The Severity of Official Punishment for Delinquency and Change in Interpersonal Relations in Chinese Society

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Abstract
This study examines the effects of severity of official punishment for delinquency on the probability of estrangement from four types of significant others—parents, relatives, friends, and neighbors—for a sample of youths in Tianjin, China. Drawing on the labeling perspective, we hypothesize that more severe punishments tend to increase the likelihood that youths experience interpersonal estrangement. We further hypothesize that the strength of the effects of punishment severity on estrangement will vary across types of interpersonal relations. Given the preeminent role of the family in Chinese society, the effect of severity of punishment is expected to be weakest for estrangement from parents and strongest for estrangement from neighbors. The results are generally consistent with expectations, revealing nonsignificant effects of severity of official punishment for delinquency on estrangement from parents and relatives and significant effects only for estrangement from friends and neighbors. In addition, the observed patterns of estrangement in China differ in certain respects from those previously reported in the United States, which suggests that the consequences of labeling for juvenile delinquency are conditioned by the larger sociocultural context.