Social Correlates of Early Adolescent Theft

Survey and retest data from 912 junior high school youth in three types of coniznunities provided a highly reliable self-report scale of theft, confirming the viability of the Nye-Short technique for direct investigation of misconduct within more than one age group. The Theft Scale correlated with age, sex, and birth order among a series of demographic factors, but not with socio-economic status, type of community or family intactness. It is associated significantly with quality of parent-child relations and leisure activities, but not with peer group sociometric status or self-concept. Though associated with truancy, vandalism, and anti-social misconduct, the Theft Scale was not predictive of these forms of deviant behavior, suggesting that self-report scales should perhaps be devised for each type of misconduct to allow research on interrelations among them.