The Japanese Journal of Criminal Psychology

This study explored the life perceptions of juvenile shoplifters and their consciousness at the moment of the crime.

Twenty-four questions about life perceptions and 21 questions about consciousness while committing crimes selected from among previous studies were administered to 255 juvenile shoplifters, who were arrested by the police.

Through the statistical analysis, four subcategories were found from the two question groups respectively; ‘devience directed’, ‘possession-idea confusion’, ‘lack of distinction’ and ‘sticking with friends’ regarding the life perception, and ‘excuse’, ‘punishment prediction’, ‘emotional emission’ and ‘short-circuit thinking’ regarding the consciousness while committing crimes.

As for the subcategories; i)there is almost no age difference, ii)boys’ scores are higher than girls’ in ‘devience directed’ and ‘short-circuit thinking’, iii) the repeater show higher scores in ‘devience directed’ and ‘lack of distinction’, while lower score in ‘punishment prediction’ than the first offender, iv)there is correlation between ‘devience directed’ and all other subcategories. This suggests that there is a strong relation between the conciousness and shoplifting. Especially high correlation between ‘devience directed’ and ‘emotional emission’ among boys, on the other hand, high correlation between ‘devience directed’ and ‘lack of distinction’ as well as ‘sticking with friends’ among girls, are found. The results suggest a gender difference of conciousness leading to shoplifting.

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