Citation

Vandiver DM. Violence Vict. 2010; 25(2): 243-264.

Affiliation

Department of Criminal Justice, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX 78666, USA. vandiver@txstate.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, Springer Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

20514819

Abstract

This study examines male-female differences of juveniles arrested for a sex offense. A cross-national sample of juvenile boys (n = 177) and a population of juvenile girls (n = 177) arrested for a sex offense are utilized for this analysis. It is hypothesized that (1) boys and girls differ substantially in their offending patterns. Based on Moffitt's social-amplification hypothesis, it is also hypothesized that (2) juveniles who act with a co-offender commit more serious offenses (i.e., more likely to be arrested for rape and have more victims) compared to those who act alone. The results show boys differ from girls: juvenile girls are slightly younger, more likely to be White, more likely to have a co-offender, less likely to commit rape, and be processed formally by law enforcement. The results yielded indicated social amplification appears to occur when girls offend with a co-offender, but not when boys acted with a co-offender.

Language: en