ABSTRACT A study of the relationship between youth runaway and juvenile criminal behaviour. by LI﹐PEI-YI July 2012 ADVISOR(S)：Dr. HUANG﹐FU-YUAN DEPARTMENT：GRADUATE SCHOOL OF CRIMINOLOGY MAJOR：GRIMINOLOGY DEGREE：MASTER OF ARTS Teenagers’ frequent runaway behavior is a hot topic discussed for a long time, which is difficult to resolve by means of the intervention of guidance currently. However, a plenty of relevant literature points out that there is high risk in teenagers' frequent runaway behavior by easy-turning into criminal behavior. Thus, this study tries to clarify the risky factor, the protective factor and the crime way between these two behaviors so as to find out the major and useful point of intervention of guidance. This study will discuss the following three problems: 1. The respective risky factors of the behavior that turn into criminal behavior from frequent runaway out of home by teenagers and the behavior that not run away. 2. The protective factor that prevents the teenagers who frequently run away out of home from committing crimes. 3. Whether there is common crime way for teenagers frequently run away out of home and commit crimes. This study has divided the interviewed ten teenagers into three groups for deep interview. The first sample group consists of four members who frequently run away out of home and commit crimes. The second sample group consists of two members, who frequently run away out of home without committing a crime. And the third sample group consists of four members who do not run away out of home but commit crimes. Finally, compare relevant conclusion and analysis of interview results of three groups to explore the relationship between the frequent runaway behavior and criminal behavior of teenagers. The findings of this study are as follows: 1. There are four risky factors for teenagers who frequently run away out of home and commit crimes, including low self-control behavior, negative social learning behavior, lack of supervision, and distortion of the purpose of judicial protection, which could be further divided into nineteen risky factors in details. 2. As for the teenagers frequently run away from home and commit a crime, the crime way is: teenagers initiate low self-control behavior due to relevant risky factor during frequent runaway, and then experience more negative social learning due to relevant risky factor, meanwhile, those teenagers commit crimes due to lack of self-control, and finally cause the reoccurrence of criminal behavior due to distortion of the purpose of juridical protection. 3. As for the teenagers not run away out of home but commit crimes, there are three risky factors, including low self-control behavior, deviated cognition and distortion of the purpose of judicial protection, which could be further divided into fifteen risky factors in details. 4. The protective factors of teenagers who frequently run away out of home without committing a crime can be divided into three kinds, including belief in never falling into crime, no worry about the material life during runaway and less deviated peer, which could be further divided into seven protective factors in details. 5. This study finds out that the significant difference between the experiences of committing crimes by teenagers who frequently run away out of home and who never run away out of home is the risky factor of “lack of self-control” lying in the teenagers who frequently run away out of home. In addition, as for the behaviors of committing crimes by teenagers who frequently run away out of home and who never run away out of home, there are two different risky factors for these two groups of teenagers during the process of negative social learning. This study suggests adding juvenile social labors in policy, strengthening the cooperation mechanism of all systems, and relevant laws shall stress on the disposal of the behavior of committing crimes by teenagers, the society and the government shall actively develop family supporting service, the education system shall strengthen school’s positive influence on teenagers and the sequential guidance strategy from the senior grade of primary school throughout junior high school as well as enhance the professional level of intervention into teenagers’ affairs by police and government and teenagers court.