The Path from Childhood Behavioural Disorders to Felony Offending: Investigating the Role of Adolescent Drinking, Peer Marginalization, and School Failure

Background

Although a pathway from childhood behavioural disorders to criminal offending is well-established, the aetiological processes remain poorly understood. Also, it is not clear if attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is predictive of crime in the absence of comorbid disruptive behaviour disorder (DBD).

Hypothesis

We examined two research questions: (1) Does ADHD have a unique effect on the risk of criminal offending, independently of DBD? (2) Is the effect of childhood behavioural disorders on criminal offending direct or mediated by adolescent processes related to school experience, substance misuse, and peers?

Method

Structural equation modelling, with latent variables, was applied to longitudinally collected data on 4,644 males from the 1986 Northern Finland Birth Cohort Study.

Results

Both ADHD and DBD separately predicted felony conviction risk. Most of these effects were mediated by adolescent alcohol use and low academic performance. The effect of DBD was stronger and included a direct pathway to criminal offending.

Conclusion

Findings were more consistent with the life course mediation hypothesis of pathways into crime, in that the effects of each disorder category were mediated by heavy drinking and educational failure. Preventing these adolescent risk outcomes may be an effective approach to closing pathways to criminal behaviour among behaviourally disordered children. However, as there was some evidence of a direct pathway from DBD, effective treatments targeting this disorder are also expected to reduce criminal offending.

Below:  Structural Equation Model (Standardised Path Estimates are Reported)

Full article at:   http://goo.gl/SoVWGH

  

By:  Jukka Savolainen, W. Alex Mason, Jonathan D. Bolen, Mary B. Chmelka, Tuula Hurtig, Hanna Ebeling, Tanja Nordström, and Anja Taanila

Jukka Savolainen, School of Criminology and CriminalJustice, University of Nebraska at Omaha, 321 Nebraska Hall, Lincoln, NE 68588-0561, USA, Phone 402-472-3677, FAX 402-472-6758

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Adolescent Alcohol Use in Spain: Connections with Friends, School, and Other Delinquent Behaviors

This study examined the connections between adolescent alcohol use in Alicante, Spain and variables reflecting adolescents’ academic problems, potentially delinquent behaviors, friends’ alcohol consumption, and friendship quality. Information about alcohol use and a number of school and social variables was collected from adolescent students (N = 567) who completed the National Students School-Based Drug Survey in a classroom setting. 

Results suggested that gender was not significantly associated with alcohol use, although alcohol use increased with age and was more likely for adolescents enrolled in public schools compared to private. After controlling for age and type of school (public vs. private), academic problems explained 5.1% of the variance in adolescents’ alcohol use, potentially delinquent behaviors explained 29.0%, friends’ alcohol use 16.8%, and friendship quality 1.6%. 

When all unique predictors from these four models were included in a comprehensive model, they explained 32.3% of the variance in adolescents’ alcohol use. In this final model, getting expelled, participating in a fight, going out at night, the hour at which one returns, and the number of friends who have consumed alcohol were uniquely and positively associated with adolescents’ alcohol use. 

These results provide important information about multi-system influences on adolescent alcohol use in Alicante, Spain and suggest potential areas of focus for intervention research.

Correlations between alcohol consumption and all predictors.

Predictors	Correlation (r) with alcohol consumption
Demographics
Age	0.25∗∗
Public vs. private school	0.10∗
Gender	0.03
Academic Problems
Normally I do not complete any of my homework.	0.04
Have you repeated a course?	0.30∗∗
Have you missed class in the past 30 days?	0.13∗∗
Have you been expelled in the past 12 months?	0.19∗∗
Potentially delinquent behaviors
Have you run away from home in the past 12 months?	0.14∗∗
Have you participated in a fight in the past 12 months?	0.26∗∗
Do you go out at night?	0.52∗∗
When do you return when you go out at night?	0.41∗∗
Friends’ alcohol consumption
How many of your friends consumed alcohol in the past 30 days?	0.42∗∗
How many of your friends got drunk in the past 30 days?	0.37∗∗
Friendship quality
I receive care from my best friend.	0.03
How often do you hang out with your friends?	0.11∗
Friends subscale of the KIDSCREEN-52	0.09∗

∗∗ Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed). ∗ Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (two-tailed).

Full article at:   http://goo.gl/P5Isu7

By:  Lisa D. Goldberg-Looney,1 Miriam Sánchez-SanSegundo,2 Rosario Ferrer-Cascales,2 Natalia Albaladejo-Blazquez,2 andPaul B. Perrin1,*

¹Department of Psychology, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, USA

²Department of Health Psychology, University of Alicante, Alicante, Spain

Edited by: Gianluca Castelnuovo, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy

Reviewed by: Michelle Dow Keawphalouk, Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA; Roberto Cattivelli, Istituto di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico, Italy

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Associations Between LGBTQ-Affirmative School Climate & Adolescent Drinking Behaviors

BACKGROUND:

We investigated whether adolescents drank alcohol less frequently if they lived in jurisdictions with school climates that were more affirmative of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) individuals.

METHODS:

Data from the 2010 School Health Profile survey, which measured LGBTQ school climate (e.g., percentage of schools with safe spaces and gay-straight alliances), were linked with pooled data from the 2005 and 2007 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, which measured sexual orientation identity, demographics, and alcohol use (number of drinking days, drinking days at school, and heavy episodic drinking days) in 8 jurisdictions. Two-level Poisson models tested the associations between school climate and alcohol use for each sexual-orientation subgroup.

RESULTS:

Living in jurisdictions with more (versus less) affirmative LGBTQ school climates was significantly associated with: fewer heavy episodic drinking days for gay/lesbian (incidence-rate ratio [IRR]=0.70; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.56, 0.87; p=0.001) and heterosexual (IRR=0.80; 95% CI: 0.76, 0.83; p<0.001) adolescents; and fewer drinking days at school for adolescents unsure of their sexual orientation (IRR=0.57; 95% CI: 0.35, 0.93; p=0.024).

CONCLUSIONS:

Fostering LGBTQ-affirmative school climates may reduce certain drinking behaviors for gay/lesbian adolescents, heterosexual adolescents, and adolescents unsure of their sexual orientation.

Purchase full article at:   http://goo.gl/KuvFqX

By:  Coulter RW1, Birkett M2, Corliss HL3, Hatzenbuehler ML4, Mustanski B2, Stall RD5.

• 1Department of Behavioral and Community Health Sciences, Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, United States; Center for LGBT Health Research, Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, United States. Electronic address: Robert.ws.coulter@pitt.edu.
• 2Department of Medical Social Sciences, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL 60611, United States.
• 3Division of Health Promotion and Behavioral Science, Graduate School of Public Health, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92182, United States.
• 4Department of Sociomedical Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, United States.
• 5Department of Behavioral and Community Health Sciences, Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, United States; Center for LGBT Health Research, Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, United States. 
• Drug Alcohol Depend. 2016 Feb 23. pii: S0376-8716(16)00097-1. doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2016.02.022

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