Comportamenti criminosi e fattori di rischio: un’applicazione del modello del triplo rischio delittuoso in un campione di studenti in Italia

This paper focuses on youth deviance and delinquency insofar as it tries to understand some key components of juvenile criminal risk. To this end, the IRIS-J inventory (Individual and Social Risk Factors Inventory for Youth) was used with a sample of high school students from two Italian contexts: the Nuorese (in the central area of Sardinia) and two cities of Emilia Romagna (Forlì and Casalecchio di Reno). This instrument allows to assess criminal behavior from the perspective of the Triple Risk Model for Crime, which considers three sources of criminogenic factors: personal risk factors, lack of prosocial support, and the exposure of individuals to criminal opportunities. The results show that the assessed students generally carry out mild antisocial behaviors, such as illegally downloading music and movies or using public transport without paying the ticket. Only a small percentage of respondents are incline to committing serious or violent crimes (such as selling drugs, injuries and assaults or robberies). Concerning risk factors, some personality traits (e.g. impulsivity), social factors (e.g. school dissatisfaction) and exposure of adolescents to criminal opportunities appear as influential elements for deviant behavior. Statistical significant differences in antisocial behavior were not in general observed (with the exception of thefts) between young people from the two areas where the research was carried out.