Differentiating Delinquency and the Relationship with Adult Arrest

Background/Purpose: Delinquency, in current political rhetoric, may refer to anything from participating in criminal offenses to maintaining a socially stigmatized identity. Because the continuum of delinquency ranges from statutory offenses derived from social persecution to actual criminal offenses that harm others, the categorization of delinquent youth does not necessarily relate to behavior that harms self, others or the community. As such, better methods of identifying types of juvenile delinquency related to adult criminal offenses are necessary for social work practice. Identifying behavioral characteristics that more accurately describe subtypes of delinquency would inform early interventions, which could lead to reduced adult criminal behavior that harms self, others or the community. We hypothesize that delinquency has patterned behavioral characteristics that can be separated into unique classes, where each class has different probabilities of adult participation in criminal offenses.

Methods: Latent class analyses (LCA) and logistic regression were used to conduct analyses of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 97, which resulted in an analytic sample of n = 8905 after assessing for missing data. Juvenile delinquency was measured using twelve indicators of juvenile delinquency, while adult arrest was developed from subsequent interviews where the participant indicated an arrest between the ages of 18-23. After identifying classes of delinquency from the LCA, logistic regression was used to assess the relationship between delinquency classes and adult arrest.

Results: Results of the LCA indicated five distinct classes of juvenile delinquency: Class 1 - little to no probability of participating in juvenile delinquency; Class 2 - statutory offenses (i.e., behaviors that are only delinquent because the youth is under a designated age); Class 3 -property offenses (i.e., behaviors such as theft or damaging property); Class 4 - statutory and property delinquency (i.e., behaviors that combine characteristics of Class 1 and Class 2); and Class 5 – participation in all types of delinquent behavior, particularly in behaviors that harm self, others or the community.

Logistic regression results indicated that compared to the non-deviant group, all four of the other delinquent classes had higher odds of adult arrest. Class 5 had the greatest odds of adult arrest (OR = 9.37; 95% CI: 7.09,12.34) followed by Class 4 (OR = 4.40; 95% CI: 3.72-5.21). Class 2 (OR = 2.28; 95% CI: 1.94, 2.68) and Class 3 (OR = 2.65; 95% CI: 2.28-3.08) had similar odds of adult arrest as compared to Class 1.

Conclusions/Implications: This study extends knowledge about the relationship between delinquent behavior and adult arrest by suggesting that adult arrest is correlated to specific types of delinquent behaviors. By examining the varied subtypes of delinquency and assessing client delinquency participation, social workers can develop a more effective treatment plans to prevent more serious participation in delinquent behavior. Implications for future research, intervention and policy are discussed.