Situational theories of crime assert that the situations that people participate in contain the proximal causes of crime. Prior research has not tested situational hypotheses rigorously, either for lack of detailed situational data or for lack of analytical rigor. The present research combines detailed situational data with analytical methods that eliminate all stable between‐individual factors as potential confounds. We test seven potential situational causes: 1) presence of peers, 2) absence of adult handlers, 3) public space, 4) unstructured activities, 5) use of alcohol, 6) use of cannabis, and 7) carrying weapons. In a two‐wave panel study, a general sample of adolescents completed a space–time budget interview that recorded, hour by hour over the course of 4 complete days, the activities and whereabouts of the subjects, including any self‐reported offenses. In total, 76 individuals reported having committed 104 offenses during the 4 days covered in the space–time budget interview. Using data on the 4,949 hours that these 76 offenders spent awake during these 4 days, within‐individual, fixed‐effects multivariate logit analyses were used to establish situational causes of offending. The findings demonstrate that offending is strongly and positively related to all hypothesized situational causes except using cannabis and carrying weapons.

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Research has shown that time spent with peers is related to delinquency, but little is known about the conditions under which spending time with peers is most related to delinquent behavior. In this study, we contrast different categories of time spent with peers, using detailed information about the activities and whereabouts of 843 adolescents in The Hague, the Netherlands. Our findings reveal substantial differences. Time spent with peers appears to be independently related with delinquency only when it combines at least two of the following risk-inducing conditions: just socializing, being in public, and being unsupervised.

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In this study we examine whether feelings of anticipated shame and anticipated guilt when being caught for an offence mediate the relationship between parental monitoring, bonds with parents and school, deviant peers, moral values and offending. We use data from the SPAN project, a study that collected detailed information about offending, moral emotions and socialization among 843 adolescents in The Hague, the Netherlands. The results show that moral emotions of both anticipated shame and guilt have a strong direct effect on offending. The results also show that the relationship between parental monitoring, deviant peers, moral values and offending is substantially mediated by anticipated shame and guilt. This study clearly suggests that both shame and guilt need to be included in the explanation of offending.

This article provides an empirical test of the common assumption that public support for vigilantism is affected by confidence in police. Aside from assessing the role of diffuse (general) confidence in police, we also tested whether police response on a situational level affects how the public views an act of vigilantism. Respondents (N 0385) were presented with a vignette about vigilantism. Using an experimental between-subjects design, we varied police responsiveness (high/low) to precipitating crime as well as vigilante violence (high/low). Diffused confidence in police was a significant predictor of support for vigilantism. Additionally, both experimental factors played an important role: low police responsiveness and low vigilante violence led to more support for vigilantism. Citizens are thus sensitive to situational variation when judging a crime. Our findings also emphasise the importance of police action on a local level for the formation of public opinion.

We examined how parenting is directly and indirectly associated with adolescent delinquency. We derived four possible mechanisms from major criminological theories and examined their relative contribution to explaining the relationship between parenting and delinquency: selfcontrol theory (that is, self-control), differential association theory (that is, delinquent attitudes and peer delinquency), and routine activity theory (that is, time spent in criminogenic settings). In addition, we examined how changes in different aspects of parenting during adolescence were

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