Causal Perception, Prediction, and Punitive Attitude toward Juvenile Delinquency: Sample from Taichung Citizens

青少年犯罪原因認知、預測、嚴懲化態度之關係：以台灣一般市民爲樣本

戴伸峰(Shen-Feng Tai)

《犯罪學期刊》 10卷2期 (2007/12) Pp. 49-64

https://doi.org/10.29607/ZHWHGX.200712.0003

摘要

本研究以實證的方式探討台灣一般市民對青少年犯罪原因認知、預測以及嚴懲化態度之關係。Hawkins(1981)指出，當受測者認爲非行的原因是來自於青少年本身時，則傾向於認爲青少年本人應該負擔非行行爲較大的責任，非行少年應該爲其行爲付出較大較重的代價，因此而支持嚴懲化對策。反之，如果受測者認爲非行行爲是因爲環境隨機因素的影響，則他們傾向於認爲青少年不需要爲其非行行爲負擔責任，因此而減弱了其對嚴懲化對策的支持。另一方面，Sprott and Doob(1997)則認爲對少年犯罪的惡化預測會造成受測者的不安，擔心自己也會變成少年犯罪的被害，因此他們傾向於支持較爲嚴格的少年法體系以保障自己的人身安全。
雖然近年來台灣地區少年兒童犯罪人數逐年降低，但是由於少年犯罪再犯率偏高，加上與少年非行有關新聞的大量曝光，少年犯罪一直被認爲是一個嚴重的社會問題，超過七成的受訪者支持以更爲嚴格的法律規定來處罰非行青少年（內政部, 2002）。本研究以台灣台中市20歲以上成年人345名爲對象，以自編量表（少年非行原因量表、少年非行預測量表、嚴懲化少年對策支持量表）爲工具進行研究。樣本來源爲民國88年台中市市長選舉選舉人名冊，以隔頁選取頁首第一人的方式抽取男女各半共1000名樣本，以郵寄回郵方式回收345份（回收率34.5%）。結果顯示：少年非行的人格原因認知直接增強對嚴懲化對策的支持度。環境原因認知則透過對非行情形惡化的預測，間接增強對嚴懲化對策的支持度。本研究提出以下解釋：人格原因認知主要會引起受測者對非行行爲的責任判斷，也就是說，人格原因認知會促使受測者判斷非行少年應該負擔較大的行爲責任，因此增強了嚴懲化的態度並支持嚴懲化的對策；相反的，環境要因認知則會減弱這樣的責任歸屬，而減弱受測者的嚴懲化態度。但是環境要因認知還有另一個功能，當受測者將少年非行的原因歸因到環境因素時，受測者會擔心原先存在於環境中對非行行爲的抑制機能下降，家庭、學校、居住地區甚至是大社會環境無法在少年違常行爲發生的初期階段就給予少年適當的規勸、監督以及指導，因此受測者擔心少年非行會因此而更加惡化，爲了防範少年非行惡化，受測者傾向於支持嚴格的法體系或是非行對策，以確保少年非行能夠獲得有效掌控。

關鍵字

少年犯罪 ； 原因認知 ； 少年犯罪預測 ； 嚴懲化態度

並列摘要

The present study examined Taiwanese people's attitudes toward punitive policies against juvenile delinquency. The factor analysis found 3 factors of the attitudes, and among them, the Taiwanese participants showed strong support to strict restriction of the juvenile's behavior, and minimal support to application of juveniles to the adult law system. We suggested that Taiwanese people still expect the corrective functions of the protection and rehabilitation policies more than punish juvenile delinquents. Regarding to the relationships between peoples' causal perception, prediction, and punitive attitude toward juvenile delinquency, we found that the dispositional attribution directly increases peoples' punitive attitudes, as we hypothesized. We suggested that participants who have dispositional attributions of delinquency tended to perceive it as being caused by actors' stable traits, which are difficult to correct, and they tended to see delinquency as more blameworthy because the actors commit it by their free will. Further, as we hypothesized, the environmental attributions indirectly increased peoples' punitive attitude by way of the prediction of juvenile delinquency, that is, the effect of school and community attributions was mediated by the local prediction and that of society attribution by increasing of the state prediction. We interpreted that those who attended to school and community causes worried about that these dysfunctions of proximal environment of controlling delinquency will increase the local delinquency. Besides, people also worried about that the negative climates of society make social bond weak and the alienated human relationships disturb the social supervision function of delinquency controlling, so that juvenile delinquency will widely increase in the state. In other words, the present results suggest that the participants judged that punitive policies are necessary to reduce delinquency because it is increased by the impairment of control functions of social environments.

並列關鍵字

juvenile delinquency ； causal attribution ； prediction ； punitive attitude