Gewalt und andere Formen von Problemverhalten. Ähnlichkeiten und Unterschiede in internationaler Perspektive

Abstract

Much research done over the past decade has paid extraordinary attention to explaining and understanding violence. However, good predictors of violence are often also predictors of other types of problem behavior such as property crime or alcohol and drug abuse. Therefore, violence research should closely examine both similarities and differences between various types of problem behavior.

The paper examines this problem from an international comparative perspective. It first shows that violent crime, property crime, drug abuse, and alcohol abuse are highly interrelated on the individual level, that they are predicted by similar personality and family-level variables, and that they display a highly similar age curve in different countries. Secondly, important differences can be found when comparing levels of problem behavior between countries. A cluster analysis of twenty-eight countries shows that groups of countries share distinct configurations of problem behavior. Also, different types of problem behavior differ considerably as to their macro-level predictors. Levels of strain (e.g. inequality) primarily predict levels of violent crime. In contrast, opportunity structures (e.g. frequency of going out) predict levels of drug abuse. I develop a theoretical model that takes into account both mechanisms causing similarities between different types of problem behavior and factors leading to different outcomes in the sense of one particular problem behavior being frequent in a given social context.