The Impact of Life Domains on Developmental Trajectories of Peer Delinquency among Korean Adolescents: A Partial Test of Agnew’s General Theory of Crime and Delinquency with a Group-Based Trajectory Modeling Approach

Abstract

Agnew introduced a new integrated theory; the General Theory of Crime and Delinquency, in which he attempted to corral the most influential predictors of criminal behavior into more parsimonious propositions of multiple life domains—self, family, peer, school, and work—as well as constraints against crime and motivations for it. This study presents a partial test of the theory using longitudinal data of 2,351 Korean adolescents. A group-based modeling approach (latent class growth analysis) was run to examine direct effects of life domains on peer delinquency as well as mediating effects of constraints and motivation on their relationships. The study identified three subgroups: early onset/decreasing (3.2%), moderate (12.4%), and low/none (84.4%). The findings revealed that the self and peer domains exhibited a positive impact on the early onset/decreasing trajectory group compared to the low/none group with the constraint exhibiting a negative impact. The moderate trajectory group demonstrated that the self-domain was significant but was not rendered insignificant after controlling for constraints and motivations. The study provided moderate support for life domains within Agnew’s new theory for peer delinquency in nonwestern countries.

Life Domains, Constraints, Motivations, and Intimate Partner Violence: Assessing the Generality of Agnew’s General Theory of Crime and Delinquency

“…Agnew’s integrated theory has been applied to examine delinquency (Cho & Lacey, 2021; Muftić et al, 2014; Roh et al, 2022; Roh & Marshall, 2018; Zhang et al, 2012), recidivism (Ngo et al, 2011), substance use (Muftić et al, 2014; Ngo & Paternoster, 2014), academic dishonesty (Cochran, 2017), cyberbullying (Choi & Kruis, 2019; Kabiri et al, 2020), and IPV (Ngo et al, 2022) using samples of both adults and juveniles. The theory has also been tested in studies involving international samples (Cho & Lacey, 2021; Choi & Kruis, 2019; Kabiri et al, 2020; Muftić et al, 2014; Roh et al, 2022; Roh & Marshall, 2018), and with longitudinal data (Cho & Lacey, 2021; Choi & Kruis, 2019; Roh et al, 2022; Zhang et al, 2012). The lagged (Grubb & Posick, 2018; Ngo & Paternoster, 2014) and interaction effects of the life domains (Choi & Kruis, 2019; Kabiri et al, 2020; Muftić et al, 2014; Roh et al, 2022), and mediating effects of constraint and motivation factors (Cochran, 2017; Zhang et al, 2012) as theorized by Agnew have also been examined.…”

Deviant Identity and Offending: A Longitudinal Study of South Korean Youths

“…Studies using Korean student data classified students into three trajectories in the examination of victimization, delinquent peer association, peer delinquency, and bullying, respectively. Given the different foci of the classifications across these studies, the descriptions of three trajectory groups that emerged in each varies substantially; they are essentially non-comparable (Bax & Hlasny, 2019; Cho, 2021; Cho & Lacey, 2021; Cho, Lacey, & Kim, 2021). To our best knowledge, only one previous study using Korean student data examined trajectories of youth delinquency, with the authors separating the trajactories of male and female students for violent versus nonviolent delinquency.…”