Youth delinquency in America: A growth curve analysis

Youth delinquency in America: A growth curve analysis

Why do some youngsters commit delinquent behaviors while others do not? To answer this research question, there has been a tsunami of academic studies on the risk factors that may have an effect on juvenile delinquency. Most of the studies, however, used a snap-shot approach, making it difficult to clarify the temporal order between variables. As such, the current study filled the gap in the literature by employing a growth curve model to look into the longitudinal link between each of predictor variables (anxiety, age, gender, and race) and delinquency. The longitudinal design targeted around 2,000 youngsters surveyed from 2006 to 2010 in the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (C-NLSY). We found that the gender was associated with the intercept factor of the delinquency trajectory among the American juveniles. What was more, the race was related to both intercept and slope factors. Study limitations for the present study, implications for criminological theories, and recommendations for future research were discussed.