Most multi‑problem young adults (18–27 years old) have been exposed to childhood maltreatment and/or have been involved in juvenile delinquency and, therefore, could have had Child Protection Service (CPS) interference during childhood. The extent to which their childhood problems persist and evolve into young adult‑ hood may differ substantially among cases. This might indicate heterogeneous profiles of CPS risk factors. These pro‑ files may identify combinations of closely interrelated childhood problems which may warrant specific approaches for problem recognition and intervention in clinical practice. The aim of this study was to retrospectively identify distinct statistical classes based on CPS data of multi‑problem young adults in The Netherlands and to explore whether these classes were related to current psychological dysfunctioning and delinquent behaviour. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
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Full text op te vragen bij auteurs via link. Adult violent delinquency harms individuals, their families and society at large. Knowledge about childhood predictors of adult delinquency could be helpful in defining at-risk children who will develop into violent adults. This topic is rarely investigated in females. We investigated which behavioural problems in childhood predicted long-term disruptive development in a sample of both males and females. In 1983, behaviour problems were assessed in a community sample of 2076 children; 24 years later, 1335 of these children, who are now adults, reported on their violent delinquency. Girls with conduct problems were at risk of long-term disruptive development. We recommend that health professionals be alert regarding girls with conduct problems, because early identification and treatment of high-risk girls might reduce delinquency in adult life.
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The transition from adolescence to adulthood also has been described as a window of opportunity or vulnerability when developmental and contextual changes converge to support positive turnarounds and redirections (Masten, Long, Kuo, McCormick, & Desjardins, 2009; Masten, Obradović, & Burt, 2006). The transition years also are a criminological crossroads, as major changes in criminal careers often occur at these ages as well. For some who began their criminal careers during adolescence, offending continues and escalates; for others involvement in crime wanes; and yet others only begin serious involvement in crime at these ages. There are distinctive patterns of offending that emerge during the transition from adolescence to adulthood. One shows a rise of offending in adolescence and the persistence of high crime rates into adulthood; a second reflects the overall age-crime curve pattern of increasing offending in adolescence followed by decreases during the transition years; and the third group shows a late onset of offending relative to the age-crime curve. Developmental theories of offending ought to be able to explain these markedly different trajectories
