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Factors Involved in Juveniles' Decisions About Crime

University of Washington

Lee Roy Beach

University of Washington

Delinquency is viewed as a purposeful behavior that is the result of a rational decision in which the pros and cons are weighed and the act that promises the greatest potential gain is performed. As a first step in evaluating this view, an experiment was run using 45 male juvenile offenders as subjects and the Subjective Expected Utility (SEU) model from decision theory as the model of the decision process. Results showed that the SEU model correctly predicted 62.7% of the subjects' decisions, and that the proportion of decisions favoring committing an offense increased as a function of the degree to which the SEU favored such a decision.

Criminal Justice and Behavior, Vol. 8, No. 3, 275-286 (1981)
DOI: 10.1177/009385488100800302


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