TWO ROUTES TO DELINQUENCY: DIFFERENCES BETWEEN EARLY AND LATE STARTERS IN THE IMPACT OF PARENTING AND DEVIANT PEERS*

This paper tests hypotheses concerning differences in the determinants of involvement with the criminal justice system for adolescents who show early versus late onset of delinquency. Four waves of data collected on 177 adolescent boys living in small towns in the midwest were used to test the hypotheses. For late starters, quality of parenting predicted affiliation with deviant peers, which was associated in turn with criminal justice system involvement. Oppositional/defiant behavior was unrelated both to affiliation with deviant peers and to involvement with the criminal justice system. For early starters, on the other hand, quality of parenting predicted oppositional/defiant behavior. This behavior pattern predicted affiliation with deviant peers, which in turn predicted criminal justice system involvement. Further, we found evidence of an interaction effect for early starters: criminal justice system involvement was highest for those youths who both were oppositional/defiant and had deviant friends. Overall the findings support the idea of different routes to criminal behavior and arrest for early versus late starters.     

COERCIVE AND NONCOERCIVE ABORTION DETERRENCE POLICIES: A Comparative State Analysis

The Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade ( 1973) limited the authority of states to prohibit abortions during the first two trimesters of pregnancy. Although they can no longer prohibit abortions, state legislatures have adopted a variety of coercive and noncoercive policies that might operate to alter the utilities associated with having or providing abortions. This article analyzes the relative impacts of these policies on two measures of abortion behavior: (1) state abortion rates in 1976 and (2) trends in states' abortion rates from 1973 to 1976. Multiple regression analysis reveals that neither coercive nor noncoercive policies are strongly related to these aggregate measures of abortion behavior .     

A TEST OF LATENT TRAIT VERSUS LIFECOURSE PERSPECTIVES ON THE STABILITY OF ADOLESCENT ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR*

Latent trait and life-course theories provide contrasting interpretations of the well-established finding that childhood antisocial behavior often precedes adolescent conduct problems and adult crime. Longitudinal data from 179 boys and their parents were used to test hypotheses derived from the two theoretical perspectives. The findings largely supported the life-course view. Oppositional behavior during late childhood predicted reductions in quality of parenting and school commitment and increased affiliation with deviant peers. These changes, in turn, predicted conduct problems during early adolescence. Although there was a moderately strong bivariate correlation between childhood antisocial behavior and adolescent conduct problems, there was no longer an association between these constructs when the effects of parenting, school, and peers were taken into account. Further, there was evidence that improved parenting, increased school commitment, or reduced affiliation with deviant peers lowered the probability that boys who were oppositional during childhood would graduate to delinquency and drug use during adolescence. Together, these findings suggest that the correlation between childhood and adolescent deviant behavior reflects a developmental process rather than a latent antisocial trait.