Trajectories of Violent Offending and Risk Status Across Adolescence and Early Adulthood

This study proposes to identify risk factors that influence violent offending in adolescents and young adults, and to describe developmental trajectories of offending as well as risk status. Subjects will be from a nationally representative sample of 1,599 youths who participated in Waves I to VII of the National Youth Survey (NYS). Youth ages across the seven waves ranged from 11 to 29. Data sets from Waves I to VII will be merged, and measures of violent offending and risk status will be constructed. Descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations of risk variables will be computed. A SAS procedure will be used to fit models that identify distinct developmental trajectories of violent offending over time, that identify distinct trajectories of risk level over time, and that identify dual trajectories of both risk and offending.