Social Factors of Youth Crime Decline in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia)

Abstract

The subject of the study is the trends of youth crime in Yakutia. The goal is to study the social factors contributing to youth crime reduction. The hypothesis of the study suggests that youth crime rate depends on the dynamics of demographic and socio-economic processes, alcohol consumption, compliance with healthy lifestyle, the development of information technology and changes in socio-psychological well-being in society. The following methods were applied: 1) sociological anonymous questionnaire survey “Youth of Yakutia and alcohol consumption” (N = 518, 2010), “Monitoring of consumption of surfactants among studying youth” (N = 3008, 2014-2018) “Alcohol and quality of life in Yakutia” (N = 4709, 2017); 2) statistical – analysis of statistics data of the Territorial Authority of the Federal State Statistics Service for the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation for the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation. The social factors of reducing youth crime over the past twenty years in the Republic of Sakha are analyzed. Basing on the data of regional statistics and monitoring sociological studies, the authors prove that this decline is associated with both global and regional trends. The authors substantiate the hierarchy of determining factors: the greatest role in reducing youth crime in the region was played by the spread of access to the Internet, the reduction in alcohol consumption. Also, the factors of reducing the share of young people in the demographic structure, the general improvement in the social well-being of the population and the reduction in the unemployment rate had a rather strong influence, and the role of the dynamics of the poverty level is considered as the smallest.