Ethnicity, Social Backgroud and Young Offending: A 14-Year Longitudinal Study

Abstract

The relationship between ethnicity and rates of violent, property and other offences based on self-report and parental report data was studied for a birth cohort of Christchurch born children. The results show that on the basis of report data, children of Maori ethnicity had significantly (p<.05) higher rates of offending than children of Pakeha (European) ethnicity with these rates being from 1.45 to 2.25 times higher than for Pakeha children. However, after adjustment for a series of social and contextual factors including maternal age, maternal educational levels, family socio-economic status, family living standards and early childhood environment factors, these associations reduced so that children of Maori or Pacific Island ethnicity had risks of offending which ranged from 1.08 to 1.55 times higher than children of Pakeha ethnicity. In four of the five comparisons made there was no significant relationship between ethnicity and offending after adjustment for these social and contextual factors. The implications of these findings for the interpretation of ethnic differences in rates of offending are examined with particular attention being given to labelling, socio-economic and cultural explanations of these differences.