The Correlates of Crime and Deviance: Additional Evidence

Abstract

Comparable survey data collected simultaneously in major cities in Greece, Russia, and Ukraine indicate that the usual correlates of self-reported criminal/deviant behavior derived from research in well-studied, mostly Western societies, do not necessarily hold cross-nationally. The data confirm only two of six potential correlates of self-reported criminal/deviant behavior—age and deviant peer association. Two widely assumed correlates of criminal propensity—gender and marital status—prove to be somewhat unreliable and sensitive to these cultural contexts. Religiosity is generally negatively linked to crime/deviance in bivariate but not multivariate analyses. In bivariate analysis socioeconomic status (SES) proves to be highly sensitive to the investigated cultural contexts whereas in multivariate analysis SES is not significantly related in any consistent fashion to criminality in any of the three countries. These results show the value of cross-cultural research and suggest that effective explanation of criminal and deviant behavior may require more attention to cultural variations.