Criminal Social Identity in a Sample of Incarcerated Juvenile Offenders in Pakistan

Due to the absence of a reliable and valid measure of criminal social identity to be used with juvenile offenders in Pakistan, the focus of the first empirical chapter was to translate the self-report Measure of Criminal Social Identity (MCSI) into Urdu with the aim of testing the construct validity, dimensionality, incremental validity, and composite reliability of the measure in a sample of juvenile delinquents incarcerated in Pakistan (N = 415). Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the best fitting model was a three-factor model (cognitive centrality, in-group affect, and in-group ties). The Urdu version of MCSI was then used in the subsequent chapters to examine criminal social identity as a risk factor for delinquency and a protector factor for suicide thinking. The second empirical chapter investigated the number and nature of latent classes of juvenile delinquency and their relationship with the criminal social identity by using latent class analysis and regression analysis. Results indicated a three class solution: ‘minor delinquents’ ‘moderate delinquents’ and ‘major delinquents’. Juvenile offenders who reported having an increased number of criminal friends were more likely to belong to the ‘major delinquency class’ whilst those reporting higher in-group ties and lower in-group affect were more likely to belong to the ‘moderate delinquency’ class compared to ‘minor delinquency class’. Previous empirical research has focused only on how criminal social identity predicts and helps us to understand criminal behaviour. The aim of the third empirical chapter was to investigate criminal social identity (CS) as protective factor against suicide ideation. Therefore, a structural model was estimated to investigate the relationship between the three factors of CSI and suicide ideation, while controlling for age, offender type, period of confinement, and drug addiction. Results indicated that of the variables included in the model, the only significant (negative) predictor of suicide ideation was in-group ties. Thus, in-group ties may act as a protective factor against the development of suicide ideation in incarcerated offender.