Perceived antecedents and ariminal thinking patterns in adolescent criminal offenses

Abstract

The main objective of the present study is to explore the adolescents’ own perceptions of the factors that led them to act in delinquent ways and to be in conflict with the law as a result. The target group of the study consists of eleven adolescents who had been in conflict with the law and detained due to property offenses, mainly mugging. Data was collected in the context of a face-to-face in-depth interview and analyzed using grounded theory (Strauss, & Corbin, 1998). It was observed that the adolescents were not passive throughout their development but they were constantly attributing meaning to their experiences and developing specific kinds of thinking patterns related to their offensive behaviors. Normalization of their antisocial behaviors, decreased sense of responsibility, diminished level of empathy for the victims and power orientation were among the emerging themes related to their thinking patterns. Besides, various risk factors such as early peer rejection, deviant peer affiliations, dropping out of school, harsh paternal discipline, low monitoring of the parents, inconsistent parenting strategies among parents, loss of alternative social support in the family environment and neighborhood disadvantages were observed to contribute to the criminal thinking patterns of adolescents throughout their development.