شناسایی مسیر توسعه خاص جنسیتی بزهکاری بدون خشونت و خشونت آمیز از نوجوانی تا بزرگسالی

Abstract Most research examining gender differences in developmental trajectories of antisocial behavior does not consider subtypes of antisocial behavior and is difficult to generalize due to small non-representative samples. The current study investigated gender difference in developmental trajectories from adolescence to young adulthood while addressing those limitations. Analyses were limited to respondents ages 15 and 16 in wave 1 (16–17 in wave 2, and 21–22 in wave 3) of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (n = 6244, 49.5% males). Self-report nonviolent and violent delinquencies were simultaneously entered into latent class analysis. Four latent classes were identified: low, desister, decliner, and chronic (male-only). In addition to finding a male-specific chronic class, gender differences included differences in levels of nonviolent and violent delinquency between synonymous classes of males and females, and differences in prevalence of classes across genders. Neighborhood disadvantage and family support predicted trajectories.

Results Gender-specific latent trajectory of nonviolent and violent delinquency As shown in the first column of each gender group in Table 3, females consistently reported less nonviolent delinquency (e.g., 0.14 vs. 0.24 in the 1st wave) and violent delinquency (e.g., 0.03 vs. 0.15 in the 3rd wave) than males throughout three waves. However, both gender groups demonstrated similar patterns of desistence in nonviolent delinquency (0.14–0.05 for females; 0.24–0.16 for males) and violent delinquency (0.15–0.03 for females; 0.26–0.15 for males) from adolescence to young adulthood. While there were no obvious gender differences in neighborhood disadvantage, females reported slightly less family support (M = 4.29, SD = 0.68) than did males (M = 4.46, SD = 0.53). Based on BIC, a 5-class solution with parameters constrained to be equal across genders (AIC = 1624.8, BIC = 2083.1, entropy = 0.69, χ2(1389) = 1488.8) was the best fit compared to a 4-class model (AIC = 1811.9, BIC = 2175.8, entropy = 0.60) and a 6-class model (AIC = 1545.1, BIC = 2097.7, entropy = 0.67). A nested model allowing parameters to be freely estimated across genders provided a 5-class model with a χ2(1329) of 1299.4, indicating significant gender non-invariance (χ2diff(60) = 189.4, p < 0.001). This gender non-invariance could have two sources: 1) the five classes have different characteristics and resulting meanings across genders, and/or 2) there are gender-specific classes. To investigate the sources of gender non-invariance, models were run separately by gender. Female classes Based on BIC, females were best described by a 3-class solution (AIC = 759.1, BIC = 989.8, entropy = 0.64) compared to a 2-class model (AIC = 875.0, BIC = 1026.7, entropy = 0.65) and a 4-class model (AIC = 724.9, BIC = 1034.5, entropy = 0.66). Shown in the right half of Table 2, about 60% of females in the sample belonged to the first class—low, defined by a high probability (p > 0.92) of reporting that they had never engaged in antisocial behavior from adolescence to young adulthood. Means for nonviolent and violent delinquency (see Table 3) suggested that low females reported the least antisocial behavior across all three classes, substantially lower than females' grand average. Table 2. Gender-specific latent class model using nonviolent and violent delinquency and from adolescence to young adulthood. Males (n = 3049) Females (n = 3195) Class 1 low Class 2 desister Class 3 chronic Class 4 decliner Class 1 low Class 2 desister Class 3 decliner Prevalencea 50.06% 24.93% 13.28% 11.73% 59.12% 29.46% 11.42% Group sizeb 1592 720 410 314 2075 807 304 Item Response Conditional item response probabilityc Wave 1 nonviolent delinquency Never 0.89 0.20 0.69 0.04 0.92 0.53 0.15 Mild 0.11 0.48 0.31 0.26 0.08 0.39 0.33 Moderate/serious 0.00 0.32 0.00 0.70 0.00 0.08 0.52 Wave 1 violent delinquency Never 0.84 0.54 0.37 0.11 0.94 0.42 0.46 Mild 0.12 0.24 0.30 0.20 0.06 0.36 0.23 Moderate/serious 0.03 0.22 0.33 0.69 0.00 0.22 0.31 Wave 2 nonviolent delinquency Never 0.92 0.47 0.57 0.19 0.94 0.69 0.09 Mild 0.08 0.35 0.29 0.23 0.05 0.31 0.30 Moderate/Serious 0.00 0.18 0.14 0.58 0.01 0.00 0.61 Wave 2 violent delinquency Never 0.95 0.92 0.01 0.13 0.96 0.63 0.51 Mild 0.05 0.08 0.52 0.25 0.04 0.26 0.24 Moderate/serious 0.00 0.00 0.47 0.62 0.00 0.11 0.25 Wave 3 nonviolent delinquency Never 0.82 0.52 0.76 0.50 0.92 0.85 0.73 Mild 0.13 0.25 0.15 0.20 0.07 0.12 0.15 Moderate/serious 0.05 0.23 0.09 0.30 0.01 0.03 0.12 Wave 3 violent delinquency Never 0.89 0.68 0.63 0.54 0.97 0.91 0.88 Mild 0.06 0.20 0.22 0.15 0.03 0.07 0.07 Moderate/serious 0.05 0.12 0.15 0.31 0.00 0.02 0.05 a Estimated proportion of a specific class in the population. For example, about 25% of males in the population belong to desister. b Calculated by assigning each individual to the class with the highest class membership probability. Thirteen males and 9 females could not be classified into any class because they have equal probabilities of belonging to more than one specific class. c The probability of an average hypothetical individual who belongs to a specific class endorsing different levels of each item. For example, on average, males in low had a probability of 0.84 responding “Never” for wave 1 violent delinquency. To facilitate interpretation, item response probabilities > 0.65 were regarded as clearly differentiating between levels (bolded). Item response probabilities > 0.45 and <0.65 were regarded as moderately differentiating (italicized and bolded). Table options Table 3. Means (standard deviations) of nonviolent and violent delinquency and covariates by gender and class. Males Females All males Class 1 low Class 2 desister Class 3 chronic Class 4 decliner All females Class 1 low Class 2 desister Class 3 decliner Wave 1 nonviolent delinquency 0.24 (0.43) 0.02 (0.07) 0.49 (0.45) 0.08 (0.13) 0.97 (0.62) 0.14 (0.30) 0.02 (0.07) 0.20 (0.26) 0.75 (0.53) Wave 1 violent delinquency 0.26 (0.46) 0.06 (0.17) 0.31 (0.46) 0.45 (0.46) 0.95 (0.68) 0.15 (0.32) 0.02 (0.08) 0.38 (0.37) 0.43 (0.59) Wave 2 nonviolent delinquency 0.19 (0.39) 0.02 (0.06) 0.27 (0.36) 0.19 (0.34) 0.83 (0.69) 0.11 (0.28) 0.02 (0.10) 0.11 (0.14) 0.77 (0.47) Wave 2 violent delinquency 0.18 (0.39) 0.01 (0.07) 0.01 (0.06) 0.59 (0.38) 0.84 (0.61) 0.10 (0.26) 0.01 (0.06) 0.23 (0.32) 0.35 (0.52) Wave 3 nonviolent delinquency 0.16 (0.32) 0.07 (0.18) 0.27 (0.40) 0.12 (0.33) 0.36 (0.47) 0.05 (0.18) 0.03 (0.11) 0.07 (0.20) 0.17 (0.38) Wave 3 violent delinquency 0.15 (0.34) 0.06 (0.21) 0.18 (0.33) 0.24 (0.44) 0.39 (0.55) 0.03 (0.11) 0.01 (0.06) 0.05 (0.15) 0.07 (0.22) Neighborhood disadvantage 0.15 (0.11) 0.14 (0.10) 0.10 (0.07) 0.19 (0.12) 0.15 (0.11) 0.15 (0.11) 0.15 (0.11) 0.21 (0.14) 0.11 (0.08) Family support 4.46 (0.53) 4.54 (0.47) 4.40 (0.51) 4.56 (0.44) 4.21 (0.67) 4.29 (0.68) 4.41 (0.59) 4.25 (0.64) 3.80 (0.81) Note. To further clarify the meaning of different classes, respondents were assigned to classes based on their highest class membership probability. However, cautions have to be made because class membership uncertainty disappeared when respondents were assigned to one specific class (rather than having a membership probability for each class) (see Collins & Lanza, 2009). Therefore, means in each class merely served for the ease of class labeling and interpretation. Table options Approximately one-third of females belonged to the second class—desister. In wave 1 desister had somewhat higher chances of reporting “Never” levels of nonviolent and violent delinquency (p = 0.53 and 0.42, respectively) than other levels. Probabilities of “Never” in wave 2 increased to 0.69 and 0.63, respectively, and approached total desistence by young adulthood, with 0.85 and 0.91 probabilities of “Never” by wave 3. As a group, desister females reported levels of antisocial behavior that were above the grand average of all females, but gradually desisted to close to the overall average in young adulthood, although still higher than the low group. The third class, decliner, had a prevalence of 11%. Female decliners tended to report “Moderate/Serious” levels of nonviolent delinquency during adolescence (p = 0.52 and 0.61, respectively), but were more likely to report “Never” in young adulthood (p = 0.73). With regard to violent delinquency, although females tended to report “Never” through three waves, their probabilities of “Never” were much higher in young adulthood (p = 0.88) than in adolescence (p = 0.46 and 0.51, respectively), and much lower than that of low. Means indicated that decliner females actually reported the most antisocial behavior among all classes through three waves, and consistently reported approximately twice the level of nonviolent delinquency as violent delinquency. Despite a clear reduction in antisocial behaviors by young adulthood, they failed to reach the same low levels of antisocial behavior as desister females. Male classes Based on BIC, males were best described by a 4-class solution (AIC = 914.3, BIC = 1281.4, entropy = 0.69) compared to a 3-class model (AIC = 1079.7, BIC = 1308.5, entropy = 0.72) and a 5-class model (AIC = 911.2, BIC = 1296.6, entropy = 0.71). As shown in the left half of Table 2, the first class, low, appeared similar to its female counterpart in reporting no engagement in antisocial behavior from adolescence to young adulthood, with high probabilities (p > 0.82). Their means were the least among all male classes, substantially lower than males' average and comparable to females'. About a quarter of males belonged to the second class—desister. These respondents tended to report “Mild” (e.g., p = 0.48 for nonviolent delinquency) in wave 1, but declined to the point that “Never” was their most likely response in subsequent waves. The one exception to the pattern of declining across waves was the lower than expected wave 2 violent delinquency score. This score may have been due to uncertainty in class membership (see the note on Table 3 for a more detailed explanation). Although their means were higher than for the corresponding female class, the overall pattern of male desister is otherwise similar to the pattern for female desister. Class means indicated a moderate level of antisocial behavior compared to other male classes. About 13% of the males belonged to the third class—chronic, which showed a quite distinct pattern from all other classes. Members of this group tended to respond “Never” for both nonviolent and violent delinquency in young adulthood (p = 0.76 and 0.63, respectively), “Never” for nonviolent delinquency (p = 0.69 and 0.57, respectively) in adolescence, but “Mild” or “Moderate/Serious” for violent delinquency (p = 0.52 and 0.47 in 2nd wave). An examination of their means showed that they consistently reported mild to moderate levels of antisocial behavior from adolescence to young adulthood (the exception being a low mean for 1st-wave nonviolent delinquency, which again may be due to class membership uncertainty) without any clear pattern of desistence. A distinguishing aspect of their antisocial behavior was a much higher rate of violent delinquency than the overall male average—twice as high as their nonviolent delinquency rate, which was similar to the full sample mean across waves. The last male class, decliner, had a prevalence rate of 12%. Male decliners tended to report a “Moderate/Serious” level of nonviolent delinquency (p = 0.70 and 0.58, respectively) and violent delinquency (p = 0.69 and 0.62, respectively) in adolescence but “Never” in young adulthood (p = 0.50 and 0.54, respectively). They showed a pattern of desistence similar to that for desister males but failed to reach the same low level of antisocial behavior as desister males in young adulthood. Because they began with such high levels of antisocial behavior and did not entirely desist in young adulthood, this group reported the most total antisocial behavior across the three waves. Unlike decliner females, decliner males reported similar levels of nonviolent and violent delinquency within each wave. Predicting trajectory membership Among males, those from more disadvantaged neighborhoods were less likely, compared to low, to be in the desister class (0.01 OR) but more likely to be in the chronic class (12.49 OR) (see Table 4). Compared to being in the desister class, they were much more likely to be in the chronic or decliner class (2090.99 and 384.29 OR). They were less likely to be in the decliner class relative to chronic (0.18 OR). Males with more family support were less likely to be in the desister or decliner class (0.63 and 0.35 OR) relative to being in the low class. Those with more family support were less likely to be in the decliner class relative to being in the desister (0.56 OR) or chronic class (0.38 OR). Table 4. Multinomial logistic regression predicting male class membership with adolescent neighborhood disadvantage and family support. Variables Males (n = 2982) Desister Chronic Decliner B a OR (95% CI) B a OR (95% CI) B b OR (95% CI) B a OR (95% CI) B b OR (95% CI) B c OR (95% CI) Neighborhood disadvantage −5.14 0.01 (0.00, 0.07) 2.53 12.49 (3.13, 49.91) 7.65 2090.99 (129.64, 33,726.00) 0.83 2.30 (0.66, 7.98) 5.95 384.29 (24.99, 5909.80) −1.69 0.18 (0.04, 0.85) Family support −0.47 0.63 (0.45, 0.87) −0.09 0.92 (0.63,1.32) 0.38 1.47 (0.93, 2.31) −1.04 0.35 (0.28, 0.44) −0.58 0.56 (0.40, 0.80) −0.96 0.38 (0.26, 0.55) Note. OR = odds ratio; CI = confidence interval. All covariate tests were significant at p < 0.001. Sixty-seven males were excluded because of missing values in covariates. Inclusion of the two covariates helped to explain 2.4% more error in the male model identification in Table 2. McFadden's pseudo-R2 compared to an intercept-only model is 0.6%. a The low class served as the reference group. b The desister class served as the reference group. c The chronic class served as the reference group. Table options Females from more disadvantaged neighborhoods were more likely to be in the desister class but less likely to be in the decliner class (40.20 and 0.04 OR) relative to low (see Table 5). However, a greater level of neighborhood disadvantage predicted a lower likelihood of being in the decliner compared to the desister class (0.00 OR). Females with more family support were less likely to be in the desister or decliner class relative to the low class (0.65 and 0.31 OR). Similar to males, females with more family support were also less likely to be in the decliner class compared to being in the desister class (0.50 OR). Table 5. Multinomial logistic regression predicting female class membership with adolescent neighborhood disadvantage and family support. Variables Females (n = 3134) Desister Decliner B a OR (95% CI) B a OR (95% CI) B b OR (95% CI) Neighborhood disadvantage 3.69 40.20 (12.40, 130.33) −3.33 0.04 (0.00, 0.33) −6.89 0.00 (0.00, 0.01) Family support −0.44 0.65 (0.51, 0.82) −1.16 0.31 (0.26, 0.38) −0.69 0.50 (0.38, 0.67) Note. OR = odds ratio; CI = confidence interval. All covariate tests were significant at p < 0.001. Sixty-one females were excluded because of missing values in covariates. Inclusion of the two covariates helped to explain 3.1% more error in the female model identification in Table 2. McFadden's pseudo-R2 compared to an intercept-only model is 1.3%. a The low class served as the reference group. b The desister class served as the reference group.