Scott Menard

This paper uses integrated theory to explain gang fighting. Integrated theory combines elements of social control, social learning, and strain theories. We focus on gang fighting to assess the generality of integrated theory because it constitutes serious violent collective behavior which is linked to other problem behaviors. Few explanations for such behavior are offered. We examine the relationship between integrated theory and gang fighting using multi-level modeling and data from the first five waves of the National Youth Survey Family Study for the period 1976-1980. Support for direct effects of some components of integrated theory was found, including normlessness, delinquent peer-group bonding, and grades in school.

The present study investigates how adolescent exposure to violence (AEV), in the form of parental physical abuse, witnessing parental violence, and exposure to violence in the neighborhood, is related to adult anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder, controlling for more general adolescent violent victimization and for self-reports and parent reports of mental health problems in adolescence, on a national household-based probability sample of individuals who were adolescents in the mid-1970s and who were followed through early adulthood in the early 2000s. The results suggest that AEV is associated with mental health problems in adolescence but not, controlling for other variables, in adulthood, but there is continuity in mental health problems associated with AEV from adolescence to adulthood.

Psychopathy has consistently been associated with antisocial outcomes. The three- and four-factor models have been best fitted to data relating to Korean serious offenders (N = 451), offering construct validity of the Korean Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R). However, no study has yet tested the predictive power of the Korean PCL-R to explain two different types of antisocial outcomes: (1) risk of inmates measured by correctional officers during incarceration and (2) recidivism after release. By exploring these two forms of antisociality, here we sought to establish the predictive and construct validities of the Korean version of PCL-R. We found that the deviant lifestyle (Factor 3) performed best for predicting both antisocial forms (risk and recidivism) and that the deficits in interpersonal (Factor 1) and affective (Factor 2) abilities also uniquely predicted one subtype of risk, which suggests the three-factor model is better than the four-factor model in predictions. These findings will be useful for criminal justice experts and practitioners in Korea.

Research on the effects of child abuse and of childhood and adolescent exposure to domestic violence or community violence has generally, with some exceptions, found them to be related to subsequent negative behavioral outcomes, such as crime, delinquency, and substance abuse. This study uses longitudinal self-report data from the National Youth Survey Family Study to investigate how being physically abused by parents, witnessing violence between parents, and exposure to violence in the neighborhood are related to violent victimization and offending in middle adulthood, controlling for prior involvement in the outcome behaviors in adolescence. Physical abuse and witnessing parental violence appear to have little direct impact on adult violent offending and victimization net of the impact of adolescent violent victimization more generally; but adolescent exposure to neighborhood violence does appear to be predictive of adult violent victimization and offending for female respondents.

In their 2012 article, Pollock, Oliver, and Menard found that race was not a significant predictor of being arrested or questioned by police. In light of recent events such as the death of Michael Brown Jr., Freddie Gray, and others, and the resulting media coverage and public protest, the current article sought to reexamine predictors of police contact in greater detail. For this examination, separate analyses were run on respondents with and without serious offending reported to determine whether predictors of police contact are different for individuals with whom the police presumably have more discretion (individuals who are not serious offenders). In addition, path models with logistic regression were created to examine potential indirect effects of all variables, including race. Results indicate that race does have an indirect effect on police contact, but it is White individuals who are more likely to be questioned and arrested. In addition, other factors including low parental socioeconomic status (which is associated with ethnicity), previous police contact, and gender are more likely, than even involvement in crime, to determine if a person will be questioned or arrested. Differences in predictors based on the seriousness of the offender and implications of the findings are discussed.

Evidence concerning the ability of genetic risk factors to moderate the effects of environments has continued to accumulate over the last decade or so. For the behavioral sciences, this means that genetic risk factors might interact with environmental triggers to influence various human outcomes, including antisocial and aggressive behaviors. The current study seeks to further expand this line of inquiry by examining data drawn from the National Youth Survey Family Study. More specifically, we examined whether a polymorphism in the promoter region of the MAOA gene might condition the influence of exposure to deviant peer groups in the prediction of criminogenic behavior. Our findings offer some mixed evidence that genotype might condition the influence of delinquent peer affiliation on antisocial behavior during the course of human development.