International Self-Report Delinquency Study

International Self-Report Delinquency Study (ISRD) is an international collaborative study, which repeatedly (ISRD1, ISRD2, ISRD3 and now ISRD4) collects data on juvenile delinquency and victimization from comparable (but not identical) samples. The project was pioneered by Dutch criminologist Josine Junger-Tas in 1991-1992. Finland has been part of ISRD-projects since the first study sweep, and studies have been held in Helsinki and Turku. Thus, the studies have provided unique information about young people’s security and juvenile delinquency, in Helsinki and Turku since the 1990s. ISRD uses a standardized self-report survey. Self-report surveys are used in criminological studies, because only a limited amount of crime is reported to the police.

The fourth study sweep is collected in the spring semester of 2022, from school children aged 13-17. The sweep-specific focus in ISRD4 is online offending and victimization, perceptions of violence, and minority groups and identity. The principal investigator of the Finnish study sweep is postdoctoral researcher Markus Kaakinen.

Additionally, Markus Kaakinen is a principal investigator in two other research projects utilizing the ISRD4 data. First, Street Gang Involvement Among Nordic Youth: A Comparative Study on Prevalence and Risk Factors in Nordic Countries project analyzes gang involvement and pro-criminal attitudes among adolescents, in the Nordic countries (Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden). In addition, the project examines how gang involvement and attitudes towards crime relate to residential segregation and social marginalization at the individual and community levels. The second research project based on the ISRD4 data is Cybercriminal Careers: Comparative and longitudinal perspectives on youth cybercrime offending which studies the criminal careers of young cybercrime offenders. Particularly, the study analyzes the prevalence of cybercrime offending in adolescence and young adulthood, youth specialization in certain types of cybercrimes, the factors that are related to the onset and continuation of cyber offending in youth, and the factors that promote the desistance of cybercrimes among the youth. Notably, this project will concentrate on the role of online cybercrime communities in cybercriminal careers. The project studies four different types of cybercrime among young people: hacking, cyber fraud, online hate speech, and image-based sexual abuse. Markus Kaakinen is the principal investigator of both additional projects.

The steering committee of the ISRD4 project:

Ineke Haen Marshall,
Professor of Sociology and Criminology and Criminal Justice
Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA

Christopher Birkbeck,
Professor of Criminology / School of Health and Society
University of Salford, Manchester, Great Britain

Dirk Enzmann,
Prof. Dr. phil.
University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

Janne Kivivuori,
Professor of Criminology
Institute of Criminology and Legal Policy, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

Anna Markina,
Research Fellow of Criminology
University of Tartu, Institute of Public Law, Tallinn Office, Tallinn, Estonia

Majone Steketee,
Prof. dr. Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences
Verwey-Jonker Institute, Utrecht, the Netherlands and Erasmus University, Rotterdam, the Netherlands