Childhood Psychopathology Predicts Adolescence-Onset Offending: A Longitudinal Study

Moffitt, Caspi, Harrington, and Milne (2002) found in a follow-up study that many of the supposedly adolescence-limited offenders had committed offenses past adolescence. This finding raises the question of whether adulthood starts later or whether there are two distinct delinquency types, adolescence limited and adolescence onset, each with its own etiology. The present study tested whether the adolescence-onset group could be predicted by childhood psychopathology, as compared to the adolescence-limited and no-offender groups. In sum, 355 boys and girls were included, who reported on their emotional and behavioral problems when they were 11 to 13 years old and on their self-reported criminal behavior 8 to 13 years later. The findings lend support tothe hypothesis that adolescence-onset offenders can be distinguished from adolescence-limited offenders.

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