While unsupervised and unstructured socialising with peers is associated with delinquency, less is known about to what extent it fits within adolescents’ daily routine activities; that is, their general, structural time use. Furthermore, research informed by the situational action theory shows that unstructured socialising increases the probability of rule-breaking acts more for individuals with higher crime propensity. Hence, structural time use might explain patterns of unstructured socialising, and crime propensity might explain why some are at an increased risk of committing rule-breaking acts during such situations. The present study aims to connect these three aspects and examine: (i) how adolescents tend to structure their time use, (ii) if their structural time use differentially places them in unstructured socialising, and (iii) whether some adolescents during unstructured socialising run an elevated risk of committing rule-breaking acts due to their morality (as part of their crime propensity) while also taking their structural time use into account. Using a sample of 512 adolescents (age 16) in Sweden, time use and morality are analysed using latent class analysis based on space-time budget data and a self-report questionnaire. Multilevel linear probability models are utilised to examine how rule-breaking acts result from an interaction between an individual’s morality and unstructured socialising, also taking structural time use into account. Results show that the likelihood of unstructured socialising in private but not in public is different across identified latent classes. Adolescents, in general, run an elevated risk of rule-breaking acts during unstructured socialising, irrespective of structural time use. In this study, these acts consist mainly of alcohol consumption. However, the risk is higher for adolescents with lower morality. Adolescents’ time use may account for a general pattern of delinquency, but accounting for rule-breaking acts requires knowledge of the interaction between person and setting.

Denna kortrapport innehåller beskrivande analyser av nollmätningen som har genomförts inom ramen för projektet ”Öppna drogscener”, vilket är en del av samverkansöverenskommelsen ”Skåne tillsammans mot narkotika” . Representanter från kommun och polis i sex skånska kommuner har tillsammans identifierat en geografiskt avgränsad plats som de bedömer som en öppen drogscen. Det vill säga en plats där narkotika säljs och brukas offentligt och som myndigheter och allmänheten uppfattar som problematisk . Tillsammans ska kommun och polis kartlägga och analysera problembilden, implementera en passande insats vilket sedan ska följas upp. Följande kortrapport är en del av denna process. Analyserna i rapporten baseras på anmälda brott mellan åren 2018-2021 och på intervjuer med nyckelinformanter som genomfördes under perioden november-december 2022. Nollmätningen ligger till grund för en jämförelse som kommer att genomföras efter att insatserna har implementerat för att undersöka om det har skett någon förändring. Utöver att jämföra platserna med sig själva över tid kommer också jämförelser mot andra platser i kommuner som inte varit en del av projektet att genomföras. Detta för att undersöka om kontrollplatserna har haft en liknande förändring som insatsplatserna. 

There is a surge in gun violence in Sweden. Prior research has shown how these expressions of violence tend to be concentrated in space. For instance, there is an increased risk of a shooting occurring in close proximity to a prior shooting in the three largest cities in Sweden, especially at open drug scenes (ODS) in socially disadvantaged areas. Furthermore, prior research has found a clear spatial connection between shootings and the presence of ODS in Stockholm. However, less is known about the patterns of gun seizures. How does spatial patterns of gun seizures overlap with shootings and the presence of ODS and how can these be used to advance police practice? Such questions are important to add nuance to the overarching view on “gun violence”. The present study aims to explore the questions by converging three types of data drawn from the Stockholm region: one on gun seizures, one on gun incidents and another on the presence of ODS. With the use of spatial data analyses, we learn whether there are systematic differences in the patterns of gun seizures, gun incidents and the presence of ODS. The importance of nuanced data and how the results can be used by the police in their strategic work is discussed. The results may advance both police activities towards gang criminality and future research on gun violence.

According to the Situational Action Theory, stronger morality inhibits the perception of alternatives to law-breaking action, thus lessening the probability of crime and delinquency. Research indicates that morality might be affected by delinquent peer association and in turn affect criminogenic exposure. This article studies how morality develops during late adolescence using data from the longitudinal project Malmo Individual and Neighbourhood Development Study. Using linear growth modelling, the study finds that a decrease in morality is associated with a simultaneous increase in delinquency peer association. No change in criminogenic exposure was detected. The results are discussed alongside theoretical and methodological implications.

Criminology has long been divided by mainly focusing on people’s propensities to commit crimes, on the one hand, and environmental characteristics conducive to crime, on the other. Such a division must be bridged to advance knowledge about why some people, but not others, commit rule-breaking acts in some environments but not in others. Furthermore, explanations require causal mechanisms explaining how the outcome, a rule-breaking act, is produced. Analytic Criminology offers a general framework for how to theoretically and empirically structure the study of crime. It does so by connecting macro- and micro-levels – structuring the convergence of certain people in certain places – through a mechanistic account. Within this framework, the situational action theory (SAT) proposes a causal mechanism explaining how said convergence triggers the perception-choice process: a rule-breaking act must first be perceived to be subsequently chosen. The main drivers during this process are the person’s crime propensity and the criminogeneity of the behaviour setting. Identifying the central components also enables the theorising of changes in crime involvement, which is the subject of the developmental ecological action (DEA) model of SAT. Drawing on data from the longitudinal project Malmö Individual and Neighbourhood Development Study, this thesis aimed to test SAT and its DEA model, thus bridging said division. It did so through four studies with specific reference to adolescents’ crime propensity, exposure to criminogenic settings, their convergence, and finally, change over time. Study I and study II investigated adolescents’ time use and connections to rule-breaking. The former examined how adolescents spend time in unsupervised and unstructured socialising with peers, during which hours of the day, in which neighbourhoods, and what level of collective efficacy the neighbourhoods have. Study II focused on adolescents’ routine activities and how they differentially place adolescents in unstructured socialising. Furthermore, it tested whether adolescents with higher crime propensity run a higher probability of reporting a rule-breaking act during unstructured socialising irrespective of their routine activities. Study III extended the situational analysis by investigating how adolescents form rule-breaking intentions in randomised scenarios depending on their morality, self-control, and the setting characteristics (varying in level of motivation and deterrence). Study IV applied a developmental perspective to key theoretical constructs derived from the DEA model, focusing on how morality, peer delinquency, and unstructured socialising change, and how the change in each is related to change in the others. Together, the studies found that adolescents with different levels of crime propensity are differently exposed to criminogenic settings but that such exposure simultaneously increases the probability of rule-breaking more for adolescents with higher crime propensity. In sum, the studies have bridged the person–place division in different ways by being rooted in a mechanistic account of rule-breaking, which is proposed as a way forward for criminology as a discipline. 

According to the Situational Action Theory, the “perception-choice process” is the explicit mechanism explaining how the interaction between an individual and a setting might render in a rule-breaking act. One way of studying the process has been through a randomized vignette approach. Prior research has generally found that crime prone individuals assessing criminogenic settings are more likely to choose rule-breaking alternatives. However, less is known if this association also holds when comparing an individual with him-/herself over two time points. Using data from the longitudinal project Malmö Individual and Neighbourhood Development Study (a replication of PADS+), this study examines if individuals who report stability [or change] in level of crime propensity also report stability [or change] in the assessment of vignettes. Furthermore, scholars have recently challenged the view that self-reported accounts of attitudes do not generalize to actual behaviour, proposing a Bayesian approach. This study follows the suggestions, and results are discussed against a backdrop of theoretical implications.

Within the field of criminology, the Situational Action Theory has gained increased attention. It is a theory aiming to explain moral rule breaking in general, and criminal acts in particular, through the interaction between an individual and the immediate environment in which she finds herself. This interaction initiates a perception-choice process. According to the theory, what inhibit or enable us to see crimes as action alternatives is our sense of what is right or wrong to do in certain situations – our morality. Given the theoretical importance placed on morality in the explanation of crime, this work aims to study matters of moral development. Analyses are based on a longitudinal sample of individuals moving through adolescence; an important period in life considering changes occurring at the time. As the adolescents’ autonomy tends to grow, so does the impact of peers. More specifically, the aim is to study interindividual differences in intraindividual change by looking closer at the relationship between changes in delinquent peer association and criminogenic exposure on the one hand, and changes in morality on the other. This is done through a series of linear growth models. The sample is derived from the Swedish longitudinal project Malmö Individual and Neighbourhood Development Study (MINDS), and is comprised of 386 adolescents participating in three waves of data collection (at ages 15-16, 16-17, and 18-19). Results indicate that morality by and large decreases over time, and that this decrease is homogenous for the sample (i.e. no significant variance). Neither is there any significant correlation between initial level of morality and subsequent change. Results also indicate that a higher initial level of morality is significantly associated with a higher increase of delinquency amongst peers over time (but that higher initial levels of delinquent peer association is not significantly associated with subsequent change in morality). Furthermore, an increasing rate of delinquency amongst the adolescents’ peers over time is associated with a decreasing rate of morality, and a decreasing rate of criminogenic exposure is associated with a decreasing rate of morality. This moral change is to be discussed within a methodological and criminological framework.