Abstract:
Youth unemployment turned out to be one of the major social Problems in the last years. Despite the ungoing debate on the potential contribution of youth unemployment to youth delinquency and juvenile crime research adressing the relationship between unemployment and crime is still rate and does’nt show up with clear and convincing results. In order to study the relationship between official juvenile crime and youth unemployment an analysis of the police recordet crime in the state of Nordrhein-Westfalen which contains information about the employment status of offenders was carried out. Analysis of police statistics and labour force data revealed a clear although unexpected picture. The enormous increase in youth unemployment was not followed by an increase in the number of unemployed juvenile offenders. Although the number of unemployed juveniles and adolescents (under the age of 20) nearly doubled between 1977 and 1982 (37.000170.000) the number of unemployed juvenile offenders remained fairly constant. In the six year period 1977-1982 the offender rate within the unemployed youth population dropped dramatically. This trend might be explained either as a consequence of changing patterns of social and personal characteristics within the group of unemployed juveniles or in terms of attracting less attention by police and the general public.
