Juvenile delinquency risk factors: Individual, social, opportunity or all of these together?

BOBBIO, ANTONELLA; ARBACH, KARIN; REDONDO ILLESCAS, SANTIAGO

International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice

Elsevier

Lugar: Ámsterdam; Año: 2020

1756-0616

There is extensive literature on risk factors leading to criminal behavior. However, most of thesestudies have been conducted in European and Anglo-Saxon countries, and there are few analogousstudies in Latin America. Our main aim was to analyze whether the criminal risk level estimatedfrom the interaction between antisocial motivation and criminal opportunities helps to differentiatebetween adolescents with and without delinquent behavior (as proposed in the Triple Risk forDelinquency Model). We measured both official and self-reported antisocial behavior in a sampleof 211 young people in Argentina. The results show a significant association between delinquencyand personal, social and opportunity risk factors. Also, it was possible to differentiate betweenadolescents with and without official and self-reported antisocial behavior with high sensitivityand specificity, based on the estimation of criminal risk levels. We discuss the relevance and implicationsof these findings within the particular context of this study.