The Effects of Legal Processing on Delinquent Orientations

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The first two research questions that Ageton and Elliott addressed in their article, "The Effects of Legal Processing on Delinquent Orientations" where whether legal processing created or promoted increased deviant/delinquent behaviour and how strongly other extra-legal factors played into the effect of the legal processing (Ageton, 1974:89). Their data came from a previous six year long study of delinquency and dropout rates in eight California schools; they were about to take this data set and obtain several pertinent variables about self-perceived delinquency identified by the authors as "delinquent orientation" (Ageton, 1974:90). This measure of "delinquent orientation" was measured using a scale developed from California Psychological Inventory which was identified by Gough (1960) to identify how the individual views themselves; the authors rely on Gough (1960) to show that on the scale juvenile delinquents score lower than non-delinquent adolescents and therefore it is used as a measure of delinquency throughout the six year longitudinal study (Ageton, 1974:90). In this study ...

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