Identifying Direct Protective Factors for Nonviolence

• NCJ Number: 244502
• Journal: American Journal of Preventive Medicine Volume: 43 Issue: 2, Supplement 1 Dated: August 2012 Pages: S28-S40
• Author(s): Dustin A. Pardini, Ph.D.; Rolf Loeber, Ph.D.; David P. Farrington, Ph.D.; Magda Stouthamer-Loeber, Ph.D.
• Date Published: August 2012
• Length: 13 pages
• Grant Number(s): DA411018; MH 48890; MH 50778; 96-MU-FX-0012; SAP 4100043365
• Sponsoring Agency: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP); National Institute on Drug Abuse; National Institute of Mental Health; Ctr's for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); Pennsylvania Dept of Health
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This paper describes the results of a study aimed at identifying direct protective factors for nonviolence.

Abstract

This paper describes the results of the Pittsburgh Youth Study (PYS) aimed at identifying direct protective factors for nonviolence in youth. Analysis of the study's results found that depressed mood and low religious observance were risk factors for violence for youth aged 13-14 years, while peer delinquency was both a risk factor and a direct protective factor for youth aged 13-14 years. For youth aged 15-18 years, low peer delinquency was found to be a direct protective factor for violence while low perceived likelihood of being caught and high neighborhood disorder/crime were both found to be risk factors for violence. The primary purpose of this study was to identify direct protective factors for nonviolence and risk factors for violence within the PYS dataset and to compare these findings with those from three other longitudinal datasets: the Seattle Social Development Project, the Chicago Youth Development Study, and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Data for the study were obtained from the youngest cohort of boys from the PYS. In this longitudinal study, all potential risk and direct protective factors were assessed when the youth were 12 years of age; later violence was assessed at ages 13-14 and 15-18 to determine whether certain risk and direct protective factors predicted proximal and/or distal violence. The predictors measured in the study fell into five categories: individual predictors, family predictors, school predictors, neighborhood predictors, and peer predictors. Analyses of the study's results indicate that direct protective factors are distinct from risk factors and that these protective factors can reduce the probability of future violence even after controlling for the influence of risk factors. Study limitations are discussed. Tables and references