Delinquent Behaviors Among Post-Socialist Juveniles: How Do Social Control and Self-Control Theories Explain Them?

Abstract

This thesis examines the applicability of social control theory and self-control theory on explaining juvenile delinquency in post-socialist countries. Analyses were conducted with a subset data of the second wave of International Self-Report Delinquency Study (ISRD2) in which includes 18,213 valid adolescent respondents in 9 East European countries. Negative binomial regression analyses showed that only attachment to parents, attachment to school and moral belief can reduce both severe and minor delinquency. Additionally, conventional activity can only reduce minor delinquency. Moreover, attachment to peers can encourage juveniles to commit delinquency. Last, the level of self-control can reduce both severe and minor delinquency. Future studies should use multiple waves of data to examine the dynamic change of the theories in these countries. Also, a better measure of self-control should be generated to capture how parenting is associated with the level of self-control. Finally, it is necessary to add more highly interrelated questions to each scale that has a low alpha to improve the reliability of each scale in future research.