The etiological aspects of a structural dynamic model of delinquent development are analysed with the first five waves (age 13 to 17) of the German prospective panel study Crime in the Modern City, carried out since 2002 in Duisburg. By applying a combined Markov and growth curve model, the developments of structural explanatory factors and self-reported violent delinquency and their reciprocal as well as direct and indirect relations could be examined within one statistical model. Social macro-structure was considered within the notion of a wider social milieu, with social value orientations as the subjective component. The longitudinal analysis confirmed the conceptual distinction between distal and proximate structural factors: distal hedonistic value orientations marked the strongest pathway to violent delinquency via proximate pro-violent peer attachment and pro-violent norms. Although school bonds and parental education style were not of greater importance here, they nevertheless mediated a pathway into conformity with traditional value orientations as the structural background. A latent class growth analysis reproduced a by-now common pattern of six delinquency trajectories.

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This article provides an overview of the situation of crime, crime control and criminology in Germany. Official crime data, victimization studies and self-reported delinquency studies consistently indicate that crime rates have been rather low in recent years, and that the amount of crime has decreased in recent years with respect to violent as well as most non-violent offences. In contrast, increasing right-wing extremist violence and Islamist terrorism are a cause for concern. After a long decline, fear of crime has recently started to increase again for certain offences such as burglary. An increase in punitive attitudes or punishment styles cannot generally be observed, and the prison rate is comparatively low. The situation of criminology in Germany is ambivalent: on the one hand, promising research is being conducted; on the other hand, the implementation of criminology within universities has been cut back.