Black Middle Class Delinquents

Product Description Most criminal justice research on African Americans focuses on poor Blacks living in poor Black communities. Hassett-Walker expands this focus to middle class blacks and empirically tests an assertion from Pattillo-McCoy (1999)'s Black Picket Fences i.e., that little difference in delinquency exists between poor versus middle class Black youth using two national probability samples. Independent variables included class status, parent-child interaction, and neighborhood poverty. Parenting behavior and marital disruption were both predictive of delinquency. Having delinquent peers predicted future arrest, suggesting support for differential association theory. Implications for future research, criminal justice coursework, and government funding are discussed. About the Author Connie Hassett-Walker is an assistant professor of criminal justice at Kean University. Prior to joining the faculty at Kean, Dr. Hassett-Walker worked as a research associate at the Violence Institute of New Jersey, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. Her publications have also appeared in the Journal of Criminal Justice and the Journal of Interpersonal Violence.