BOOK OF ABSTRACTS

12th Annual Conference of the European Society of Criminology BOOK OF ABSTRACT
choices made during the whole process will have affected its direction. The neutral tone erases
the interpretive acts that produced the facts and eradicates ambiguities in both the studied scenes
and their analytic treatment (Charmaz, 2006).
From a social constructionist view the story of the policy-supporting researcher is not just to
construct a narrative, a story with a beginning, middle, and an end designed to tell what happened
and what it means. He also actively translates this into an argument, the form employed to
persuade an audience that something ‘ought’ to be (cf. Fischer, 2003, p. 181). We are convinced
that a carefully crafted argument is more valuable than a vague conclusion. But at the same time,
as we have argued that knowledge is forged through consensus, and is as such, never complete
(Fischer, 2003, p. 124) or able to conclude (that is, to close an argument). Instead of speaking ‘truth
to power’ by revealing law-like regularities based on causal explanations, our approach is aimed
at ‘making sense together’ (Hoppe, 1999). Policymakers are not blank pages to be filled with
research findings. Based on our understanding of the policy process, we recognize that we are
merely a part of a myriad of other stories.
The insight that our policy supporting research is only a small part of the claims making process
is actually rather liberating. Pleasing or satisfying the sponsor becomes of lesser importance as
a dozen of other actors will also affect the shape of the eventual policy (Weiss, 1982). It urges the
researcher to take responsibility and take into account the possible consequences of his or her
endeavour.
That’s why policy argumented recommendations do not exclude an open-ended discussion.
yOuNG MOThERS WITh “BAd” KIdS. ThE
RELATIONShIp BETWEEN yOuNG pARENThOOd ANd
OFFSpRING dELINquENCy
JORIS BEIJERS
phOOLAN dEvI INSTITuTE / vu uNIvERSITy AMSTERdAM, AMSTERdAM,
NEThERLANdS
CATRIEN BIJLEvELd
vu uNIvERSITy AMSTERdAM, AMSTERdAM, NEThERLANdS
TERENCE ThORNBERRy
uNIvERSITy OF MARyLANd, Md, uSA
International studies, mainly conducted in Anglo-Saxon countries, show that children of teenage
mothers are at elevated risk for offending. This Dutch study investigates the effect of early
parenthood of mothers and fathers on offspring delinquency. The results confirm results from
earlier studies elsewhere and show that early fatherhood does not add to offending risk over and
above early motherhood. Factors like family instability, family size and parental delinquency do
not account for the association between early motherhood and delinquency. The elevated risk of
offending applies to all children of young mothers, not just to the first-born children.
324 CRIMINOLOGICAL ThEORy, RESEARCh ANd EduCATION