Implications of age of onset for delinquency risk

A substantial body of research suggests that age of onset is a viable discriminator of risk for chronic versus transient delinquency. Also, a mullivariate model of psychosocial variables (demographics, individual, school, and family functioning) appears likely to provide a comparatively accurate and useful discriminatory model for prediction. These two findings were applied to a normal sample of male adolescents (N=199, ages 15–18) to study the relationship of age of onset to delinquent behavior (as opposed to use of legal status to denote delinquency) and legal status. Additionally, the efficiency and improvement over chance accuracy of a multivariate model developed as part of a larger research project was tested. Results indicated that age of onset is an important and accurate discriminator of extent of subsequent delinquency. Subjects with an early age of onset reported more delinquent behavior, were more likely to be adjudicated, and showed different patterns of delinquency. A combination of demographic, individual, school, and family variables predicted age of onset.This work was conducted while the author was a Clinical Research Training Fellow in Adolescence (funded by T32 MH 14668) at the Institute for Psychosomatic and Psychiatric Research and Training, Michael Reese Hospital and Medical Center, in a program also sponsored by the Departments of Behavioral Science and Psychiatry, University of Chicago, and the Adolescent Program of the Illinois State Psychiatric Institute. The author is indebted to Ronald Rosenthal, Daniel Offer, and two anonymous reviewers for their advice and comments on an earlier draft of this article.