PURPOSE: This paper examined gender differences in a rate, type, relevant variables of delinquent behavior, and a gender differences regarding the relative influence of family,personality, academic achievement, sexual abuse and alcohol drug abuse on delinquent behavior among Korean adolescents. METHOD: Data were collected by self-report questionnaires. Subjects consisted of 2,100 adolescents (male 1,396, female 704) in Korea, using proportional stratified random sampling method. Statistical methods were Chi-square, t-test and path analysis. RESULT: Male adolescents had higher rate of delinquent behavior, and more all types of delinquent behavior (antisocial, aggressive, and psychopathic) than female. Male adolescents showed more dysfunctional family dynamic environments, higher antisocial personality and sociability than female adolescents. Female adolescents had higher depressive tendencies than male. The most powerful contributing variables on male delinquent behavior were age, antisocial personality, parent-child relationship, isolation feelings, and sexual abuse in this order named. Drug abuse, isolation feelings, antisocial personality and parent-child relationship tended to be contributing variables for female delinquent behaviors in this order named. CONCLUSION: This investigation will provides a foundation for theory that addresses the complexities of both gender-specific and gender influences on delinquent behavior and development of preventive strategies for female delinquency.
PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to determine the important factors on juvenile
delinquency and to examine relationships between sex, age, the family environment, the
personality of adolescents, smoking, and juvenile delinquency.
Methods
Data collection was done through questionnaire surveys. The subjects for this
study consisted of 1,948 adolescents delinquents : 784, students : 1,164 in Korea, using
proportional stratified random sampling method. Statistical methods employed were
chi-square, t-test and path analysis.
Results: The results of this study were as follows :
1. The delinquent adolescents were reared in a more dysfunctional family environment, and had a higher maladaptive
personality than the other student adolescents.
2. The delinquent adolescents showed the larger amount of smoking than the student adolescents. The cause of
increased smoking tendency among delinquents simply were 'for social relation', 'for diversion', 'for nicotine
addiction', whereas 'for tension relieving' among non-delinquent adolescents.
3. The most powerful contributors on delinquent behavior were antisocial personality tendencies, smoking, sex,
strength of parent- child relationships, and the age of the adolescents in this order.
Conclusions
Our cross-sectional findings indicate that smoking was one of the most
powerful contributing variables to delinquent behavior, but family environment,
personality, sex and age of adolescents were also proved to be strong exogenous
variables to smoking in adolescents.
The purpose of this study was to test the theoretical model designed to explain juvenile delinquency by media violence. Data were collected through questionnaire survey over a period of 3 months. Subjects served for this study consisted of 537 adolescents including 217 delinquent adolescents and 320 student adolescents in Korea, sampled from Korean student population and delinquent adolescent population confined in juvenile correctional institutions, using proportional stratified random sampling method. In this study, exogeneous variable was family dynamic environment and endogeneous variables were character of adolescent including need satisfaction/ frustration, sociability, antisocial personality tendency, complaints of psychosomatic symptoms and depressive trend, juvenile delinquent behavior and media violence themes including the extent of interest in and exposure and modelling impulsiveness and modelling to media violence themes. A total of 18 instruments were used to operationalized concepts in this model. A validation study indicated that internal consistencies for the 18 instruments which the researcher used were reliable. The one month test-retest correlation for these instruments ranged from 0.54 to 0.88. Statistical methods employed were descriptive statistics and covariance structural modelling. In summarized conclusion, it was found that media violence served as the most contributor to juvenile delinquency by direct effect of 0.64(t=10.18). That is, as the adolescents have to be the higher extent of interest in and exposure and modelling impulsiveness and modelling to media violence themes, they will show the more frequency of delinquent behavior. The single most powerful contributor by total effect of 0.73(t=7.90) (direct effect=0.19, indirect effect=0.54) to the development of delinquent behavior identified in this study was a construct defining family dynamic environment. That is, as the adolescents had to be more unstable family dynamic environment, they became more frustrated to their psychological need, and revealed the more maladaptive personality pattern, consequently they behaved the higher misconducts such as juvenile delinquency through media violence.
The present study was intended to compare difference in research variables between delinquent adolescents and student adolescents, and to analyze discriminative factors of delinquent behaviors among Korean adolescents.
The research design of this study was a questionnaire survey. Questionnaires were administered to 2,167 adolescents (1,196 students and 971 delinquents), sampled from 8 middle and high school and 6 juvenile corrective institutions, using the proportional stratified random sampling method. Statistical methods employed were Chi-square, t-test, and logistic regression analysis.
The discriminative factors of delinquent behaviors were smoking, alcohol use, other drug use, being sexually abused, viewing time of media violence and pornography. Among these discriminative factors, the factor most strongly associated with delinquency was smoking (odds ratio: 32.32). That is, smoking adolescent has a 32-fold higher possibility of becoming a delinquent adolescent than a non-smoking adolescent.
Our findings, that smoking was the strongest discriminative factor of delinquent behavior, suggest that educational strategies to prevent adolescent smoking may reduce the rate of juvenile delinquency. Antismoking educational efforts are therefore urgently needed in South Korea.