MORE SINNED AGAINST THAN SINNING - A STUDY OF YOUNG TEENAGERS EXPERIENCE OF CRIME

Crime surveys have recently become commplace in Britain. However, they tend to be based on interviewer administered questionnaires conducted with adults in their domiciles. Further, they neglect, for various re asons, to question respondents about their offending behaviour. The cr ime survey reported here used self-completion questionnaires on a samp le of 11-15 year-old young teenagers. They were questioned at school, rather than at home, and quizzed on their offending behaviour (as well as on their victimization experiences). Victimization was common, wit h 82 per cent of the sample reporting at least one victimization durin g the previous year, with, for the whole sample, a mean of four victim izations in the previous year. Females were more likely to be victims of harassment and sexual offences, with males more likely to suffer fr om theft and assault. Overall, they are unlikely to report victimizati on experiences, although some 80 per cent of them were serious in the sense that victims identified the offender as an adult stranger. In te rms of worry about victimization, females (and younger teenagers) seem to worry more than males or older teenagers. Worry seems relatively i ndependent of victimization, although rather high overall. On average, members of this sample confessed to having committed one offence (a q uarter of the rate of victimization: hence the title, 'More Sinned Aga inst than Sinning'). Perhaps understandably, there is a consistent inv erse relationship between having committed an offence and rate the com mission of it as serious. In part this study was conducted as an attem pted verification of path-breaking work carried out in Edinburgh by Ri chard Kinsey. Overall, there are striking similarities between the res ults independently obtained. Rates of offending are slightly but consi stently higher in Glasgow, and the converse, seriousness ratings, slig htly but consistently lower. Accordingly, the Glasgow study offers ini tial verification of the startling results of the Edinburgh study.