Childhood Predictors of Desistance and Level of Persistence in Offending in Early Onset Offenders

• Published in: Journal of abnormal child psychology Vol. 37; no. 7; pp. 967 - 980
• Main Authors: van Domburgh, L., Loeber, R., Bezemer, D., Stallings, R., Stouthamer-Loeber, M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Boston Springer US 01.10.2009; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adolescents; Adult and adolescent clinical studies; At risk youth; Behavior Problems; Behavioral Science and Psychology; Biological and medical sciences; Careers; Child; Child and School Psychology; Child Behavior; Child clinical studies; Childhood; Children; Crime; Delinquency; Developmental Psychology; Early Adolescents; Early onset; Family; Family Involvement; Family Structure; Group Membership; Heterogeneity; Humans; Hyperactivity; Individual Characteristics; Juvenile delinquency; Juvenile Delinquency - psychology; Juvenile offenders; Late Adolescents; Learning Theories; Male; Males; Medical sciences; Neurosciences; Offenders; Parenting Styles; Peer Relationship; Persistence; Personality Inventory; Predictor Variables; Psychiatry; Psychology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Public Health; Resistance (Psychology); Risk; Risk factors; Self Control; Social Behavior; Social behavior disorders; Social behavior disorders. Criminal behavior. Delinquency; Social Control; Social Environment; Socialization; Desistance; Childhood onset delinquency; Childhood onset offending; Adolescent persistence; Early desistance; Seriousness of persistence; Early onset delinquency; Human; Peer relation; Delinquency; Infantile experience; Age of onset; Social interaction; Early resistance; Adolescent; Family environment; Early; Familial relation; Predictive factor; Social behavior disorder; Child
• ISSN: 0091-0627; 2730-7166; 1573-2835; 2730-7174
• DOI: 10.1007/s10802-009-9329-x

Childhood predictors of adolescent offending careers were studied in 310 boys from the longitudinal Pittsburgh Youth Study who started offending prior to age 12. Three main groups were distinguished: serious persisters ( n  = 95), moderately serious persisters ( n  = 117), desisters ( n  = 63), and an intermittent group ( n  = 35). Group membership was predicted using risk and promotive factors measured in childhood. Serious and moderately serious persisters could be distinguished well from desisters (29.2% and 32.3% explained variance). Distinction between the two persister groups proved somewhat more difficult (20.9% explained variance). More serious persisters than desisters showed disruptive behavior, while moderately serious persisters fell in between. Further, more moderately serious persisters were marked by social disadvantage. Family involvement, small family and positive peer relationships were promotive of desistance. Concluding, early onset offenders show considerable heterogeneity in their adolescent offending careers which seem to some extent to be predicted by different sets of risk and promotive factors.