Adjudicated Females’ Participation in Violence from Adolescence to Adulthood

Abstract

There have been virtually no studies to date that have examined the development of delinquency and violence among females during the transition from adolescence to young adulthood. In light of this shortcoming, examined the development of delinquent and violent conducts of females. Between 1992 and 1993, 150 adolescent females adjudicated under the Young Offenders Act for a criminal offense (17%; n=26) or processed under the Youth Protection Act for presenting serious problem behavior (83%; n=124) were interviewed. These females were sentenced by the Youth Court of Montreal to probation, to a social follow-up, or to a placement in a rehabilitation center. Between 1995 and 1996, 123 females (82% of the original sample) were interviewed again. A third wave of data collection was conducted in 2000-2001, during which 113 participants (75% of the original sample) were re-interviewed. In total, 97 (65%) females participated in all three waves of data collection. Each time of measurement is respectively designated as mid-adolescence, end of the adolescence, and young adulthood. Mean ages at testing time were 15.1 (SD=1.4), 17.5 (SD=1.4), and 23.0 (SD=1.5) respectively. Participation in deviant and delinquent behavior was measured through a self-report card-sorting task that included 63 delinquent acts. For each behavior, information regarding age of onset, prevalence, and frequency was collected. The psychometric properties of this task are reviewed in the MASPAQ (Le Blanc, 1996). The violence index was created by summing 13 of these self-report items. Four of these items refer to physical violence. Four items are related to threats and intimidation. Three items concern the use of weapons or other objects. The last two items represent indirect violence (encouraging others to harm someone they dislike and accusing others of starting a fight). Violence is assessed in terms of age of onset and its variety during the 12 months preceding each interview. Analyses of variance (ANOVA) is conducted to determine whether between-groups differences are greater than within-groups differences for each component included in the cluster analysis. Finally, analyses of variance (ANOVA) is also be performed to verify if females of each violent pathway differ in their level of involvement in vandalism, theft, and drug use. This indicates if the development of violence and that of other delinquent conducts follow a similar pathway. These behaviors were included in the self-report card-sorting task. Results from this longitudinal analysis indicate that although violence tends to be a common behavior among adjudicated females during mid-adolescence, their participation in violence decreases substantially as they progress towards adulthood. The variety of violent behaviors also declines as females progress in age: while 31% of adjudicated females were involved in a high variety of violent conducts during mid-adolescence, this proportion dropped to 4% at the beginning of adulthood. Moreover, the examination of within-individual variance in violent behaviors indicates that females who do engage in high levels of violence exit out of this behavior pattern quickly, namely prior to entering late-adolescence. There were no identifiable trajectories that demonstrated a pattern of high and constant involvement in violence from mid-adolescence until the beginning of adulthood. Rather, results identified only non-violent, exploratory and declining trajectories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: chapter)