“Man Up”: Sex‐Differentiated Pathways of Juvenile Delinquency through Trauma, Borderline Traits & Offense Patterns

Abstract

Juvenile delinquency presents a significant fiscal and moral cost to society; given the ability for early intervention and changing offending trajectories, it is essential to understand potential risk factors and offending patterns in justice‐involved youth. The current study examined features of 193 male and 96 female profiles on the Personality Assessment Inventory – Adolescent (PAI‐A) in conjunction with offending patterns to determine sex differences in offending. Significant sex effects on status offending were found for borderline and trauma symptoms. Contrary to hypothesized findings, higher borderline and trauma symptoms predicted more status offending for males, but not for females. Post‐hoc analyses postulate these findings showing males with higher frequency of status offending to also have higher rates of internalizing problems, as determined by PAI‐A scores. Results of this study can be implicated in better treatment of males in particular who have higher status offending, and help to broaden our knowledge of sex differences in juvenile offending.

Wellness and Delinquency at the Intersection of Gender and Race

“…Furthermore, these results suggest that intervention programing should also include appropriate wellness assessments in their intake process as youth involved in delinquency are likely to have issues with wellness that need to be addressed. Additionally, the significant inverse relationship of age with the likelihood of delinquency for five of the six groups suggests the need for early prevention and intervention, of course in line with prior research (Cohen et al, 2010;Mann & Reynolds, 2006;McGill & Stefurak, 2021).…”

“…Moreover, different dimensions of wellness may predict different types of offending and this relationship could certainly be shaped by gender/race. Indeed, prior research has found that different types of trauma predict different types of delinquent offending (McGill & Stefurak, 2021) and physical health moderates the relationship between strain and different types of delinquent offending (Hancock, 2021).…”