found in the literature about whether: (a) church attendance is an adequate measure of the effects of religion on delinquency, (b) religion is related to more serious offenses like crimes against prop erty and persons, (c) church at ten dance or religiosity are related to crime among adolescents when the effects of major predietors are controlled, and, (d) the effects of religiosity are moderated by region of residence. The findings show that religiosity rather than church at tendance is significantly re lated to crime, and the former remains a significant predictor even it is analyzed simultaneously with thes trongest predietor observed in the literature. Finally, the effects of religiosity are not moderated by region of residence (i.e.,the effects of religiosity have a significant inverse relationship to crime on the East coast as well as in the South). The implications of these find ings are dis cussed.