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Title: Does Early Adolescent Arrest Alter the Developmental Course of Offending into Young Adulthood?
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth
Jacobsen, Wade C.
Doherty, Elaine Eggleston
Does Early Adolescent Arrest Alter the Developmental Course of Offending into Young Adulthood?
Journal of Youth and Adolescence published online (5 February 2022): DOI: 10.1007/s10964-022-01576-7.
Also: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10964-022-01576-7
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: Springer
Keyword(s): Adolescent Behavior; Arrests; Crime; Delinquency/Gang Activity; Transition, Adulthood

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Adolescent involvement in risky behavior is ubiquitous and normative. Equally pervasive is the rapid decline in risky behavior during the transition to adulthood. Yet, for many, risky behavior results in arrest. Whereas prior research finds that arrest is associated with an increased risk of experiencing a host of detrimental outcomes, less understood is the impact of an arrest on the developmental course of offending compared to what it would have looked like if no arrest had occurred--the counterfactual. This study examines the developmental implications of an arrest early in the life course. The sample (N = 1293) was 37% female, 42% non-white, with a mean age of 13.00 years (SD = 0.82, range = 12–14) at baseline and followed annually for 15 years. Analyses combine propensity score matching and multilevel modeling techniques to estimate the impact of early arrest (i.e., 14 or younger) on the development of offending from adolescence into adulthood. The results indicate that early arrest alters the developmental course of offending in two primary ways. First, early arrest heightens involvement, frequency, and severity of offending throughout adolescence and into early young adulthood even after controlling for subsequent arrests. The detrimental influence of early arrest on the developmental course of offending is found regardless of gender or race/ethnicity. Second, even among youth with an early arrest, offending wanes over time with self-reported offending among all youth nearly absent by the mid- to late-twenties. The findings advance understanding of the developmental implications of early arrest beyond typical and expected offending.
Bibliography Citation
Bersani, Bianca Elizabeth, Wade C. Jacobsen and Elaine Eggleston Doherty. "Does Early Adolescent Arrest Alter the Developmental Course of Offending into Young Adulthood?" Journal of Youth and Adolescence published online (5 February 2022): DOI: 10.1007/s10964-022-01576-7.