Violent Juvenile Delinquency: The Mechanism Of Risk Factors And Developmental Assets

As a worldwide major social problem to be solved, juvenile delinquency hasbecome a research emphasis and hotspot of multidiscipline. Accompanied with thehigh incidence of juvenile delinquency, there is a significant tendency of increasingviolence crime. To prevent and control violent juvenile delinquency effectively, it isessential to explore its antecedents and underlying mechanisms. Contemporarily,Three groups of models on youth development and problem prevention have beenproposed:: prevention model, resiliency model, and positive youth developmentmodel. Although a large number of studies of violent juvenile delinquency has beenconducted in line with these models, there are still two obvious limitations: one is thelack of comprehensive investigation of causes and mechanisms of violent juveniledelinquency; the second is the dearth of research on violent juvenile delinquency fromthe positive perspective. Previous studies have paid more attention to the risk factorsof violent juvenile delinquency, but few attention was paid to the protection factors ofviolence, promotive factors of healthy development, and types of assets which caneffectively prevent juvenile crime of violence and protect adolescence from crimes inthe presence of multiple risk factors. Answers to these questions require research onintegrated mechanisms involving both developmental assets and risk factors from awider perspective.According to the above considerations, this doctoral thesis was to examine therisk factors and developmental assets, and how they affect violent juveniledelinquency together in a integrating fashion with a cross-sectional design. Thisdoctoral thesis was composed of three emprical studies as follows: the first studyexamined the relationship of negative parenting style, delinquent peers and lowself-control and their association with violent juvenile delinquency; the second studyexplored the quantity, levels and types of developmental assets and their associationwith violent juvenile delinquency; the third study examined the relationship of riskfactors and developmental assets and their mechanism on violent juvenile delinquency.The participants included464juvenile violent offenders and591high schoolstudents and university students. Self-report method is used to measure theparticipants’ family socioeconomic status, parenting style, delinquent peers, lowself-control and developmental assets. Analyses were carried out using SPSS13.0andMplus7.0. Main findings were as follows:1. Risk factors of violent juvenile delinquency and related mechanism(1) juvenile violent offenders had lower family socioeconomic status than youthstudents. Two groups of participants distributed significantly differently on parentingstyles. Juvenile violent offenders had more delinquent peers and high risk, higherscores on self-centeredness and temper.(2) Co-occurrence were observed among risk factors of family and peer domainsand individual risk factors.(3) As an organic whole, risk factors of family and peer domains and individualrisk factors affects the occurrence of juvenile violence. Lower family socioeconomicstatus was linked with more usage of ignoring or authoritarian parenting; Rcompared with authoritative parenting, negative parenting could directly affect thelevel of low self-control, and had indirect influence on delinquent peers via themediation of low self-control; low self-control could predict violent crime bothdirectly and indirectly through delinquent peers.2. Association between quantity, levels and types of developmental assets andviolent juvenile delinquency.(1) Juvenile violent offenders had less developmental assets than youth students.(2) External developmental assets quantity could predict internal developmentalassets quantity, and internal developmental assets quantity could negatively predictviolent crime status.(3)13kinds of developmental assets could negatively predict violent crime status,and they were primarily commitment to learning, positive values and socialcompetence.3. The relationship of risk factors and developmental assets and their mechanismon violent juvenile delinquency.(1) External developmental assets quantity and internal developmental assetsquantity were significant positively correlated to family social economy status, andsignificant negatively correlated to low self-control and delinquent peers. (2) Developmental assets and risk factors work together on juvenile violence,developmental assets quantity could compensate the effects of low self-control onjuvenile violence.(3) Four developmental assets, including positive peer influence, caring, equalityand social justice, and peaceful conflict resolution moderated the effects of lowself-control on juvenile violence; three developmental assets, including parentinvolvement in schooling, school engagement, bonding to school moderated theeffects of delinquent peers on juvenile violence.