Citation

Chapple CL, Hope TL. Violence Vict. 2003; 18(6): 671-690.

Affiliation

Department of Sociology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 68588-0324, USA. cchapple2@unl.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 2003, Springer Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

15109120

Abstract

How versatile are gang and dating violence offenders? Current gang research highlights the versatility of gang members, yet the versatility of intimate violence offenders is often unexamined. Gottfredson and Hirschi, A General Theory of Crime (1990), support the idea of versatile rather than specialized offenders and suggests that low self-control is associated with a host of criminal and noncriminal risk-taking activities. Using data from a self-report sample of 1139 youths in grades 9 through 11, we investigated both the versatility of gang and dating violence offenders and theoretical variables associated with each. We find disproportionate offending by dating and gang violence offenders in a variety of crimes, as well as considerable overlap in the independent variables associated with both types of violence. Low levels of self-control and exposure to general and crime-specific criminal opportunities are significantly associated with engaging in dating and gang violence.

Language: en