Elsevier

Journal of Criminal Justice

Volume 56, May–June 2018, Pages 127-139
Journal of Criminal Justice

Considering the role of food insecurity in low self-control and early delinquency

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2017.07.002Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Food insecurity was associated with low self-control and early delinquency.

  • Associations were more pronounced when food insecurity was persistent vs. transient.

  • The link between food insecurity and delinquency is partly explained by low self-control.

  • Intervention efforts addressing food insecurity may enhance self-control and reduce delinquency.

Abstract

Purpose

The present study examines whether experiences of household food insecurity during childhood are predictive of low self-control and early involvement in delinquency.

Methods

In order to examine these associations, we employ data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS) – a national study that follows a large group of children born in the U.S. between 1998 and 2000.

Results

Children raised in food insecure households exhibit significantly lower levels of self-control during early childhood and higher levels of delinquency during late childhood than children raised in food secure households, net of covariates. Both transient and persistent food insecurity are significantly and positively associated with low self-control and early delinquency, although persistent food insecurity is associated with larger increases in the risk of low self-control and early delinquency. Ancillary analyses reveal that low self-control partly explains the association between food insecurity and early delinquency.

Conclusions

The general theory of crime may need to be expanded to account for the role of early life stressors linked to a tenuous supply of healthy household foods in the development of self-control. Future research should seek to further elucidate the process by which household food insecurity influences childhood self-control and early delinquency.

Introduction

The General Theory of Crime (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990) identifies deficiencies in self-control as the single-most important predictor of involvement in delinquency, crime, and other deviant behaviors. An absence of self-control is hypothesized to be universal at birth; however, through effective child-rearing, individuals develop the capacity to exercise restraint when deviant impulses arise. According to the theory, parents who supervise their children, recognize when they exhibit problematic behavior, and appropriately sanction them will instill in their children a sense of self-control (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990). If parents fail to effectively socialize children early in their development—prior to age 10—the opportunity to establish self-control will be lost, and children will possess a relatively low level of self-control throughout the remainder of their lives.

After nearly three decades of empirical research, there is an abundance of evidence, including recent meta-analytic evidence (see Vazsonyi, Mikuška, & Kelley, 2017), indicating that low self-control is a critically important risk factor for criminal and other antisocial behaviors (de Ridder et al., 2012, Pratt and Cullen, 2000). Evidence also illustrates, in line with the theory, that parental socialization plays a significant role in fostering the development of self-control (Botchkovar et al., 2015, Burt et al., 2006, Hay, 2001, Hay and Forrest, 2006, Meldrum, 2008, Vazsonyi and Huang, 2010); however, several studies have identified other sources of variation in self-control (e.g., Barnes and Meldrum, 2015, Beaver et al., 2007, Cauffman et al., 2005, Hay and Meldrum, 2015, Jackson and Beaver, 2013, Meldrum et al., 2015a), and the potential remains that additional, largely unexplored factors may influence the development of self-control.

The present study focuses on the possibility that variations in self-control are linked to the presence and persistence of food insecurity – a household condition in which an adequate variety of healthy foods is unavailable or in danger of running out. Recently, many basic health behaviors such as diet and sleep have been studied by criminologists as potential predictors of the development of low self-control and associated problem behaviors (see Jackson, 2016, Jackson and Vaughn, 2017a, Jackson and Vaughn, 2017b, Meldrum et al., 2015a). Little to no criminological research, however, has accrued on the association between food insecurity and low self-control. We review prior research on the development of low-self-control and introduce food insecurity as a factor that is likely to be pertinent to the genesis of low self-control and is therefore worthy of criminologists' consideration. We test these associations using a well-characterized data source: the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study (FFCWS).

Section snippets

Extant research on the origins of self-control

The quest to uncover the sources of self-control has pointed to a number of potentially important predictors beyond parenting behaviors, including peers (Burt et al., 2006, Meldrum, 2008, Meldrum and Hay, 2012) as well as genetic (Beaver et al., 2013, Beaver et al., 2009, Boisvert et al., 2012a, Boisvert et al., 2012b, Wright and Beaver, 2005, Wright et al., 2008), neuropsychological (Beaver et al., 2007, Cauffman et al., 2005, Jackson and Beaver, 2013), and pre/perinatal (Barnes et al., 2016,

Food insecurity and low self-control

As previously noted, recent research has begun to examine whether health and lifestyle factors, such as diet and sleep, impact self-control and associated behaviors (Barnes and Meldrum, 2015, Hay and Meldrum, 2015, Jackson, 2016, Jackson and Vaughn, 2017b, Meldrum et al., 2015a). The findings illustrate the importance of considering such factors in the development of self-control. Despite this growing body of work, criminological research examining the role of food insecurity in the development

The current study

By examining food insecurity as a predictor of self-control and related outcomes, the present study seeks to expand upon the research pointing to various health and lifestyle factors as predictors of behaviors and traits that are indicative of low self-control (Barnes and Meldrum, 2015, Hay and Meldrum, 2015, Jackson, 2016, Meldrum et al., 2015a). Furthermore, by considering food insecurity as a potential source of low self-control, we aim to build upon prior theoretical developments that

Methods

The present study employs data from the FFCWS – a national study that follows a large group of children born in the U.S. between 1998 and 2000. The sampling process included three stages. First, a stratified random sample of 20 cities was taken from the population of large U.S. cities (i.e., those with at least 200,000 residents). Next, a sample of 75 hospitals was drawn from these 20 cities, followed by a random sample of both married and unmarried couples who agreed to participate in the

Plan of analysis

The present analysis explores whether food insecurity is predictive of low self-control and early delinquency. The analysis proceeds as follows. First, descriptive statistics of the variables included in the analyses (e.g., means, standard deviations) are calculated and examined. Next, in order to explore and illustrate the associations between food insecurity and the outcome variables, we calculate the proportions of the sample that score in the upper and lower quartiles of the outcome

Results

We now turn to the results of our analysis by first exploring the pattern of descriptive statistics displayed in Table 1. As illustrated in the table, the sample is 68% nonwhite and 52% male. At the most recent wave of available data, children were between 104 and 132 months of age (i.e. 8 years 8 months–11 years), with an average age of approximately 112 months (i.e., 9 years and 4 months). The average score on maternal education in the sample was 4.66 (which approximates the receipt of a high school

Supplementary analyses

Finally, we examined whether multivariate models revealed an effect of persistent food insecurity on low self-control and early delinquency, above and beyond the effects of transient food insecurity. This was accomplished by entering two dummy variables into the regression equation (as well as all covariates, though these are not displayed): Food Insecure (Transient) and Food Insecure (Persistent). The reference category is Food Secure, or children living in households who did not report food

Discussion and conclusion

Low self-control has been identified as one of the most robust predictors of crime, delinquency, and analogous behaviors (Pratt and Cullen, 2000, Vazsonyi et al., 2017). Research has also revealed that low self-control is influenced by a host of social factors (e.g., parents, peers; see Hay and Forrest, 2006, Meldrum, 2008) and biological factors (e.g., genes, neuropsychological deficits, and birth complications; see Beaver et al., 2013, Beaver and Wright, 2005, Jackson and Beaver, 2013).

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