Building a Culture of Lawfulness: Law Enforcement, Legal Reasoning, And Deliquency Among Mexican Youth (Criminal Justice: Recent Scholarship)

Grant examines the legal socialization of youths by conceptualizing legal reasoning (how youths reason about the importance of rules and laws) as a resiliency variable that can mediate the negative influences of risk factors drawn from the criminological literature on self-reported delinquency. Grant’s study also examines the effects of legal culture on socialization through youth perceptions of the legitimacy of law enforcement. The sample of over 10,000 Mexican youths participating in a state-wide program designed to positively influence perceptions related to rules and laws is unprecedented in the legal socialization literature.