Abstract
The field of criminology has devoted considerable time and attention to assessing the main risk factors associated with delinquency and criminal behavior. This line of research consistently documents that certain individual, familial, and situational risk factors are related to offending especially in adolescence. At the same time, there are two limitations to this line of work. The first is that most studies do not consider the extent to which these relationships hold across demographic groups, especially with respect to race/ethnicity. The second has been the reliance on general population/non-offender-based samples. This study aims to fill these two gaps. Using longitudinal data from the Pathways to Desistance, a study of serious adolescent offenders processed in two juvenile court systems, we investigate the extent to which a wide array risk factors relate to the frequency of re-arrests in a seven year follow-up across white, black, and Hispanic offenders.
The field of criminology has devoted considerable time and attention to assessing the main risk factors associated with delinquency and criminal behavior. This line of research consistently documents that certain individual, familial, and situational risk factors are related to offending especially in adolescence. At the same time, there are two limitations to this line of work. The first is that most studies do not consider the extent to which these relationships hold across demographic groups, especially with respect to race/ethnicity. The second has been the reliance on general population/non-offender-based samples. Using longitudinal data from the Pathways to Desistance, a study of serious adolescent offenders processed in two juvenile court systems, this chapter analyses the extent to which a wide array risk factors relate to the frequency of re-arrests in a seven year follow-up across white, black, and Hispanic offenders.