Developmental Sequences in Delinquency: Dynamic Typologies (From Pathways Through Adolescence: Individual Development in Relation to Social Contexts, P 15-34, 1995, Lisa J Crockett and Ann C Crouter, eds.)

• NCJ Number: 163205
• Author(s): D Huizinga
• Date Published: 1995
• Length: 20 pages
• Grant Number(s): 94-JN-CX-0001; 94-JN-CX-0002
• Sponsoring Agency: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP)
• Sale Source: Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study used a typological approach to provide some preliminary examination of developmental sequences in delinquent behavior over the child-to-adolescent years.

Abstract

The focus was on the through-time movement of individuals through various types or combinations of delinquent behavior, rather than on the through-time changes or relationship of particular variables. In this sense, a pathway represented a particular sequence of behaviors traversed by some group of individuals that was different from the sequences of behavior followed by others. The data used came from the Denver Youth Survey, an ongoing longitudinal study of the development of prosocial or conventional behavior as well as of the development of delinquency, drug use, and other problem behavior. The overall design of the study was based on an accelerated longitudinal survey. As part of the annual surveys, child and youth respondents were asked how many times in the past year they engaged in each of a variety of delinquent acts. The delinquency measures used in this study were based on a subset of these items. The included items were grouped into overt-aggressive behavior, covert-theft behaviors, and status-disorder behaviors. Transition matrixes for the age-to-age transitions were constructed, and they are presented in this report for males and females. For both boys and girls, even allowing 2-year periods for type identification, the delinquency typology was unstable at any age. In general, one half or less of each type maintained the same delinquency classification in the next time period. Also, although there were more frequent longitudinal type-to-type transitions, generally, the data do not suggest an invariant pattern of developmental stages of types of delinquent behavior that was applicable to a majority of youth. In general, there was apparently a consistent ordering of the stability of the more serious delinquency types across ages. 6 tables, 29 references, and appended description of explanatory measures used