Understanding adolescent offending: The Intentions to Transgress (ITT) model

The purpose of the research reported in this chapter is to provide a theoretically based model to inform educational interventions that aim to divert young people from criminal pathways. This chapter outlines the cross-disciplinary approach used to develop the Intention to Transgress (ITT) model, which draws from leading theories in the disciplines of social psychology and criminology. The framework of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB, Ajzen & Fishbein, 2005) was used together with the motivators of crime identified from dominant criminological theories by Agnew (1995) to determine the antecedents of adolescents' intentions to engage in offending or transgressional behaviour. The ITT model, comprising four proximal antecedents of attitudes, subjective norms, perceived control, and negative affect, and two distal factors of moral norms and reputation enhancement, adds to the understanding of adolescent offending, although it remains to be empirically tested.