Mutability and delinquency: The Relative Effects of Structural, Associational, and Attitudinal Variables on Juvenile Delinquency

From its onset the sociological study of delinquency has had the double mandate of public service and the advancement of science. A formulation is offered for carrying this double mandate forward. Latent in theories of delinquency is the practical insight that delinquency causes are unequally mutable to practitioners' efforts. By making the issue of mutability manifest in research, it is argued, findings from research would have more practical import. Data are analyzed so as to illustrate this argument.