268 International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology

Abstract: An index based on Hirschi’s theory designed to measure social control in kibbutz society was applied to a random sample of 440 high school students in the kibbutzim of North-ern Israel. The delinquency variable was measured by self-report on the frequency of two ille-gal behaviors condemned by adult kibbutz society but not excessively stigmatized by the youth: driving without a license and stealing from the kibbutz mini-market. Victimization was mea-sured by self-report on incidents during the past year involving person or property. Seventy percent of the participants in the study reported having committed at least one offense. Approximately 80 % reported at least one victimization. At the bivariate level, the social con-trol index generated weak but statistically significant negative correlations with both delin-quency and victimization. The kibbutz is one of the proudest accomplishments of Israeli society. For some six decades after the first kibbutz was founded at Degania in 1909, these collective settlements, although they rarely encompassed more than about 5 % of the Israeli population, symbolized the pioneering spirit of the young Jewish state. The men and women of the kibbutz toiled long and hard to build and maintain their idealis-tic way of life, engaging in a wide range of physical labors and governing them-selves with a unique system of members ’ committees and rotating executive assignments. The dominant branch of the kibbutz economy was agriculture and the workers were the members of the collective, although some kibbutzim even in the 1950s had developed industrial enterprises and many were employing limited numbers of salaried workers from the nearby towns in agriculture, industry, and services. The kibbutz raised and educated its children in the collective spirit and children lived with their peers in the children’s houses until age 18 or 19 when they joined the army and were usually granted independent housing units. The kibbut-zim, in most cases, maintained their own educational institutions with schools belonging jointly to several kibbutzim in the same area. During this period, wit