Search Results
Author: Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth
Resulting in 17 citations.
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Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth |
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A Game of Catch-Up? The Offending Experience of Second-Generation Immigrants Crime and Delinquency 60,1 (February 2014): 60-84. Also: http://cad.sagepub.com/content/60/1/60.abstract Cohort(s): NLSY97 Publisher: Sage Publications Keyword(s): Arrests; Crime; Ethnic Differences; Immigrants; Racial Differences Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. Evidence continues to accumulate documenting a generational disparity in offending whereby second-generation immigrants (the children of immigrants) evidence a precipitous increase in offending compared with their first-generation, foreign-born peers. An understanding of this pattern is most often couched in terms reflective of segmented assimilation theory highlighting the unique assimilation experiences and challenges faced by the children of immigrants. Importantly, alternative explanations of this pattern exist, namely, those promoting a regression to the mean hypothesis—born and socialized in the U.S. mainstream, second-generation immigrants are simply native-born youth. Using data from nine waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, this alternative hypothesis is evaluated. The differential influence of variables tapping into important family, school, peer, and neighborhood domains on offending trajectories are compared across second-generation immigrant and native-born subsamples. The results reveal a high degree of similarity comparing second-generation immigrants and native-born Whites. At the same time, differences are also observed when compared with native-born Black and Hispanic peers particularly among measures of more serious offending. Implications of these findings for theory and policy are discussed. |
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Bibliography Citation
Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth. "A Game of Catch-Up? The Offending Experience of Second-Generation Immigrants." Crime and Delinquency 60,1 (February 2014): 60-84.
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Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth |
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An Examination of First and Second Generation Immigrant Offending Trajectories Justice Quarterly 31,2 (2014): 315-343. Also: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07418825.2012.659200 Cohort(s): NLSY97 Publisher: Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences Keyword(s): Adolescent Behavior; Crime; Delinquency/Gang Activity; Immigrants Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. The myth of the criminal immigrant has permeated public and political debate for much of this nation’s history and persists despite growing evidence to the contrary. Crime concerns are increasingly aimed at the indirect impact of immigration on crime highlighting the criminal pursuits of the children of immigrants. Adding to extant knowledge on the immigration-crime nexus, this research asks whether immigrants are differentially involved in crime by examining immigrant offending histories (prevalence, frequency, seriousness, persistence, and desistance) from early adolescence to young adulthood. Particular attention is afforded to the influence of various sources of heterogeneity including: generational and nativity status, and crime type. Results suggest that the myth remains; trajectory analyses reveal that immigrants are no more crime-prone than the native-born. Foreign-born individuals exhibit remarkably low levels of involvement in crime across their life course. Moreover, it appears that by the second generation, immigrants have simply caught up to their native-born counterparts in respect to their offending. Implications of the findings for theory and future research are discussed. |
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Bibliography Citation
Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth. "An Examination of First and Second Generation Immigrant Offending Trajectories." Justice Quarterly 31,2 (2014): 315-343.
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Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth |
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Analyzing School Failure Within Contemporary Criminological Theory Presented: Minneapolis, MN, Midwest Sociological Society Annual Meeting, March 2005 Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79, NLSY79 Young Adult Publisher: Midwest Sociological Society Keyword(s): Behavioral Problems; Discipline; Mothers, Education; School Completion; School Dropouts; School Progress; Self-Regulation/Self-Control Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. |
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Bibliography Citation
Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth. "Analyzing School Failure Within Contemporary Criminological Theory." Presented: Minneapolis, MN, Midwest Sociological Society Annual Meeting, March 2005. |
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Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth |
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Are Immigrants Crime Prone? A Multifaceted Investigation of the Relationship Between Immigration and Crime in Two Eras Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Maryland - College Park, August 2010 Cohort(s): NLSY97 Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT) Keyword(s): Arrests; Crime; Ethnic Differences; Ethnic Groups; Family Influences; Glueck Study Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency; Immigrants; Life Course; Peers/Peer influence/Peer relations; School Performance; School Progress Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. Are immigrants crime prone? In America, this question has been posed since the turn of the 20th century and more than 100 years of research has shown that immigration is not linked to increasing crime rates. Nevertheless, as was true more than a century ago, the myth of the criminal immigrant continues to permeate public debate. In part this continued focus on immigrants as crime prone is the result of significant methodological and theoretical gaps in the extant literature. Five key limitations are identified and addressed in this research including: (1) a general reliance on aggregate level analyses, (2) the treatment of immigrants as a homogeneous entity, (3) a general dependence on official data, (4) the utilization of cross-sectional analyses, and (5) nominal theoretical attention. Two broad questions motivate this research. First, how do the patterns of offending over the life course differ across immigrant and native-born groups? Second, what factors explain variation in offending over time for immigrants and does the influence of these predictors vary across immigrant and native-born individuals? These questions are examined using two separate datasets capturing information on immigration and crime during two distinct waves of immigration in the United States. Specifically, I use the Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency data and subsequent follow-ups to capture early 20th century immigration and crime, while contemporary data come from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1997. Three particularly salient conclusions are drawn from this research. First, patterns of offending (i.e., prevalence, frequency, persistence and desistance) are remarkably similar for native-born and immigrant individuals. Second, although differences are observed when examining predictors of offending for native-born and immigrant individuals, they tend to be differences in degree rather than kind. That is, immigrants and native-born individuals are influe nced similarly by family, peer, and school factors. Finally, these findings are robust and held when taking into account socio-historical context, immigrant generation, immigration nationality group, and crime type. In sum, based on the evidence from this research, the simple answer to the question of whether immigrants are crime prone is no. |
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Bibliography Citation
Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth. Are Immigrants Crime Prone? A Multifaceted Investigation of the Relationship Between Immigration and Crime in Two Eras. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Maryland - College Park, August 2010. |
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Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth |
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Self-Control and School Failure: Examining Individual Effects on Academic Achievement M.A. Thesis, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2005 Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79, NLSY79 Young Adult Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT) Keyword(s): Attitudes; Behavioral Differences; Behavioral Problems; Discipline; Mothers, Education; Peers/Peer influence/Peer relations; School Completion; School Dropouts; School Progress; Self-Regulation/Self-Control Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. Data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) indicate that in 2000 nearly 11% of youth ages 16 to 24 were either not enrolled in school or did not have a high school diploma. Furthermore, national rates of school failure have continually increased over the past three decades (NCES 2000) indicating that school dropout rates have risen. Research examining the prevalence of adolescent school failure has traditionally looked at the influence of structural characteristics such as family structure and maternal educational level, and relational characteristics such as parental attachment and monitoring to explain why youth drop out of school. In the present study, I incorporate individual level characteristics, specifically self-control, into the examination of predictors of school failure. Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) suggest that individuals with low self-control have behavioral and attitudinal characteristics that are in direct opposition to academic achievement. I analyze the extent to which self-control predicts school failure net of the traditional explanations using data on 822 young adults from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth Child and Young Adult data, 1994 and 1998 waves. Significant effects of self-control on school attachment, expected level of education, and school dropout were found, even when controlling for structural and relational characteristics. Young adults with low self-control were significantly less likely to be attached to school, had lower educational expectations, and were more likely to drop out of school than their peers. With the exceptions of mother's educational level and maternal educational expectations, the structural and relational characteristics were not significant predictors of school failure. While structural and relational characteristics still have a significant effect on adolescent school failure, these findings suggest the need to examine the effects of individual level predictors, such as self-control in future research. |
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Bibliography Citation
Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth. Self-Control and School Failure: Examining Individual Effects on Academic Achievement. M.A. Thesis, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2005. |
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Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth Chapple, Constance L. |
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School Failure as an Adolescent Turning Point Sociological Focus 40, 3 (2007): 370-391 Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79, NLSY79 Young Adult Publisher: North Central Sociological Association ==> Routledge (new in 2012) Keyword(s): Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Crime; Delinquency/Gang Activity; Drug Use; Educational Aspirations/Expectations; Educational Attainment; Grade Retention/Repeat Grade; High School Completion/Graduates; High School Dropouts; Life Course; Parent Supervision/Monitoring; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); School Dropouts; Self-Regulation/Self-Control; Substance Use Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. Recently, researchers have devoted significant attention to the influence of turning points such as marriage, employment, and military service on criminal desistance in adulthood. Because offending peaks in adolescence, the relative lack of research on influential adolescent turnings points is notable. Given the extensive research linking school failure to deleterious adult development, we propose that school failure (late grade retention and school dropout) is a marked transition in adolescence with the potential to operate as a turning point in the life course. Using longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79), we first examine structural, relational and individual predictors of school failure in adolescence. Second, we assess whether school failure amplifies delinquency in late adolescence. We find evidence supporting our contention that school failure operates as an adolescent turning point and we confirm that, school failure is significantly predicted by structural, relational, and individual factors. Although school failure may be thought of as the end result of a long-term process of academic disengagement, our research also suggests that it is a pivotal, negative turning point in the life course. |
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Bibliography Citation
Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth and Constance L. Chapple. "School Failure as an Adolescent Turning Point." Sociological Focus 40, 3 (2007): 370-391.
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Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth DiPietro, Stephanie |
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An Examination of the ‘Marriage Effect’ on Desistance from Crime among U.S. Immigrants Final Report, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, March 2013 Cohort(s): NLSY97 Publisher: U.S. Department of Justice Keyword(s): Crime; Immigrants; Marital Dissolution; Marriage Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. The findings show similarities and differences between immigrant generations regarding marriage patterns and offending. There were two key findings. First, counter to expectations of a decline in the marriage rate for the second generation of immigrants, the study found that second-generation immigrants marry at rates comparable to their White, Hispanic, and first-generation immigrant peers. Second, consistent with previous research, the study found that marriage is negatively related to crime for both first- and second-generation immigrants; however, this “marriage effect” is particularly strong for the second generation of immigrant families. Thus, consistent with previous criminological research on the marriage effect among the native-born, the results of this study show that being married fosters desistance from crime for both first-generation and second-generation immigrants. This suggests that efforts to preserve and promote family connections among immigrants and within immigrant communities should be at the forefront of immigration policy reform. Policies that result in deportation and the dissolution of immigrant families may fuel crime rates among second-generation immigrant children. The study used 13 waves of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97), which is a representative survey of people living in the United States who were 12 to 16 years old during the initial round of data collection in 1997. Youth complete a self-administered questionnaire that collects information on sensitive topics such as crime/delinquency, arrest, and substance use. The dataset also includes information on family dynamics, structural factors, and individual characteristics. Of the youth surveyed in the first wave, there were 590 first-generation immigrants and 998 second-generation immigrants. |
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Bibliography Citation
Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth and Stephanie DiPietro. "An Examination of the ‘Marriage Effect’ on Desistance from Crime among U.S. Immigrants." Final Report, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, March 2013. |
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Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth DiPietro, Stephanie |
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Divergence in the "Good Marriage Effect": Findings and Processes of an NIJ W.E.B. Du Bois Fellowship Presented: Atlanta GA, American Society of Criminology Annual Meeting, November 2013 Cohort(s): NLSY97 Publisher: American Society of Criminology Keyword(s): Crime; Immigrants; Life Course; Marriage Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. The aim of this presentation is to provide practical guidance on the application process, to share our experiences as Du Bois Fellows and to summarize the findings of our research, which synthesizes life course and immigration literature to examine whether and to what extent immigration status conditions the relationship between marriage and offending. While criminological interest in the impact of salient life events on offending over the life course has garnered much empirical attention over the last few decades, this work has evolved with limited recognition of potential cultural contingencies. Specifically, despite growing evidence that marriage holds the potential to alter offending trajectories, both theoretical development and empirical analysis have been largely andro- and ethnocentric in their portrayal of marriage effects. We examine the marriage-crime nexus among immigrants, paying attention to important generational, nativity, and migration factors that may complicate this relationship. To study these questions, we use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and apply hierarchical linear modeling to examine within-individual longitudinal patterns of offending among immigrants and non-immigrants. While our results lend credence to the universally beneficial effect of being married, we find notable points of divergence when immigrant generation and gender intersect. |
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Bibliography Citation
Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth and Stephanie DiPietro. "Divergence in the "Good Marriage Effect": Findings and Processes of an NIJ W.E.B. Du Bois Fellowship." Presented: Atlanta GA, American Society of Criminology Annual Meeting, November 2013. |
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Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth DiPietro, Stephanie |
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Examining the Salience of Marriage to Offending for Black and Hispanic Men Justice Quarterly 33,3 (April 2016): 510-537. Also: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07418825.2014.932000 Cohort(s): NLSY97 Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group Keyword(s): Crime; Ethnic Differences; Marriage; Minorities; Racial Differences Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. Despite a considerable body of research demonstrating the beneficial effects of marriage for criminal desistance, data limitations have resulted in much of this work being based on predominantly white, male samples. In light of the rapidly changing demographic landscape of the US—and particularly the tremendous growth in the Hispanic population—the question of whether the benefits of marriage are generalizable to racial and ethnic minorities is an important one. This research extends prior work on the relationship between marriage and offending by assessing whether the benefits of marriage for criminal offending extend to today’s racial and ethnic minority populations. Using a contemporary sample of 3,560 young adult Hispanic, black and white males followed annually for 13 years spanning the transition to adulthood, we find that while marriage is a potent predictor of desistance for all groups, the benefits of marriage vary substantially across both race and ethnicity. |
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Bibliography Citation
Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth and Stephanie DiPietro. "Examining the Salience of Marriage to Offending for Black and Hispanic Men." Justice Quarterly 33,3 (April 2016): 510-537.
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Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth DiPietro, Stephanie |
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Marriage and Offending: Examining the Significance of Marriage among the Children of Immigrants The Sociology Quarterly 57,2 (Spring 2016): 304-332. Also: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/tsq.12116/abstract Cohort(s): NLSY97 Publisher: Wiley Online Keyword(s): Crime; Immigrants; Marriage; Transition, Adulthood Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. Although research shows that involvement in crime varies across immigrant generations, less is known about why this is so. Using 13 waves of National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 data, we examine the influence of marriage—a key correlate of desistance from crime—to understand more fully patterns of offending across immigrant generations during the transition to adulthood. Results indicate a lower prevalence of offending among first-generation immigrants compared with their second-generation and third-plus-generation peers; however, among active offenders, rates of offending are similar across groups. Notably, marriage exerts a significantly stronger effect on offending for second-generation immigrants, suggesting that, while assimilation may be associated with more offending, it is also associated with a greater potency of marriage in promoting desistance from crime. |
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Bibliography Citation
Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth and Stephanie DiPietro. "Marriage and Offending: Examining the Significance of Marriage among the Children of Immigrants." The Sociology Quarterly 57,2 (Spring 2016): 304-332.
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Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth Doherty, Elaine Eggleston |
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Disrupting Desistance? Minor Criminal Justice Contact and the Age Crime Curve Presented: Philadelphia PA, American Society of Criminology (ASC) Annual Meeting, November 2017 Cohort(s): NLSY97 Publisher: American Society of Criminology Keyword(s): Adolescent Behavior; Adolescent Sexual Activity; Crime; Criminal Justice System; Delinquency/Gang Activity; Substance Use; Transition, Adulthood Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. The consistency with which the age-crime curve has been replicated across time, space and sample signifies it as a brute fact in criminology. One facet of this curve is the decline in crime in young adulthood. Research focusing on desistance has been dominated by studies of factors that accelerate the reduction in offending. Less is know about the factors that may hinder desistance within the general population. Drawing on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, we examine the age distribution of deviant behaviors (e.g., self-reported offending, substance use, sexual partners) stratified by criminal justice system involvement. Controlling for a host of background factors, we examine whether the age crime curve differs for justice-involved youth and non-justice-involved youth. Whereas research finds that incarceration can detrimentally impact offending among high-risk samples, testing for detriments of criminal justice system interaction is equally important among low-risk individuals who are most apt to naturally desist. This research asks: Do minor interactions with the criminal justice system hold the potential to alter offending trajectories? |
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Bibliography Citation
Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth and Elaine Eggleston Doherty. "Disrupting Desistance? Minor Criminal Justice Contact and the Age Crime Curve." Presented: Philadelphia PA, American Society of Criminology (ASC) Annual Meeting, November 2017. |
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Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth Doherty, Elaine Eggleston |
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When the Ties that Bind Unwind: Examining the Enduring and Situational Processes of Change Behind the Marriage Effect Criminology 51,2 (May 2013): 399-433. Also: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1745-9125.12008/abstract Cohort(s): NLSY97 Publisher: American Society of Criminology Keyword(s): Crime; Divorce; Life Course; Marriage Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. Despite the continued growth of research demonstrating that marriage promotes desistance from crime, efforts aimed at understanding the mechanisms driving this effect are limited. Several theories propose to explain why we observe a reduction in offending after marriage including identity changes, strengthened attachments, reduced opportunities, and changes to routine activities. Although mechanisms are hard to measure, we argue that each proposed mechanism implies a specific change process, that is, whether the change that ensues after marriage is enduring (stable) or situational (temporary). Drawing on a medical model framework, we cast the role of marriage as a treatment condition and observe whether the effect of marriage is conditional on staying married or whether the effect persists when the “treatment” is taken away (i.e., divorce). We use 13 years of monthly level data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97), a nationally representative sample containing close to 3,000 individuals with an arrest history, to examine changes in relationship status and arrest from adolescence into young adulthood. Estimates from multilevel within-individual models reveal greater support for situational mechanisms in that divorce is detrimental particularly for those in longer marriages; yet they also reveal important caveats that suggest a closer examination of the marriage effect. This research adds to the growing body of knowledge regarding the marriage effect by redirecting desistance research away from asking if marriage matters to asking how marriage affects desistance. A better understanding of this change process has important implications for criminal justice policy. |
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Bibliography Citation
Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth and Elaine Eggleston Doherty. "When the Ties that Bind Unwind: Examining the Enduring and Situational Processes of Change Behind the Marriage Effect." Criminology 51,2 (May 2013): 399-433.
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Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth Jacobsen, Wade C. Doherty, Elaine Eggleston |
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Does Early Adolescent Arrest Alter the Developmental Course of Offending into Young Adulthood? Journal of Youth and Adolescence published online (5 February 2022): DOI: 10.1007/s10964-022-01576-7. Also: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10964-022-01576-7 Cohort(s): NLSY97 Publisher: Springer Keyword(s): Adolescent Behavior; Arrests; Crime; Delinquency/Gang Activity; Transition, Adulthood Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. Adolescent involvement in risky behavior is ubiquitous and normative. Equally pervasive is the rapid decline in risky behavior during the transition to adulthood. Yet, for many, risky behavior results in arrest. Whereas prior research finds that arrest is associated with an increased risk of experiencing a host of detrimental outcomes, less understood is the impact of an arrest on the developmental course of offending compared to what it would have looked like if no arrest had occurred--the counterfactual. This study examines the developmental implications of an arrest early in the life course. The sample (N = 1293) was 37% female, 42% non-white, with a mean age of 13.00 years (SD = 0.82, range = 12–14) at baseline and followed annually for 15 years. Analyses combine propensity score matching and multilevel modeling techniques to estimate the impact of early arrest (i.e., 14 or younger) on the development of offending from adolescence into adulthood. The results indicate that early arrest alters the developmental course of offending in two primary ways. First, early arrest heightens involvement, frequency, and severity of offending throughout adolescence and into early young adulthood even after controlling for subsequent arrests. The detrimental influence of early arrest on the developmental course of offending is found regardless of gender or race/ethnicity. Second, even among youth with an early arrest, offending wanes over time with self-reported offending among all youth nearly absent by the mid- to late-twenties. The findings advance understanding of the developmental implications of early arrest beyond typical and expected offending. |
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Bibliography Citation
Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth, Wade C. Jacobsen and Elaine Eggleston Doherty. "Does Early Adolescent Arrest Alter the Developmental Course of Offending into Young Adulthood?" Journal of Youth and Adolescence published online (5 February 2022): DOI: 10.1007/s10964-022-01576-7.
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Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth Pittman, Adam W. |
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Reassessing the Generational Disparity in Immigrant Offending: A Within-family Comparison of Involvement in Crime Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 56,6 (November 2019): 851-887. Also: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0022427819850600 Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79, NLSY79 Young Adult Publisher: Sage Publications Keyword(s): Crime; Family Influences; Immigrants Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. Objective: This study reassesses the generational disparity in immigrant offending. Patterns and predictors of offending are compared using traditional peer-based models and an alternative within-family (parent–child dyad) model. Method:The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1979; NLSY79) and NLSY-Child and Young Adult (NLSY_CYA) data are merged to create an intergenerational data set to compare generational disparities in immigrant offending across peers and within families. Differences in self-reported offending (prevalence and variety) by immigrant generation are assessed using a combination of descriptive analyses (χ2 and analysis of variance) and regression models. Results: While NLSY_CYA children generally are at a greater risk of offending compared with the NLSY79 mothers, the difference in offending is greatest between first-generation mom and second-generation child dyads. Disparities in offending are driven in large part by exceedingly low levels of offending among first-generation immigrants. |
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Bibliography Citation
Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth and Adam W. Pittman. "Reassessing the Generational Disparity in Immigrant Offending: A Within-family Comparison of Involvement in Crime." Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 56,6 (November 2019): 851-887.
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Schroeder, Ryan D. Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth Mowen, Thomas |
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The Marriage Effect Revisited: Desistance from Crime, or Desistance from Arrest? Presented: Atlanta GA, American Society of Criminology Annual Meeting, November 2013 Cohort(s): NLSY97 Publisher: American Society of Criminology Keyword(s): Crime; Criminal Justice System; Life Course; Marriage Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. The marriage effect on criminal desistance has received a considerable amount of attention in the criminological literature over the past two decades. The main conclusion reached is that marriage increases the likelihood of criminal desistance. The vast majority of prior studies on the marriage effect, however, have used arrest counts as the outcome measure. In the current study, we contend that a shift in criminal justice contacts is not a reliable indicator of actual behavioral change. Drawing on opportunity theory and the Black’s theory of law, we examine the extent to which marriage redirects offending away from the streets and to opportunistic crimes within the home. In this sense, we investigate the possibility that the marriage effect observed in prior research accounts for desistance from official offending but fails to address the hidden crimes that occur outside the purview of the justice system. Using data from the first seven waves of the National Youth Survey, we document patterns of behavioral change from adolescence to adulthood, focusing on the degree to which offending shifts away from high-arrest-risk crimes and narrows to offenses within the home during periods of marriage. Results and implications for life course theory are discussed. |
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Bibliography Citation
Schroeder, Ryan D., Bianca Elizabeth Bersani and Thomas Mowen. "The Marriage Effect Revisited: Desistance from Crime, or Desistance from Arrest?" Presented: Atlanta GA, American Society of Criminology Annual Meeting, November 2013. |
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Tyler, Kimberly A. Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth |
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A Longitudinal Study of Early Adolescent Precursors to Running Away Journal of Early Adolescence 28,2 (May 2008): 230-251. Also: http://jea.sagepub.com/content/28/2/230.abstract Cohort(s): NLSY97 Publisher: Sage Publications Keyword(s): Black Youth; Delinquency/Gang Activity; Gender Differences; Hispanics; Neighborhood Effects; Racial Differences; Runaways; School Suspension/Expulsion; Socioeconomic Status (SES); Teenagers Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. Although previous research has examined correlates of running away among samples of currently homeless and runaway adolescents, little is known about what factors will predict the likelihood that a housed adolescent with no prior history of running away will leave home. As such, the current study uses the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to examine predictors of running away among a diverse sample of housed adolescents ages 12 through 13. Results indicate that socioeconomic status, being African American or Hispanic, and monitoring were significantly predictive of a decrease in the mean rate of running away in midadolescence. In contrast, being female, neighborhood victimization, personal victimization, school suspension, and delinquency all significantly increased the expected frequency of running away. Although findings provide some support for previous cross-sectional studies, they also point to the importance of young people's community environment as a risk factor for leaving home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Early Adolescence is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts) |
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Bibliography Citation
Tyler, Kimberly A. and Bianca Elizabeth Bersani. "A Longitudinal Study of Early Adolescent Precursors to Running Away." Journal of Early Adolescence 28,2 (May 2008): 230-251.
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Tyler, Kimberly A. Stone, Rosalie Torres Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth |
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Examining the Changing Influence of Predictors on Adolescent Alcohol Misuse Journal of Child and Adolescent Substance Abuse 16,2 (November 2006): 95-114. Also: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J029v16n02_05 Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79 Young Adult Publisher: Haworth Press, Inc. Keyword(s): Adolescent Behavior; Alcohol Use; Gender Differences; Mothers, Behavior; Parenting Skills/Styles; Peers/Peer influence/Peer relations; Racial Differences; School Characteristics/Rating/Safety; School Suspension/Expulsion The purpose of this study was to examine whether the influence of key characteristics on adolescent alcohol misuse (i.e., maternal binge drinking, parenting, peers, school characteristics, and the adolescent's own behavior) change over time and whether predictors of adolescent alcohol misuse vary by gender and race/ethnicity. Using prospective, longitudinal data from a community sample, results revealed that mother's binge drinking, peer drinking, and an early age of onset predicted higher levels of alcohol misuse when respondents were 14 to 16 years of age. Two years later, when adolescents were 16 to 18 years of age, maternal binge drinking was no longer significant, however, maternal attachment, school attachment, peer drinking, and early age of onset were found to significantly predict adolescent alcohol misuse. Race differences were found for maternal binge drinking and gender differences were found for school suspension and maternal monitoring on adolescent drinking. |
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Bibliography Citation
Tyler, Kimberly A., Rosalie Torres Stone and Bianca Elizabeth Bersani. "Examining the Changing Influence of Predictors on Adolescent Alcohol Misuse." Journal of Child and Adolescent Substance Abuse 16,2 (November 2006): 95-114.
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