NCJ Number
220313
Journal
Criminology Volume: 45 Issue: 3 Dated: August 2007 Pages: 583-616
Date Published
August 2007
Length
34 pages
Annotation
This study used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) to examine the timing and mechanisms of the link between offending and depression.
Abstract
The study concludes that depression in a young adult with a history of juvenile delinquency is more closely related to offending as a young adult than to a lack of educational attainment or previous justice system contacts. The association between depression and offending in adulthood accounts for the entire longitudinal relationship between delinquency and depression. The most complete picture of the causes and consequences of delinquency depends on a careful study of the ways in which offending and other behaviors and events are linked over the life span. Add Health drew on a nationally representative sample of adolescents in grades 7 through 12 during the 1994-1995 school year. In 2001, 14,322 respondents in the probability sample completed followup in-home interviews at wave III. The analyses for the current study were based on data from waves I and III and were limited to respondents with valid data on the key study variables of delinquency and depression. Analyses were limited to respondents with valid data on the key study variables of delinquency and depression; the wave III variables of educational attainment and idleness; and the control variables of race, family composition, socioeconomic status, vocabulary score, and educational aspirations. The final sample consisted of 13,155 respondents (92 percent of the wave III probability sample). 5 tables, 71 references, and appended weighted zero-order correlations