In search of the origins of crime continuity: Aggressive versus nonaggressive delinquency as a key factor in the psychological inertia process.

The purpose of this study was to test whether the psychological inertia process believed to give rise to crime continuity is limited to aggressive delinquency or evolves from both aggressive and nonaggressive delinquency. Self-report data provided by 845 early adolescent youth (406 boys, 439 girls) were analyzed in an effort to test the hypothesis that aggressive rather than nonaggressive delinquency precipitates a rise in delinquency through the intervening influence of cognitive impulsivity but not moral neutralization. The hypothesis stated that of the four models evaluated in this study (aggressive delinquency → moral neutralization → offense variety; aggressive delinquency → cognitive impulsivity → offense variety; nonaggressive delinquency → moral neutralization → offense variety; nonaggressive delinquency → cognitive impulsivity → offense variety), only the aggressive delinquency → cognitive impulsivity → offense variety model would achieve significance. Consistent with this hypothesis, only the aggressive delinquency → cognitive impulsivity → offense variety pathway was, in fact, significant. The current findings suggest that the psychological inertia process may be driven by a pattern of aggressive delinquency followed by cognitive impulsivity and that neither nonaggressive delinquency nor moral neutralization contribute to the process. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.

Cognitive-behavioral reciprocity: Testing the bidirectional relationship between antisocial cognition and delinquency.

OBJECTIVE: Although reciprocity between variables is a topic of interest in the field of criminology, we cannot simply assume that all or even most criminological relationships are bidirectional without testing them empirically. The objective of the current investigation was to test whether delinquency and antisocial cognition are reciprocally or bidirectionally related. HYPOTHESES: The hypotheses evaluated as part of the present study proposed that antisocial cognition would predict delinquency, delinquency would predict antisocial cognition, and bidirectional models would display significantly better fit than the unidirectional models on which they are based. METHOD: Using data from the Pathways to Desistance study (1,354 serious justice-involved youths), I explored whether antisocial cognition predicts delinquency and a change in delinquency and whether delinquency predicts antisocial cognition and a change in antisocial cognition. I paired two forms of antisocial cognition-moral neutralization and cognitive impulsivity-with delinquency to predict a single future outcome with a zero-order correlation and a lagged outcome or change with a partial correlation. RESULTS: Findings showed that 40 out of 40 prospective zero-order correlations and 36 out of 40 prospective partial correlations achieved significance, with moderate and small effect sizes, respectively. Structural equation modeling revealed that the bidirectional models linking moral neutralization to delinquency and cognitive impulsivity to delinquency using lagged outcome measures both achieved significantly better fit than the unidimensional models on which they were based. CONCLUSION: The results of this study are congruent with the conclusion that the relationship between antisocial cognition and delinquency is reciprocal and that antisocial cognition is as much a predictor of delinquency as delinquency is a predictor of antisocial cognition. Thus, both patterns need to be taken into account for the purposes of theory integration in criminology, clinical practice in forensic psychology, and policy implementation in criminal justice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Criminal thinking as a bipolar dimensional construct: Testing the risk-promotive status of the PICTS proactive and reactive criminal thinking scales.

This study sought to assess whether two scales from a criminal thinking inventory displayed bipolar properties such that high scores on these scales reflect a risk effect and low scores a promotive effect. To test this hypothesis, the proactive criminal thinking (PCT) and reactive criminal thinking (RCT) scales from the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles (PICTS) were organized into three categories-top 25% of scores (high group), the middle 50% of scores (intermediate group), and bottom 25% of scores (low group)-and crossed with preincarceration (prior convictions and age at first conviction), peri-incarceration (total and aggressive institutional infractions), and postincarceration (revocation and rearrest) outcome indicators. Participants for this study were 3,039 male inmates who completed the PICTS while confined in a medium-security federal prison. Results showed that the PCT and RCT each achieved a mixed (risk and promotive) effect for four out of six outcomes. Of the four unipolar effects, PCT achieved a promotive effect but not a risk effect for the two preincarceration outcomes, whereas RCT produced a risk but not promotive effect for the two postincarceration outcomes. These results provide support for the notion that PCT and RCT are primarily bipolar dimensional constructs in which high scores are associated with negative criminal justice outcomes and low scores with positive criminal justice outcomes, although there may be unipolar aspects to each scale as well. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Is a change in social competencies associated with a change in drug use and crime in substance-abusing offenders? Evidence from the breaking the cycle demonstration project.

BACKGROUND: The Breaking the Cycle (BTC) Demonstration Project is an intensive drug intervention programme designed to break the cycle of drug use and offending in which many substance-abusing offenders find themselves trapped, by providing them with alternatives to drug use and crime. AIMS: To determine whether an increase in social competencies mediates between any relationship involving enrolment in the Breaking the Cycle Demonstration Project and subsequent drug use or self-reported offending. METHODS: A group of 1088 Project participants (847 males and 241 females) were compared to a set of 987 offenders who received standard probation services alone (756 males and 231 females) using a quasi-experimental research design. RESULTS: Project participants reported a significant rise in social competencies and significant reductions in both drug use and self-reported offending compared to the comparison group. While social competencies mediated the BTC-subsequent drug use association, drug use did not mediate the BTC-subsequent social competencies association. The direction of the social competencies-offending relationship was more equivocal in that both progressions (from BTC to social competencies and from BTC to offending) were significant. CONCLUSIONS: These findings add to the evidence of the success of the Breaking the Cycle Demonstration Project in reducing drug use and offending by finding that improvements in social competencies among substance-abusing participants may be a critical step in reducing drug use. The route to reducing reoffending is not so dependent on a single pathway, although findings suggest that more attention should be paid to both changing and measuring social competencies in future interventions with substance-misusing offenders.

Can a Pessimistic Outlook Moderate the Victimization-Delinquency Relationship?

This study was designed to shed light on the relationship between victimization and offending, a pattern commonly known as the victim-offender overlap, by exploring whether victimization and pessimism toward the future interact in association with self-reported delinquency. This study was performed on 1,300 (444 males, 645 females, and 211 sex not identified) members of the 2018 High School Senior Monitoring the Future cross-sectional study. Multiple regression analysis was conducted using a maximum likelihood estimator and bias-corrected bootstrapped 95% confidence intervals. The analysis revealed that victimization and the victimization × pessimism interaction correlated significantly with delinquency, after controlling for a series of demographic, family, and peer factors. These results indicate that pessimism toward the future may exacerbate the already strong relationship known to exist between victimization and delinquency.

Counseling services leading to desistance by way of a change in certainty perceptions and cognitive agency beliefs.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to determine whether receiving counseling services reduced future offending in a group of seriously delinquent youths through a process of chaining. In this process, a youth's perceived certainty of punishment and an increase in their cognitive agency or control mediated the services-offending relationship. HYPOTHESIS: The main hypothesis was that where perceptions of certainty preceded cognitive agency beliefs (perceived certainty → cognitive agency), the (target) pathway would be significant, and where cognitive agency beliefs preceded perceptions of certainty (cognitive agency → perceived certainty), the (comparison) pathway would be nonsignificant. The difference between the target and comparison pathways was also predicted to be significant. METHOD: This study modeled change in 1,354 (1,170 boys, 184 girls) justice-involved youths from the Pathways to Desistance study. The number of counseling services accessed by a participant within 6 months of the baseline (Wave 1) interview served as the independent variable, and self-reported offending 12-18 months later (Wave 4) served as the dependent variable. Perceived certainty of punishment and cognitive agency were cross-lagged at Waves 2 and 3 and served as mediators. RESULTS: Consistent with the research hypothesis, results showed that the total indirect effect from services to delinquency through perceived certainty and cognitive agency was significant, the total indirect effect from services to cognitive agency to perceived certainty was nonsignificant, and the difference between the two effects was significant. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study suggest that turning points do not have to be major life events to bring about desistance and that chaining in which perceptions of certainty precede cognitive agency beliefs may play a vital role in the change process. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Family structure and delinquency: Antisocial cognition as a mediating mechanism.

INTRODUCTION: This study investigates the direct and indirect effects of family structure on future delinquency using cognitive insensitivity and cognitive impulsivity as mediators. METHODS: Employing a sample of 845 middle school students (406 boys, 439 girls), this study examined the effects of family structure on future delinquency and antisocial cognition as students progressed through the middle school years-that is, sixth through eighth grade. RESULTS: Family structure, assessed as a three-level variable (two-parent home vs. stepparent/grandparent home vs. single-parent home) or as a two-level variable (two-parent/stepparent home vs. other), predicted delinquency 2 years later. Adding antisocial cognition-cognitive insensitivity and cognitive impulsivity-to the model produced significant indirect effects in which both cognitive insensitivity and cognitive impulsivity mediated the family structure-delinquency relationship. CONCLUSIONS: Based on these results, it would appear that antisocial cognition plays a salient role in the association known to exist between family structure and later delinquency. The research and practical implications of these results include a call for greater use of a mediation methodology when studying the family structure-delinquency relationship and finding ways to assist families in creating control and moral values in their children.

Changes in criminal thinking from midadolescence to early adulthood: Does trajectory direction matter?

OBJECTIVE: Although there is evidence of a strong age-crime relationship, there is little consensus as to why crime peaks in midadolescence and drops off in late adolescence or early adulthood, and there is virtually no information on how age interacts with other crime-related variables such as criminal thinking. The purpose of this study was to document changes in the age-criminal thinking relationship from midadolescence to early adulthood and determine whether these changes were capable of predicting future offending behavior. HYPOTHESES: It was hypothesized that (a) criminal thinking, measured with a moral disengagement scale, would gradually decelerate as offending youth progressed from midadolescence to early adulthood; (b) downward-sloping trajectories obtained from a growth mixture modeling (GMM) analysis would predominate over upward-sloping and stable trajectories, and (c) the direction of a trajectory (upward or downward sloping) would have as much impact on future offending as the overall magnitude of moral disengagement. METHOD: These three hypotheses were tested in a group of 1,273 (1,093 male, 180 female) serious juvenile offenders from the Pathways to Desistance study who completed a moral disengagement scale annually between the ages of 16 and 22. The data were then subjected to trend analysis, GMM, and an analysis of covariance whereby trajectory class membership served to predict future offending. RESULTS: Scores on the moral disengagement scale dropped gradually from age 16 to 22, GMM identified four latent classes, 93.6% of the sample fell into one of two decelerating trajectory patterns, and trajectory direction was at least as important as trajectory magnitude in predicting future offending. CONCLUSIONS: Trajectory direction appears to be as important as magnitude in evaluating the clinical significance of changes in criminal thinking during mid to late adolescence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Extending the "Worst of Both Worlds" hypothesis to the developmental antecedents of crime and substance use: school bullying and alcohol experimentation.

The "Worst of Both Worlds" (WBW) hypothesis holds that individuals who both commit crime and misuse drugs are at significantly greater risk for future crime and drug problems than individuals who only commit crime or only misuse drugs. In the current investigation, two developmental antecedents of crime and substance use-school bullying and alcohol experimentation-were used to form four WBW conditions (no bullying or alcohol experimentation, alcohol experimentation without bullying, bullying without alcohol experimentation, and bullying with alcohol experimentation). Analyzing data from 3837 (1951 boys, 1886 girls) early adolescents from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (mean age = 12.4 years at baseline), it was noted that children who engaged in bullying and had experimented with alcohol by age 12/13 were significantly more likely to increase their involvement in delinquency and substance use by age 16/17 compared to children who did not engage in bullying and had not experimented with alcohol, children who bullied but had not experimented with alcohol, and children who experimented with alcohol but had not bullied. These results not only support the WBW hypothesis, they also suggest that the effect may have developmental origins beyond similarities in externalizing symptomatology.

Does adolescent drug use belong on the antisocial spectrum? Mediating the drug-crime connection with cognitive impulsivity.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether adolescent drug use can be considered part of the antisocial spectrum. This was done by testing two pathways from adolescent drug use to early adult offending, one of which was mediated by cognitive insensitivity and the other of which was mediated by cognitive impulsivity. It was hypothesized that the impulsivity-mediated pathway would achieve significance, the insensitivity-mediated pathway would not achieve significance, and the impulsivity-mediated indirect effect would significantly outperform the insensitivity-mediated indirect effect. Participants for this study were the 4576 youth from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health). All participants in the current investigation were between the ages of 11 and 18 at the start of the study (Time 1 or Wave II of Add Health). The research hypothesis received partial support in that while the impulsivity-mediated pathway achieved significance and the insensitivity-mediated pathway did not, the difference between the two pathways was non-significant. These results suggest that early drug use may play a role in the antisocial spectrum as an antecedent to delinquency/crime by way of cognitive impulsivity.

Social and psychological effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on middle-school students: Attendance options and changes over time.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether restrictions put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic affected the social and psychological well-being of early adolescent schoolchildren. Participants were 309 youth (51% female, average age = 12.38 years) enrolled in the sixth, seventh, or eighth grades of a single middle school located in northeastern Pennsylvania, a state that took a moderately proactive approach to the pandemic. Employing a cross-sectional design, students in three instructional conditions (100% in-person, hybrid, 100% online) were compared on nine outcome measures (perceived parental support, perceived parental knowledge, peer deviance, neutralization, cognitive impulsivity, depression, delinquency, bullying victimization, and bullying perpetration). There were no significant between-groups differences, although there was a borderline significant effect for depression (100% online > 100% in-person, p = .06). A second set of analyses employed a longitudinal design and compared 174 children who completed the test battery in November 2019, 3 months before the start of the pandemic, and then again in November 2020, 9 months after the start of the pandemic. Three out of nine outcomes displayed significant change: A small reduction in parental support and modest increments in neutralization beliefs and cognitive impulsivity. Although there were no statistically significant differences between the three instructional conditions and only a handful of relatively small and predictable longitudinal changes between November 2019 and November 2020, there were a fair number of individual students who experienced moderate (≥ 50%) increases in depression (17.6%), cognitive impulsivity (15.8%), and bullying victimization (11.7%). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Delinquency as a consequence of parental warmth and self-efficacy: Total sample and individual male and female mediation analyses.

INTRODUCTION: This study's purpose was to investigate the mediating effect of parental control self-efficacy on the parental warmth → child delinquency relationship in the mothers and fathers of early to mid-adolescent youth in a test of performance accomplishments as a prelude to parental self-efficacy. METHODS: Parental warmth and control self-efficacy estimates, representing parental support and control, respectively, were provided by the mothers and fathers of 3934 (2010 boys, 1924 girls) youth from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) and self-reported delinquency was obtained from the child. RESULTS: As predicted, parental control self-efficacy mediated the relationship between parental warmth and child delinquency, whereas parental warmth did not mediate the relationship between parental self-efficacy and child delinquency. When analyses were performed separately for boys and girls, the father warmth → father self-efficacy → child delinquency pathway achieved the most consistent results in boys and the mother warmth → mother self-efficacy → child delinquency pathway achieved the only significant effect in girls. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that performance accomplishments, as characterized by a warm parent-child relationship, led to enhanced parental control self-efficacy, which, in turn, served to inhibit future delinquency in the child, thereby lending credence to a social cognitive learning theory interpretation of the parental support-control interface.

School-Age Bullying Victimization and Perpetration: A Meta-Analysis of Prospective Studies and Research.

Twenty-three samples from 22 longitudinal studies assessing both bullying perpetration and bullying victimization were selected from a sample of 1,408 candidate studies using several prespecified criteria (i.e., participants ≤ 18 years of age; self-reported bullying victimization and perpetration assessed with a lag of at least 1 month but no more than 24 months; not a treatment or program study). A random effects meta-analysis was then performed on the concurrent and cross-lagged longitudinal associations between bullying victimization and perpetration in the 23 samples. A large pooled effect size (r = .40, 95% confidence interval [CI] = [.34, .45]) was obtained for the concurrent association between bullying victimization and perpetration, whereas modest to moderate effect sizes (victimization to perpetration: r = .20, 95% CI [.17, .24]; perpetration to victimization: r = .21, 95% CI [.17, .24]) were obtained for the two cross-lagged longitudinal correlations. The results did not change when analyses were conducted separately for traditional bullying and cyberbullying outcomes. These findings indicate that bullying victimization and perpetration correlate strongly and that their cross-lagged longitudinal relationship runs in both directions, such that perpetration is just as likely to lead to future victimization as victimization is to lead to future perpetration. Different theoretical models are proposed in an effort to explain these results: cycle of violence, general strain, and social cognitive theories for victimization leading to perpetration and risky lifestyles, routine activities, and peer selection theories for perpetration leading to victimization.

Explaining the drug-crime connection with peers, proactive criminal thinking, and victimization: Systemic, cognitive social learning, and person proximity mechanisms.

The principal objective of this study was to determine whether drugs and crime are systemically linked through the formation of delinquent peer associations. A panel of 1,760 adolescents (867 boys, 893 girls, ages 10-17) participated in a longitudinal study conducted over 4 waves, with a year between each wave. The results of a multiple serial causal mediation path analysis revealed that drug use at Wave 1 predicted a rise in delinquent peer associations at Wave 2, which, in turn, predicted an increase in proactive criminal thinking and personal victimization at Wave 3, both of which then proceeded to predict serious offending at Wave 4. Based on these results, it is concluded that drug use has the power to initiate and intensify involvement in a delinquent peer group, which then opens the door to learning deviant attitudes from and being victimized by members of this group, outcomes capable of motivating future offending behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Criminal thinking, certainty of apprehension, and the decision to engage in antisocial behavior: A study of day treatment program clients.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether criminal thinking moderates the relationship between certainty of apprehension (50%, 10%, 1%) and likelihood of engaging in three antisocial hypothetical acts (cheating on a test, property damage, and driving drunk). Proactive criminal thinking (PCT), a manifestation of the planned, calculated, amoral, and instrumental features of antisocial cognition, and reactive criminal thinking (RCT), a reflection of the impulsive, irresponsible, reckless, and emotional aspects of antisocial cognition, served as between-subjects variables in this study. A repeated measures analysis of covariance performed on 67 (43 males, 24 females) day treatment program clients revealed that the likelihood of engaging in antisocial behavior was disproportionately elevated when participants were high in PCT and low in certainty. These results indicate that as the certainty of apprehension goes down, persons with elevated levels of proactive criminal thinking are disproportionately inclined to engage in antisocial and criminal behavior.

Parental Gambling as a Moderator of the Child Delinquency-Gambling Relationship: Does Having a Role Model in the Home Make a Difference?

The relationship between delinquency and gambling has drawn significant attention from researchers in the behavioral and social sciences, yet there are aspects of this relationship that remain largely unexplored. The role of "third variables" in moderating the connection between child delinquency and gambling involvement is one such aspect. Accordingly, the current study set out to examine the impact of parent gambling involvement on the child delinquency-gambling relationship in a sample of 3089 adolescents (1576 males, 1513 females) from Cohort K of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC-K). Using cross-sectional data from Wave 7 of the LSAC, the current study tested the possibility that gambling involvement in parents may moderate the relationship between delinquency and gambling in their offspring. Results obtained from a regression analysis revealed that the link between delinquency, conceptualized as an early marker of general deviance, and gambling variety, as measured across ten different forms of wagering (e.g., Casino gambling, sports betting, horse and dog racing, scratch tickets), changed as a function of parental involvement in these same ten behaviors. In seeking clarity on this relationship, it was noted that the association between child delinquency and gambling involvement grew in proportion to the strength of parental involvement in gaming activities. Hence, having a gambling role model in the home may increase opportunities and incentive for gambling in children predisposed to antisocial behavior or general deviance.

Moral disengagement as a mediator of the co-offending-delinquency relationship in serious juvenile offenders.

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to determine whether moral disengagement (MD) mediated the relationship between co-offending and future delinquency once age, race, gang affiliation, unsupervised routine activities, and perceived peer delinquency were controlled. HYPOTHESES: It was predicted that the temporal relationship between co-offending and future offending would be mediated by MD but not by cognitive impulsivity (CI), and that the MD-mediated effect would be significantly stronger than the CI-mediated effect. METHOD: Participants were 1,162 serious delinquent male youth from the Pathways to Desistance study. A fixed-sample panel longitudinal design was implemented and a path analysis with two parallel mediators (MD and CI) and one dependent variable (delinquency) was performed. RESULTS: Consistent with predictions, a path analysis determined that MD but not CI mediated the relationship between co-offending and future self-reported delinquency. In addition, the indirect effect for MD was significantly stronger than the indirect effect for CI. CONCLUSIONS: It is surmised that co-offending may provide youth with the opportunity to observe, model, and learn criminal attitudes and behaviors from other offenders, which then augments MD and sets the stage for a rise in delinquency. Policies and programs designed to disrupt co-offending and reduce MD are discussed in terms of delinquency prevention and desistance. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Affective Drinking Motives, Delinquency and Binge Drinking: A Comparison of Male and Female High School Seniors.

AIM: The purpose of this study was to determine whether the association between affective drinking motives, delinquency and binge drinking varied as a function of sex and if so, whether delinquency moderated the relationship between affective drinking motives and binge drinking in late adolescent males and females. METHODS: Participants were 623 (257 males, 366 females) high school seniors from the 2018 Monitoring the Future study. A principal components analysis was initially performed to create component scores for the first factor of a 15-item drinking motives scale subsequently labeled affective drinking motives. These scores, along with sex and a measure of delinquency, were then entered into a three-way interaction. The interaction was found to correlate significantly with binge drinking. Because of the significant three-way interaction, analyses were performed on male and female participants separately. RESULTS: Analyses conducted on male participants revealed a moderate correlation between affective drinking motives and binge drinking but no evidence of an interaction between affective drinking motives and delinquency. Analyses performed on female participants, on the other hand, identified a significant main effect for affective drinking motives and a negative interaction between affective drinking motives and delinquency, indicating that the relationship between affective drinking motives and binge drinking was strongest when delinquency was low. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that while delinquency had no apparent impact on the affective drinking motive-binge drinking correlation in boys, low delinquency clearly amplified the counter-binge drinking effects of low affective drinking motives in girls.

Positive Peers-The Neglected Stepchildren of Social Influence Theories of Crime.

Despite being one of the least studied components of social influence, positive peer associations have much to offer social learning theories of crime. The purpose of the current investigation was to determine whether positive peer associations moderate the peer influence effect central to social learning theory. Data provided by 3869 (1970 boys, 1899 girls) members of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) were used to test the hypothesis that positive peer associations interact with components of peer influence to protect adolescents against future delinquency. A simple mediation analysis confirmed the existence of a significant indirect effect running from peer delinquency, to low empathy, to participant delinquency. When positive peer associations were added to the model as moderators, they achieved a significant negative moderating effect on the peer delinquency-low empathy path and a significant positive moderating effect on the low empathy-participant delinquency path. In this study, positive peer associations increased empathy in children with fewer delinquent peer associations and decreased offending in children with lower levels of empathy. Given evidence of their ability to inhibit negative peer influence and promote empathy in the service of reduced delinquency, positive peer associations deserve more attention from social learning theories of crime than they have thus far received.