Exploring Long-Term and Short-Term Risk Factors for Serious Delinquency

Abstract

Scholars in the field of developmental criminology traditionally assign a major role to long-term risk factors such as inadequate parental supervision or poor school performance. Only recently has attention been paid to the effects of situational risk factors such as the presence of co-offenders and being drunk. Hardly any empirical research, however, integrates both long-term and short-term risk factors. We formulated hypotheses derived from the Integrated Cognitive Antisocial Potential theory (Farrington 2005) with regard to long-term and short-term risk factors for serious delinquency, and tested these hypotheses using data from the WODC Youth Delinquency Survey (data sweep 2005) of 292 juvenile delinquents. The findings indicate that serious delinquency is related not only to (an accumulation of) long-term risk factors, but also to situational factors, such as lack of tangible guardians and having used substances (alcohol or drugs) prior to the offence.