The Dark Figure of Delinquency:New Evidence and Its Underlying Psychopathology

• Author: Molly Minkler,Taea Bonner,Matt DeLisi,Pedro Pechorro,Michael G. Vaughn
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/15412040221111328
• Published date: 01 October 2022
• Date: 01 October 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice

2022, Vol. 20(4) 279–291

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/15412040221111328

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The Dark Figure of Delinquency:

New Evidence and Its

Underlying Psychopathology

Molly Minkler

1

, Taea Bonner

1

, Matt DeLisi

1

, Pedro Pechorro

2

, and

Michael G. Vaughn

3

Abstract

Although research on the dark figure of delinquency has produced valuable quantitative estim ates

of its size, prior research is mechanistic and atheoretical about the conceptual underpinnings of

the crimes that go undetected by the juvenile justice system. Drawing on data from 253 adju-

dicated youth in residential placements in the Midwestern United States, the current study found

that youth self-reported over 25 delinquent offenses for every one police contact. The dark figure

of delinquency has a wide distribution with some youth reporting upwards of 290 delinquent

offenses per police contact or arrest. Youth who exhibited more psychopathic features, who

displayed temperamental profiles characterized by low effortful control and high negative

emotionality, males, and those who were older had larger dark figures of delinquency. Findings

provide support for general criminological theories that invoke psychopathy or temperament as

important individual-level drivers of delinquent conduct, much of which never results in juvenile

justice system intervention and thus never achieves legal resolution.

Keywords

dark figure of crime, delinquency, temperament, psychopathy, measures of crime

Introduction

The dark figure of crime is one of the simplest yet profound substantive and methodological issues

in criminology. The dark figure of crime captures the idea that the majority of antisocial acts and

their attendant victimizations in a population are hidden in the sense they are not detected by law

enforcement, and thus do not appear in official arrest statistics or victimization surveys. For

example, comparison of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program

and the Bureau of Justice Statistics’National Crime Victimization Survey across the most recent

1

Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA

2

University of Minho, Braga, Portugal

3

Saint Louis University College for Public Health and Social Justice, St Louis, MO, USA

Corresponding Author:

Matt DeLisi, Criminal Justice Studies, Iowa State University, 203A East Hall, Ames, IA 50011-1070, USA.

Email: delisi@iastate.edu