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DIFFERENTIAL LABELING OF JUVENILES A Multivariate Analysis
Author(s) -
BLANKENSHIP RALPH L.,
SINGH B. KRISHNA
Publication year - 1976
Publication title -
criminology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.467
H-Index - 139
eISSN - 1745-9125
pISSN - 0011-1384
DOI - 10.1111/j.1745-9125.1976.tb00681.x
Subject(s) - deviance (statistics) , commit , psychology , social psychology , juvenile delinquency , multivariate statistics , multivariate analysis , path analysis (statistics) , social identity theory , developmental psychology , statistics , social group , mathematics , computer science , database
Prior studies and commonsense definitions of the decision‐making process suggest that the ascriptive power of the commitment offense, gravity of the commitment offense, psychiatric characteristics of the offender, and the social identity given off by the offender's family would be causally related to variance in the deviance label, i.e., decisions to commit to a mental hospital rather than to a corrections institution. Case records from both settings were analyzed for traces of the decision. However, controlling for each of the alternative variables fails to eliminate the strong relationship between intensity of the offender's prior career of delinquent behavior and the formal deviance label qua type of commitment. The multivariate path model suggests that delinquency intensity and type of commitment are the two most important determinants of mental classification .