Housing Tenure, Social Class and Offending: The individual‐level relationship in childhood and youth*

In the study of the social ecology of crime, the direct and indirect relationships between various aspects of housing and criminality have become an increasingly important area of research and theory. One major field of study is the investigation of the link between housing, population composition and offending. Another major area of research is the study of the link between physical design characteristics of buildings and areas and crime. Most studies of housing and crime have been conducted on the area level. In this study the individual‐level relationship between housing and offending is explored. The major research question is whether housing in childhood has an independent effect on offending in childhood and youth, controlling for social class background. The data used are taken from the Project Metropolitan Stockholm cohort of 15117 males and females. The parents’ social class background, and the housing of the cohort members’ family during the cohort members’ childhood, are related to delinquency in childhood (participation) as known by the child welfare authorities, and criminality in youth (aggregate crime rate, participation and frequency) as recorded by the police.