Fordham University's Hispanic Research Center (HRC) proposes to conduct a study of delinquency and non-delinquency among male Puerto Rican adolescents living in the South Bronx. Specifically, the study aims to uncover the factors which explain why some Puerto Rican adolescents in the South Bronx engage in delinquency and why others manage to avoid involvement in delinquency even though they share a high-risk urban situation. We will survey 1000 Puerto Rican male adolescents, aged 12-19 inclusive, drawn from a sample of South Bronx census tracts. Taking Elliott et al.'s social control model of deliquency as a starting point, we will examine the influences on deliquency of a number of factors: bonding to deliquent peers, conventional bonding, socialization, strain, and prior self-reported delinquency. At the same time, the model will be extended and adapted to inner-city Puerto Rican populations by examining the interrelationships among the above-mentioned factors and other factors which our own previous research has found salient in the life situations of inner-city Puerto Rican families: acculturation, bonding to non-conventional families, bonding to peer groups with diverse deliquency orientation, and the deterrent effects of perceived costs of delinquency. Respondents will be re-interviewed one year after the initial survey in order to determine how prior deliquency influences factors associated with deliquent involvement at a later time in the adolescent's life. The study is intended to increase our understanding of factors relevant to deliquency and deliquency-avoidance in a high-risk inner-city population. It addresses a substantial gap in deliquency research: the lack of systematically collected primary data on Hispanic deliquency patterns.
| Pabon, E (1998) Hispanic adolescent delinquency and the family: a discussion of sociocultural influences. Adolescence 33:941-55 |
