From structural time use to situational rule-breaking: Analysing adolescents’ time use and the person-setting interaction
| Published date | 01 November 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14773708221097657 |
| Author | Alberto P. Chrysoulakis,Anna-Karin Ivert,Marie Torstensson Levander |
| Date | 01 November 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
From structural time use to
situational rule-breaking:
Analysing adolescents’time use
and the person-setting
interaction
Alberto P. Chrysoulakis ,
Anna-Karin Ivert, and Marie
Torstensson Levander
Malmö University, Sweden
Abstract
While unsupervised and unstructured socialising with peers is associated with delinquency, less is
known about to what extent it fits within adolescents’daily routine activities; that is, their general,
structural time use. Furthermore, research informed by the situational action theory shows that
unstructured socialising increases the probability of rule-breaking acts more for individuals with
higher crime propensity. Hence, structural time use might explain patterns of unstructured socia-
lising, and crime propensity might explain why some are at an increased risk of committing rule-
breaking acts during such situations. The present study aims to connect these three aspects and
examine: (i) how adolescents tend to structure their time use, (ii) if their structural time use dif-
ferentially places them in unstructured socialising, and (iii) whether some adolescents during
unstructured socialising run an elevated risk of committing rule-breaking acts due to their morality
(as part of their crime propensity) while also taking their structural time use into account. Using a
sample of 512 adolescents (age 16) in Sweden, time use and morality are analysed using latent class
analysis based on space-time budget data and a self-report questionnaire. Multilevel linear prob-
ability models are utilised to examine how rule-breaking acts result from an interaction between
an individual’s morality and unstructured socialising, also taking structural time use into account.
Results show that the likelihood of unstructured socialising in private but not in public is different
across identified latent classes. Adolescents, in general, run an elevated risk of rule-breaking acts
during unstructured socialising, irrespective of structural time use. In this study, these acts consist
mainly of alcohol consumption. However, the risk is higher for adolescents with lower morality.
Corresponding author:
Alberto P Chrysoulakis, Department of Criminology, Malmö University, Malmö, SE-205 06, Sweden.
Email: alberto.chrysoulakis@mau.se
Article
European Journal of Criminology
2023, Vol. 20(6) 1804–1828
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/14773708221097657
journals.sagepub.com/home/euc
Adolescents’time use may account for a general pattern of delinquency, but accounting for rule-
breaking acts requires knowledge of the interaction between person and setting.
Keywords
Morality, space-time budget, unstructured socialising, latent class analysis, time-use, situational
action theory
Introduction
Adolescents’time use is linked to, and important for, a wide range of outcomes, including
human development, health, quality of life, delinquency, and deviant behaviour (Barnes
et al., 2007; Bartko and Eccles, 2003; Hunt and McKay, 2015; Larson and Verma, 1999;
Viner et al., 2012). One aspect of time use central to criminology is unstructured and
unsupervised time spent with peers. Prior research shows that the risk for both offending
and victimisation increase under these circumstances (Beeck and Pauwels, 2010;
Bernasco et al., 2013a; de Jong et al., 2020; Felson, 2009; Hoeben et al., 2020;
Hoeben and Weerman, 2014; Mahoney et al., 2004; Osgood et al., 1996; Weerman
et al., 2015; Wikström et al., 2012).However, adolescents spend a varying amount of
unstructured and unsupervised time with peers (henceforth referred to as ‘unstructured
socialising’). More generally, they are differentially exposed to criminogenic settings –
parts of the environment perceivable with our senses, including any media present,
which encourage acts of crime (Wikström et al., 2012: 15).
Adolescents’differential exposure is part of their overall time use, their lifestyle
(Hindelang et al., 1978), routine activities (Cohen and Felson, 1979; Osgood et al.,
1996), or activity fields (Wikström et al., 2010). They generally refer to what adolescents
tend to do, where, when, and with whom –which this study also refers to as ‘structural
time use’. However, studies on ‘lifestyle’and ‘routine activities’tend not to focus on how
unstructured socialising (a form of criminogenic setting) is part of a larger pattern of indi-
vidual time use but focus instead on specific risky activities which may or may not be part
of a general lifestyle or routine (Engström, 2021). Hence, while we know that adolescents
spend a varying amount of time in unstructured socialising, less is known to what extent
these differences connect to more general patterns –a structural dimension –of time use.
Furthermore, most do not commit a crime or other rule-breaking acts during unstruc-
tured socialising. So, while unstructured socialising increases the probability of
rule-breaking acts, it does so more for some adolescents than others. According to situ-
ational action theory (SAT), rule-breaking acts result from a person-setting interaction
(Wikström et al., 2012, 2018). Adolescents are at increased risk of rule-breaking acts
during unstructured socialising depending on their crime propensity (a person’s moral
rules and ability to exercise self-control) (Svensson and Pauwels, 2010; Wikström
et al., 2018). This is why Wikström stresses that ‘whether or not a crime will happen
depends on what kind of person is in what kind of setting’(2020: 193, emphasis
added), which in this study is referred to as the ‘situational’perspective.
Taken literally, ‘kind of person’could also entail a qualitative difference, or typolo-
gies, in crime propensity (Morin and Marsh, 2015). For instance, considering morality,
a group of adolescents might find substance use morally permissible but are aversive
Chrysoulakis et al. 1805
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