Purpose: Developmental theory suggests that antisocial behavior is likely to peak during the adolescent period or that there exist consistent patterns of antisocial behavior throughout the life span in some individuals. From an ecological perspective, environmental contexts play a key role in determining the trajectory of antisocial behavior. Whereas typical developmental trajectories of antisocial behavior have been scrutinized in relation to environmental factors, relatively little attention has been paid to the heterogeneity of antisocial behavior during a specific life span. The purpose of this study was to examine factors affecting different pathways of antisocial behavior and the outcome among predominantly African American adolescents in poor communities.

Methods: Data were collected from 354 adolescents (ages 12 to 15) over the course of four years in an ongoing longitudinal study designed to identify the life-course trajectories of behaviors and associated developmental outcomes in inner-city youth. An aggregate antisocial behavior score was measured by the following items: physical fighting, carrying/using a deadly weapon, attacking someone, and gang engagement. Growth mixture modeling (GMM) with Mplus 2.13 was used to examine the predictors and outcomes of different pathways in antisocial behavior.

Results: The simplest form of GMM classified the sample into three distinct classes based on different trajectory patterns (high starters; incremental; and steady). We generalized the model by including important predictors such as family rules, risky behaviors, and hopelessness, and an outcome (school suspension). This inclusion provided a better model fit (loglikelihood = -2012.20, AIC = 4108.40, Adjusted BIC = 4135.24, Entropy = 0.88) than the baseline model. The model also allowed more informative class-specific interpretation. For example, hopelessness was an important predictor of the class whose antisocial behavior frequency started low but increased later, while it did not influence the membership of other classes.

Implications for Practice: Findings from this study suggest that there are distinct pathways of antisocial behavior among youth in poor communities and that family and individual risk factors are differentially associated with the membership of a class. Those youth who are at the greatest risk (showing incremental antisocial behavior overtime) would demand a different level of intervention from those whose behavior problems tend to be steady. However, the steady group also consists of adolescents who have more risk factors than the general peer group, and care should be taken to attend to their specific needs.