Scared or Attached? Unraveling Important Links in Strain–Crime Relationships Among School Students

• Published in: International journal of offender therapy and comparative criminology Vol. 63; no. 8; pp. 1175 - 1201
• Main Authors: Kuptsevych-Timmer, Anastasiia, Antonaccio, Olena, Botchkovar, Ekaterina V., Smith, William R.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.06.2019; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adolescents; Attachment; Childrearing practices; Conditioning; Crime; Crime - psychology; Criminology; Fear; Fear & phobias; Female; Humans; Interpersonal Relations; Juvenile delinquency; Juvenile Delinquency - statistics & numerical data; Male; Parents; Psychological Theory; Sanctions; Social control; Social Control, Formal; Sociocultural factors; Specification; Strain theory; Stress, Psychological - classification; Students - psychology; Surveys and Questionnaires; Ukraine; Ukraine; general strain theory; delinquency; social bonds; perceived risk of sanctions; adolescents
• ISSN: 0306-624X; 1552-6933
• DOI: 10.1177/0306624X18814342

Drawing on general strain theory of crime, the study employs the survey data from a random sample of 600 school students in Lviv, Ukraine, to examine how sanction risks and social bonds mediate and moderate the relationship between strain and adolescent delinquency. Findings from negative binomial regressions and the KHB decomposition procedure demonstrate that fear of sanctions and levels of social control mediate the relationships between strain and delinquency to a different degree, depending on the type of strain experienced. Results concerning conditioning effects are mixed, with only parental monitoring found to be a moderator of the strain–delinquency link. However, the direction of the interaction effect is unexpected. Future research needs to improve the specification of strain models and evaluate them in other sociocultural contexts.