Societal belongingness -- feelings of being a connected, an affiliated, and a respected member of the larger society -- may contribute to the understanding of adolescent development both as a person and a member of society in a multicultural context. The current study examined the psychometric properties and measurement invariance of the…

The present study discusses the deformation of personality in delinquent behavior and how it can be corrected. [This article was translated by Susan Welsh.]

Cognition plays a major role in the development of antisocial behavior. The aim of this study was to extend the current state of research regarding the mechanisms of negative peer influence in adolescence by testing whether aggregated classroom attitudes (injunctive norms) predict individual attitudes toward antisocial behavior and vice versa. For…

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…

Underage drinking is among the most serious of public health problems facing adolescents in the United States. Recent concerns have centered on young women, reflected in media reports and arrest statistics on their increasing problematic alcohol use. This study rigorously examined whether girls' alcohol use rose by applying time series methods to…

Juvenile delinquency in the United States has been a persistent concern for decades. Consequently, because more juveniles have been referred to juvenile court and the arrest rate of preteen offenders has increased to almost three times that of older youth, the persistent and often controversial issue of the capacity of juvenile offenders to waive…

This study examined parenting variables as protective factors to reduce the influence of school and peer risk factors on adolescents' aggression. Five waves of data spanning 3 years were collected from 5,581 students at 37 schools who began the 6th grade in 2001 or 2002. Class-level and perceived school norms supporting aggression, delinquent peer…

The socialization mechanisms of young people in Russia are greatly affected by the prevalence of youth subcultures, both socially positive ones and marginal subcultures that include antisocial ones. In this paper, the author focuses on a phenomenon in the youth community that is quite prevalent in the provinces of Russia, the "gopniki"…

This study examines the ways in which playwriting and performance provide tools for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated girls to prepare for their lives beyond detention centers and probation. In a three-year multi-sited ethnography journeying through regional youth detention centers (RYDCs), a multi-service center serving formerly incarcerated…

A substantial amount of research has suggested that adolescents' attitudes and behaviors are influenced by peers; however, little is known regarding adolescents' individual variability, or susceptibility, to peer influence. In this study, a performance-based index from an experimental paradigm was used to directly measure adolescents'…

This study explores community-level risk and protective factors for youth violence in Cite Soleil, Port-au-Prince's most violent slum. The youth of Cite Soleil have often been mobilized to violence by powerful actors as tools for achieving political or financial gain. Drawing on a formal survey (N=1,575) and ethnographic data collected between…

In the past decade, there has been a growing convergence between schools and legal systems. The school to prison pipeline refers to this growing pattern of tracking students out of educational institutions, primarily via "zero tolerance" policies, and, directly and/or indirectly, into the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems. The school to…

Juvenile sex offenders (JSOs) often appear unmotivated to change, which thus necessitates a therapeutic approach that matches "resistant" client characteristics. In this article, the authors review common traits of JSOs, introduce motivational counseling as an effective treatment modality, and offer a case illustration. (Contains 1 table and 1…

This study investigated attitudes toward juvenile sex offenders and factors influencing those attitudes. Additionally, the influences of perpetrator characteristics such as age, gender, and ethnicity on societal attitudes towards intervention requirements were also investigated. Overall, attitudes toward juvenile sex offenders and their treatment…

This study recruited 559 youths from detention centers (mean age was 15.4 years; 50.1% of detainees were girls) to investigate pathways that link witnessing community violence in the 12 months before detainment to drug and sexual risk behaviors in the two months preceding detainment. Through the use of audio-computer-assisted technology, data were…