Date of Award
8-1988
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Sociology
First Advisor
Dr. Dieter Hermann
Second Advisor
Dr. Michael Voss
Third Advisor
Dr. Paul C. Friday
Access Setting
Masters Thesis-Open Access
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of early biographical factors on the future development of the juveniles and focusses on recidivism and factors influencing the development of a criminal "career." It includes a twenty year follow-up period, studying 500 juveniles released from two juvenile prisons of West Germany in 1961.
From a data set originally created in 1966, which included 290 variables, 29 variables, including individual and social characteristics as well as variables dealing with prior experiences with sanctioning, were ultimately used for this study. In addition, some new variables were created from the variables of the basic data set. The criminal records of 461 juveniles, whose court data were available, were evaluated for the follow-up study.
Bivariate and multivariate methods of analysis have been applied. The data demonstrated that while there is almost no measurable influence of early biographical, individual and social characteristics in the long range, the influence of the official sanction has such a long term effect.
Recommended Citation
Janssen, Helmut F., "Recidivism after Youth Imprisonment in Relationship to Criminal Career: A Twenty Year Follow Up Study" (1988). Masters Theses. 1142.
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/masters_theses/1142