The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which leadership styles predict school climate, in order to identify whether a relationship exists between principals' perceived practices of instructional and distributed leadership and their perceptions of school climate (mutual respect and school delinquency), controlling for a net of…

Background: Adolescence is a critical phase of development and experimentation with delinquent behaviors. There is a growing body of literature exploring individual and structural impacts of discrimination on health outcomes and delinquent behaviors. However, there is limited research assessing how school diversity and discrimination impact…

Early delinquency has received considerably less scholarly attention than adolescent delinquency. Early delinquency is of great concern to school social workers, as it may lead to problematic behaviors in adolescence and future involvement with the juvenile justice system. Using an ecological framework, authors used data from the Fragile Families…

Despite evidence that American Indian (AI) adolescents are disproportionately involved in crime and delinquent behavior, there exists scant research exploring the correlates of crime among this group. We posit that Agnew's General Strain Theory (GST) is well suited to explain AI delinquent activity. Using the National Longitudinal Study of…

A detailed examination was conducted of the factors associated with pre- and postadjudication secure detention, including secure detention as a dispositional sentence and the effects of secure detention on decision making that further contribute to cumulative disadvantage for African Americans. The research was based on interpretations of the…

Gang involvement is an increasing issue among Latino youth, yet nuanced research on its potential causes is scarce. Quantitative and qualitative data were used to explore links between acculturative stress and gang involvement among immigrant and U.S.-born Latino middle school students (N = 199). Regression analyses showed that U.S.-born youths…

The research described in this article applies general strain theory to identify possible points of intervention for reducing delinquency of students in two middle schools. Data were collected from 296 youths, and separate negative binomial regression analyses were used to identify predictors of violent, property, and status delinquency. Emotional…

Using large-sample, archival data from the state of South Carolina's juvenile justice agency, we examine the question of race differences in predictors of repeat offending for a sample of approximately 100,000 youth who had been referred for criminal offenses. Independent variables relating to background, adverse parenting, mental health,…

The purpose of this study was to explore significant variables predicting adolescent suicidal attempts. Socio-environmental variables such as gender, school record, school grade, school adaptation, and family intimacy together with intra-individual variables including depression, anxiety, delinquency, stress, and self-esteem were considered as…

We examined factors targeted in two popular prevention approaches with adolescent drug use and delinquency in South Africa. We hypothesized adolescent life skills to be inversely related and perceived norms to be directly related to later drug use and delinquency. Multiple regression and a relative weights approach were conducted for each outcome…

Little empirical data exist addressing potential iatrogenic effects of placing youth in juvenile justice settings. We took advantage of a natural experiment in one state where juvenile offenders are evaluated in either residential settings characterized by high-density contact with delinquent youth or community settings with naturally varying…

Background: Different dimensions of oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) have been found as valid predictors of further mental health problems and antisocial behaviors in youth. The present study aimed at testing the construct, concurrent, and predictive validity of ODD dimensions derived from parent- and self-report measures. Method: Confirmatory…

Variations in drug use have been found across individual-level factors and community characteristics, and by type of drug used. Relatively little research, however, has examined this variation among juvenile offenders. Based on a sample of 924 newly arrested juvenile offenders, two multilevel logistic regression models predicting marijuana test…

Schools today are more frequently using punitive discipline practices to control student behavior, despite the greater effectiveness of community-building techniques on compliance that are based on restorative justice principles found in the criminal justice system. Prior research testing the racial threat hypothesis has found that the racial…

The authors examined the role of early adverse experiences, mental health problems, and disabilities in the prediction of juvenile delinquency and recidivism, using a matched-control group design. The delinquent group comprised 99,602 youth, born between 1981 and 1988, whose cases had been processed by the South Carolina Department of Juvenile…