Crime in the Modern City. A Longitudinal Study of Juvenile Delinquency in Münster - wave 1 (2000)

Victimisation, self-reported delinquency, educational styles, conflict behaviour, attitudes towards crime, lifestyles, leisure and consumption styles

Topics: Life satisfaction; group of friends: clique affiliation; frequency of contact with this clique; composition of the clique according to gender and nationality; characterisation of the clique (joint visits to pubs, discos, concerts, hostile groups, feeling of acceptance only within the group, use of violence to assert interests, joint theatre, music or newspaper, fight with other groups, learning for school, respect for other people, hanging around, drinking alcohol, doing something forbidden for fun); attitude towards foreigners (scale); preferred groups such as rapper or no preferred group; preferred music style or no preferred music style; recreational styles: duration per day for watching TV or video; no TV or video; favorite shows (movie genre); favorite movie; reading time per day (books and magazines); favorite book; favorite magazines; no reading books or magazines; playing time computer and console; favorite games; playing neither computer nor console; recreational activities.

Consumption style: preferred garments or brands; clothing unimportant; preferred shop for clothing.

Lifestyles (urge for new experiences, leisure time more important than school, no dirty work for others, fun and consumption, doing what one feels like doing, somehow one always gets along, education no longer secures professional future, religious ideas play no role, art and culture, jobbing, opportunities for prosperity, achieving one´s goal in life through fulfilling one´s duties, political and social self-realization at work, not bringing problems in the family to the outside world, no matter what, own circle of friends of both partners in a relationship, no debts at school, stand fully behind the state, good grades unimportant, exciting life instead of security, leaving society, dissatisfaction due to limited financial possibilities, willingness to restrictions, not working with enough money, relying on one´s own ability, etc., the school should be able to offer the students the best possible service).

Sense of security during darkness in the neighbourhood with regard to various forms of crime (road traffic injuries, mobbing by other young people, beatings, breaking into the house or flat, robbery and assault, killing, sexual harassment or assault and rape); a sense of security in various places and at various times (e.g. school route, bus stops, during the day or after dark on the bus, etc.).); personal precautionary behaviour to protect against crime (having adults bring them to school, weapons, not travelling by bus or train at certain times, tear gas or gas gun, avoiding certain streets, squares or parks, avoiding certain people, leaving money or valuable things at home, truancy due to threats, avoiding certain parts of town, staying at home, mobile phone to get help).

Victim experience: victimisation personally experienced in the last five years or 12 months; frequency of victimisation since January 1999 (incidence of victims); information on the form of crime (robbery, bodily injury with or without a victim). without weapon, sexual harassment); frequency of reporting the respective offence; information on the respective crime scene (at home, at school, elsewhere in the city, not in Münster) and the perpetrators (family member or relative, acquaintances, friends, classmates, other perpetrators, individual perpetrators or group of perpetrators, sex and nationality of the perpetrator or perpetrators).

Self-reported delinquency: delinquent behaviour: graffitis; age at first graffiti; graffitis in the last 12 months; frequency of graffitis since January 1999 (perpetrator incidence); graffitis alone or in a group; information on the scene of the crime in Münster; number of offences of which a teacher or the police are aware; number of graffiti offences in the last 12 months; the police does not know of any of the acts; reporters to the police last time; corresponding queries for other forms of crime (damage to property, cracking of vending machines or coin telephones, shoplifting, bicycle theft, theft of a motor vehicle, breaking and entering of a motor vehicle, burglary, receiving stolen goods, bodily injury with or without without weapons, drug use, drug trafficking); additional information on the person concerned (sex; nationality, age, schoolmates) for handbag theft, robbery and other thefts; drug use: additional information on the starting age, the type of drugs used, the reason for drug use and the dealer (sex, nationality, age, schoolmates); drug trafficking (deals): additional information on the type of drugs sold and the reason for drug trafficking.

Alcohol consumption: age of the respondent when he or she first became drunk; frequency of excessive alcohol consumption; reason for excessive alcohol consumption.

Drug consumption: type of drugs consumed; age at first drug consumption; frequency of consumption; reason for drug consumption; drug consumption predominantly alone or in a group.

Hypothetical propensity to violence: basic willingness to engage in various criminal activities (fare evasion, pulling off, shoplifting, assault against foreigners, vehicle break-up, drug trafficking, procuring drugs for one´s own consumption, throwing garbage away in the forest, drunk cycling, violence against asylum seekers in the neighbourhood, violence against defenceless opponents); attitude towards violence (scale).

Conflict behaviour: conflict behaviour in disputes with other young people (e.g. empathy, avoidance of provocation, involvement of adults, freaking out, etc.); conflict behaviour in disputes between classmates (keeping out, talking with others, requesting to stop, going alone or with others in between, informing teachers).

Social network: frequency of contact with father/ stepfather, mother/ stepmother, boyfriend/ girlfriend, siblings, grandpa/ grandma, other relatives, friends, acquaintances, neighbours, clique, schoolmates, association, political or church group.

Upbringing: person(s) with whom the respondent has predominantly grown up (or in a home or elsewhere); caregivers in the afternoon after school; parenting styles up to the age of 12 (praise, embrace, reassure, explain mistakes, longer stay as a reward, support in case of anger with others, gifts as a reward, consolation, dissatisfaction with school performance, quarrel about upbringing, ban on television, house arrest or elsewhere). Shortening of pocket money as a punishment, abuse, deprivation of communication as a punishment, thrown with object, hard grappling or pushing, slapping, blows with object, beating or beating, blows with fist or kicks, choking, bodily injury with weapon).

Residential environment: district; perceived problems in the district (bored teenagers, run-down buildings, flying merchants, destroyed phone booths, lack of social, cultural and sporting facilities, drug addicts, drunks, smeared house walls, motorists, too many foreigners/asylum seekers, car wrecks); assessment of the district in terms of meeting points for teenagers, opportunities to do something, recreational opportunities, leisure homes and discos firmly in the hands of certain groups or gangs, too few police and social workers); norm acceptance; reasons against criminal offences (e.g. risk of seizure, simply not doing it, etc.).

School: attitude towards school and characterisation of the school, class and teachers; grades in selected subjects; class repeated; frequency of skipping school in the last year; accompaniment on the way to school; means of transport used to get to school (on foot, bicycle, school bus, public transport, moped, car); activities, projects or working groups offered by the school (student sponsorships, class discussions, self-assertion training, seminar on behaviour in threatening situations, out-of-school drug seminar, seminars on social competence and sexuality, design options for classrooms or schoolyards (school living space), remedial courses, class discussions on crime, drugs and alcohol with a teacher or with a police officer, training as a dispute mediator, discussions about the relationship between Germans and non-Germans, student exchange, several-day class trips, afternoon care, homework assistance, additional sports activities, German courses for foreigners, other groups, e.g. music, theatre, natural sciences); participation in these activities; evaluation of the above-mentioned activities as prevention suggestions for life in school; evaluation of police work (school grade); demand for selected police measures for the safety of citizens (e.g. motorised patrols, etc.).

Demography: age; sex; born in Germany; age at the time of immigration to Germany; nationality; degree of urbanisation of the region of origin of the parents; identification as German or as a national of the country of origin; languages spoken at home; type of dwelling; no own room; number of siblings in the common room; number of other persons in the common room; own room; number of (step)siblings; professional position of father and mother; amount of money available per month; pocket money per month; money sufficient; main expenses per month.

Additionally coded was: number of questionnaire; how long at this school; year; type of school; class; weighting factors.