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Changing Patterns of Delinquency and Crime: A Longitudinal Study in Racine

NCJ Number
138408
Author(s)
L W Shannon
Date Published
1991
Length
185 pages
Annotation
This book is the culmination of 35 years and five projects devoted to research on the problems of delinquency and crime in Madison and Racine, Wisconsin. Those five projects examined the relationship of juvenile delinquency to adult crime, the relationship of delinquency and crime to the changing ecological structure of the city, the development of serious criminal careers and the delinquent neighborhood, the evaluation of the effect of sanctions, and prediction and typology development.
Abstract
Following a chapter introducing the research, the second chapter presents the theoretical and empirical foundation of the early Racine research. The subsequent chapter continues the ecological analyses by comparing findings using census tracts, police grid areas, natural areas, and neighborhoods as spatial units. Other analyses examine the factors of cohort, age, and time period variation as related to major areas in the city. Two chapters analyze the neighborhood data in more detail. The chapter that explores the effects of sanctions concludes that sanctions failed to result in specific deterrence and led to more serious misbehavior. The next several chapters deal with prediction and typology development, typologies based on offense seriousness or severity of sanction, and drug offender types and their relationship to the ecology of the city. Chapter references