Likert Scales

A Closer Look at the Age, Peers and Delinquency human relationship Daniel P. Mears and Samuel H. Field Western Criminology Review 4 (1), 20-29 (2002) Introduction Research thickset Two suppositions were explored. First, a communal association in the midst of delinquent friend-groups and the import of age as it is baffledamong older y let onh. The second (keeping in the bursting charge of the abstractive focus), epitomized that substance-ab handling-related offenses would have a greater correlation in the relationship between delinquent peers and age.For each violation dependent variables were used, with each offender asked the peculiar(prenominal) amount of times the offense was committed in the past year. The meanspirited values for the offenses, range from a low of . 05 for burglary to a high-pitched of 24. 00 for the use of marijuana. (Mears & H. Field,2002). The depth psychology with regard to the deviant self-reported acts uncovers the fact that there is a epoch-mak ing age/peer interaction for each violation, omitting hitting someone.The principal finding to note is,that the judge pattern of age/peer interactions is most clear for using marijuana getting drunk and, to a lesser extent, selling illegal drugs, using prescription drugs, burglary, and the offense mogul. The steady progression in the increasing effect of peers for these offenses can be seen by noting the size and direction of the increase in the interaction coefficients from one age to the next(Mears & H. Field,2002). For the crimes of cheating, damaging property, stealing items less than $5, and more than $50, and hitting someone, the nature and tenacity show up to be less apparent.With regard to these offenses, the effects of the influence-of-peers-relationship, seem to lessen. The researchers gave additional outline to examine the effects of the linkage between heightened delinquency that may be reinforced by increased influence of peers and reducedtime spent with the f amily model. When included, the variables of peer influence and family time left no discernible significance on the interaction of the age/peer association. Personal Opinion regarding Research The authors did look at relevant and pertinent info.Samplings from the study were taken from households across United States, as evidenced by the NYS Wave 3 data, and adolescents were selected from the ages of 13-19. The NYS data was used, because of its considerable methodological attention given to the NYS and because of the general agreement as to their reliability and rigourousness (Mears & H. Field, 2002). Mandatory steps were taken to ensure the offenses were of high variances, by creating the index and standardizing individual offense counts. Standardizing the individual offense was necessary to ensure that offenses with high variances (e. g. , using marijuana) did not overly influence the resulting index (Mears & H. Field, 2002). I ready the article to be informative as well as inte resting. Mears and fields, hazardous evidence extracting that increased exposure to delinquent peers exerts a unique strike on the inclination of older youth to engage in drug offending (using marijuana, getting drunk, selling illegal drugs, and using prescription drugs), was genuinely compelling to me.There are many studies and much evidence to suggest that substance abuse is embedded within peer interactions. Adolescents are expected to participate in drug-related deviant acts, with marijuana and drunkenness at the forefront. It was evenly interesting to see how the aging peer influence played into this study. endpoint While there does seem to be an interactive relationship real between age and delinquent peer associations (for some offenses).The research was order more to the drug-related offenses and the relationship between age and delinquent peer associations. The researchers pointed out that with thisinteractive age/peer relationship, delinquency increases with peer i nfluence among older youth. The data from the NYS was pertinent, relevant, and convincing. The findings open other areas for further investigation, such as age/peer interactions using longitudinal data. (Mears & H. Field,2002).Although, I found the data to be existent and valid, I did take note that the data from wave one was collect in 1976, and the data collected from the third wave (present study), was collected in 1978. The only recommendation I would have is to perform similar analysis on current data to add a stronger foundation to Mears and fields, 2002 findings. (Mears & H. Field, 2002) Mears, D. P. , & H. Field, S. (2002). A Closer Look at the Age, Peers, and Delinquency Relationship. Retrieved from Excelsior College Virtual program library Web site http//Retrieved from http//wcr. sonoma. edu/v4n1/mears. html