Marketized Mentality, Street Codes and Violence.

The article examines the recent individual level extensions to Institutional Anomie Theory. It explores if a marketized mentality is important to the development of a violent street code that encourages violence as a method of self-enhancement, as well as a factor directly leading to violence. Further, it investigates if the impact of the marketized mentality on violence is moderated by risk-taking and violent peers. It controls for other important factors associated with violence including physical abuse, homelessness, violent victimization, and social bonds. The research utilizes self-report data from interviews with 400 Canadian homeless youth aged 16-24. Results from the OLS regressions indicated that a marketized mentality, along with risk-taking, violent peers, violent victimization, and social bonds predicted levels of support for the street code. The marketized mentality had a direct effect on violence, as well as an indirect effect through the street code. The effect of marketized mentality on violence was also stronger at higher levels of risk-taking and violent peer association. Physical abuse, violent victimization, risk-taking, and violent peers also had direct effects on violence. The findings suggest that a marketized mentality can be adopted even in economically marginal populations leading to the development of violent strategies to fulfill goals. Avenues for future research are offered.

Factor structure and reliability of the childhood trauma questionnaire and prevalence estimates of trauma for male and female street youth.

This study examines the psychometric properties of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire short form (CTQ-SF) with street youth who have run away or been expelled from their homes (N = 397). Internal reliability coefficients for the five clinical scales ranged from .65 to .95. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was used to test the five-factor structure of the scales yielding acceptable fit for the total sample. Additional multigroup analyses were performed to consider items by gender. Results provided only evidence of weak factorial invariance. Constrained models showed invariance in configuration, factor loadings, and factor covariances but failed for equality of intercepts. Mean trauma scores for street youth tended to fall in the moderate to severe range on all abuse/neglect clinical scales. Females reported higher levels of abuse and neglect. Prevalence of child maltreatment of individual forms was very high with 98% of street youth reporting one or more forms; 27.4% of males and 48.9% of females reported all five forms. Results of this study support the viability of the CTQ-SF for screening maltreatment in a highly vulnerable street population. Caution is recommended when comparing prevalence estimates for male and female street youth given the failure of the strong factorial multigroup model.