When planning the groups for the study they used looked at the female’s family situation as the independent variable. The first sample consists of women who had to be put in an institutional care because of family breakdown (Messer 2004: p 87). The second sample was women that lived in the same area and economic situation, but remained with the same family throughout there childhood (Messer 2004: p 87). It was a longitudinal study that looked at several measures throughout the women’s lives, at specified intervals (Messer 2004: p 87). These measures were looked for in the interviews. Several of the topics that were talked about in the interviews were: marriage situations, demography, parenting, relationships, and mental health (Messer 2004: p 87). All of these topics were put into categories and given points so that they could measure how much criminal activity each women had.
The most obvious way to analyze their criminal activity is to look at their criminal record. 43 from the 183 women had been convicted of a crime at least once through age 35 (Messer 2004: p 91). This is almost 25% of the sample groups. The majority of the convictions were for either theft or fraud (Messer 2004: p 91). There were also convictions of assault, sex offences, and substance abuse. They then looked at the women who had committed these crimes and made percentages of how many of them came from broken homes. The results were as they would have predicted. Out of all the offenders 83% of them had broken families and had to be brought up in institutional care(Messer 2004: p 92). They also looked at the percentage of offenders who had criminal parents. 50% of them had criminal fathers and 30% had criminal mothers (Messer 2004: p 92).
There were several additional factors that they considered when analyzing the criminals. They looked at whether they had employment difficulties in their late teen years (15 – 21) (Messer 2004: p 93). They also looked to see if they became involved with deviant friends when they left their homes (Messer 2004: p 93). Almost half of the offenders had employment difficulties in their teen years (Messer 2004: p 93). And 59% of them had deviant friends in these late teen years (Messer 2004: p 93). One of the results that surprised me is that the number of teen pregnancies 58% (Messer 2004: p 93). It was not the fact that there were so many that surprised me but the fact that the number is very close to the percentage of deviant friends. Although it may not be very strong there is at least some correlation between the percentage of deviant friends and percentage of teen pregnancies. They also considered the offenders mental health. This was analyzed by looking at the percentage of substance abuse and the percentage of psychiatric episodes (Messer 2004: p 96). They split both of these percentages into teens to mid-twenties and twenties to thirties. In the teens to mid-twenties 23% of the offenders were recorded for substance abuse; the percentage remained the same to their thirties (Messer 2004: p 96). In the teens to mid-twenties 43% of the offenders had a psychiatric episode (Messer 2004: p 96). The amount of offenders that had a psychiatric episode did increase in the second measuring to 51% (Messer 2004: p 96). This shows that the majority of the offenses could have been done either while they were under the influence of drugs, or while having a psychiatric episode.
Although many of these precursors are the same as they would be for men that have been convicted for some crime, there are several differences. One difference is that there is never any record of rage of anger in the adolescence. This is one factor that is often looked at in younger boys to determine if they are likely to become
criminals. Using these precursors school officials can predict with much better accuracy whether a girl may be likely to become a criminal. They can then try to prevent these girls from becoming criminals.
References
Messer, Julie, and Maughan, Barbara, and Quinton, David, and Taylor, Alan. (2004)
Criminal Behavior and Mental Health. 14, 82–107. Whurr Publishers Ldt