Publications

Risk and Protective Factors of Child Delinquency

This Child Delinquency Series Bulletin (NCJ 193409) focuses on four types of risk and protective factors: individual, family, peer, and school and community. It is derived from the chapters devoted to these critical areas for prevention and intervention in OJJDP's Study Group on Very Young Offenders' final report, Child Delinquents: Development, Intervention, and Service Needs.

The Study Group stresses that the focus on risk factors that appear at a young age is the key to preventing child delinquency and its escalation into chronic criminality. With early intervention, young children will be less likely to succumb to the accumulating risks that arise later in childhood and adolescence and less likely to incur the negative social and personal consequences of several years of disruptive and delinquent behaviors.

In addition to focusing on risk factors, it is equally important to examine protective factors that reduce the risk of delinquency in order to identify interventions that are likely to work. The proportion of protective factors to risk factors has a significant influence on child delinquency, and protective factors may offset the influence of children's exposure to multiple risk factors.

Co-occurrence of Delinquency and Other Problem Behaviors

Using data from the first 3 years of OJJDP's Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency, this Youth Development Series Bulletin (NCJ 182211) examines the co-occurrence of serious delinquency with specific areas, namely, school behavior, drug use, mental health, and combinations of these areas. Preliminary findings show that a large proportion of serious delinquents are not involved in persistent drug use, nor do they have persistent school or mental health problems; the problem that cooccurs most frequently with serious delinquency is drug use; and, as the number of problem behaviors other than delinquency increases for males, so does the likelihood that they will become serious delinquents.

Many youth are only intermittently involved in serious delinquency, violence, or gang membership, and involvement often lasts only a single year during adolescence. Of greater concern are youth whose involvement in delinquency is more sustained and, therefore, considered more problematic and serious. Accordingly, the study reported on in this Bulletin focuses on persistent, serious delinquency and persistent school and mental health problems lasting 2 years or more.

Juvenile Delinquency and Serious Injury Victimization

To explore the interrelationship between delinquency and victimization, this Youth Development Series Bulletin (NCJ 188676) draws on data from two of the longitudinal studies in OJJDP's Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency—the Denver Youth Survey and the Pittsburgh Youth Study. It focuses on victims of violence who sustained serious injuries as a result of the victimization.

The longitudinal, multisite approach used by these studies makes it possible to answer the following questions concerning victimization involving serious injury: (1) What is the prevalence of victimization involving serious injury in the general juvenile population? (2) What are the proximal and distal factors associated with becoming a victim who sustains a serious injury? (3) Which risk factors or combinations of risk factors best predict victimization involving serious injury?

The studies found that many victims were prone to engage in illegal activities, associate with delinquent peers, victimize other delinquents, and avoid legal recourse in resolving conflicts. A clearer understanding of the patterns and predictors of victimization offers the potential for increased effectiveness in designing and implementing strategies to reduce both victimization and offending.

Child Delinquency: Early Intervention and Prevention

This Bulletin (NCJ 186162), the first in OJJDP's Child Delinquency Series, summarizes the final report of the Study Group on Very Young Offenders, Child Delinquents: Development, Intervention, and Service Needs. The report draws on hundreds of studies to describe the developmental course of child delinquency and delineate key risk and protective factors. It also identifies effective and promising prevention and intervention programs that help reduce the incidence of delinquency while offering significant cost savings to society.

The Study Group concluded that interventions that focus on preventing child delinquency probably have the greatest impact on crime. These efforts should be directed first at preventing persistent disruptive behavior in children in general; second, at preventing child delinquency, particularly among disruptive children; and third, at preventing serious and violent juvenile offending, particularly among child delinquents.

The information presented in this Bulletin will benefit future studies and interventions that attempt to prevent offending among the very young and to change the behavior of those children who are already involved in offending.

Teenage Fatherhood and Delinquent Behavior

This Bulletin (NCJ 178899) presents findings from the Rochester Youth Development Study and the Pittsburgh Youth Study on risk factors for teenage paternity, specifically, the role of delinquency in early fatherhood. Although previous research has found associations between teenage fatherhood and delinquency, these studies provide a clearer assessment of the significant risk factors for teen fatherhood. These risk factors come from a wide range of domains, including race, community characteristics, family structure, parental stress, school, early sexual activity, peers, individual characteristics, and deviant behaviors.

Both studies concluded that early delinquency is a significant risk factor for becoming a teen father. In addition, the Rochester study reported that the possibility of teen paternity rises dramatically as risk factors accumulate, and the Pittsburgh study found that teen fatherhood may be followed by greater involvement in delinquency. The consistency of agreement between the Pittsburgh and Rochester studies reinforces the conclusion that, although there is no single explanation or decisive risk factor for teen fatherhood, early delinquency is one of the most significant risk factors for becoming a teen father.

Prevalence and Development of Child Delinquency

According to the latest statistics, children younger than 13 are involved in almost 1 in 10 juvenile arrests. This Bulletin (NCJ 193411), part of OJJDP's Child Delinquency Series, provides information on very young offenders (those between the ages of 7 and 12) who become involved with the juvenile justice system.

These youth account for more than one-third of juvenile arrests for arson and nearly one-fifth of juvenile arrests for sex offenses and vandalism. Compared with juveniles who become involved in delinquency in adolescence, very young delinquents are at greater risk of becoming serious, violent, and chronic offenders. They are also more likely than older delinquents to continue their delinquency for extended periods of time. Consequently, over their lifetimes, these offenders may pose a disproportionate threat to persons and property. In addition, these offenders have the potential to place significant demands on the funds and resources of educational, justice, and social services agencies.

The information presented in this Bulletin provides a basis for bringing some of these issues into focus. The long-term goal is to use this information to foster effective interventions that target very young children before they accumulate multiple offenses and develop a pattern of chronic offending.

Treatment, Services, and Intervention Programs for Child Delinquents

Research indicates that very young offenders (younger than age 13) are at an age when interventions are most likely to succeed in diverting them from chronic delinquency. Drawing on findings from OJJDP's Study Group on Very Young Offenders, this Bulletin (NCJ 193410) explores various treatments, services, and intervention programs designed to mitigate the disruptive behavior of child delinquents.

The Bulletin, part of OJJDP's Child Delinquency Series, examines the efficacy and cost effectiveness of particular interventions. In addition, the authors discuss juvenile justice system programs and strategies for very young offenders. Four promising interventions for child delinquents—the Michigan Early Offender Program, the Minnesota Delinquents Under 10 Program, the Sacramento County Community Intervention Program, and the Toronto Under 12 Outreach Project—are reviewed. In addition, the Bulletin outlines a model for comprehensive interventions and examines the Canadian approach to child delinquency, which may serve as a guide for prevention efforts in the United States and Europe.

Timely provision of effective treatment, services, and intervention programs while child delinquents are still young and impressionable may prevent their progression to chronic criminality and save the expense of later interventions.