TITLE:
Parental Poverty and Neighborhood Conditions as Predictors of Juvenile Crime Rates
AUTHORS:
Tamaraubibibogha Manfred Gunuboh
KEYWORDS:
Parental Poverty, Juvenile Crime, Racial Disparity, Education, Neighborhood Conditions
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.11 No.7,
July
25,
2023
ABSTRACT: This paper examines the effect of parental
poverty and neighborhood conditions on juvenile crime rates. It employs two
distinct regression models: OLS linear regression model and negative binomial
regression model to test for several hypotheses. The OLS is used to explore the
correlational relationship between the dependent and independent variables,
while the negative binomial regression model is used to make prediction about
the relationship between the dependents and independent variables. The findings
in the first regression (OLS) results
indicated a significantly positive relationship between parental poverty
and juvenile violent crime rates; it shows that a percent increase in parental
poverty in a county will cause juvenile crime rate to increase by
about 0.53 percent. Likewise, the incidence rate ratio of the negative binomial
regression model (1st NBRM) indicates that if the percentage of families in a
county who are living in poverty increases by a unit, the number of juvenile
arrest counts for violent crimes is likely to increase by a
factor of 1.48, while holding all other variables constant. Hence, this paper
directs government officials to see beyond
traditional approach to juvenile crime and begin to address specific
factors such as parental poverty that have proven to increase the rate of
juvenile crime.