Delinquent behaviours are most common in adolescence, and some young people show persistent crime involvement until adulthood. A decent number of studies have investigated a wide variety of factors trying to explain what contributes to young people’s first and repeated criminal conduct.
On the one hand, situational factors enhance a juvenile’s risk of committing criminal behaviours.
Yet, research has claimed that juvenile crime may be partly explainable by psychosocial burden. This includes adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and maladaptive personality development.
A recent study, “Adverse Childhood Experiences, Personality, and Crime:
Distinct Associations among a High-Risk Sample of Institutionalized Youth” - DOI: 10.3390/ijerph19031227 tried to explain the associations among ACEs, youth personality, and juvenile crime involvement. among delinquent juveniles.
The authors examined a heterogeneous high-risk sample of 342 adolescents aged between 12 and 18 years, living in child welfare or juvenile justice institutions regarding cumulative ACEs, psychopathic traits, temperament, and clinical personality disorder ratings, and criminal involvement before and up to 10 years after assessment.
They “found considerable rates of ACEs, although cumulative ACEs did not predict future crime. Latent Profile Analysis based on dimensional measures of psychopathy, temperament, and personality disorders derived six distinct personality profiles, which were differently related to ACEs, personality disturbances, clinical psychopathology, and future delinquency. A socially difficult personality profile was associated with increased risk of future crime, whereas avoidant personality traits appeared protective. Findings indicate that the role of ACEs in the prediction of juvenile delinquency is still not sufficiently clear and that relying on single personality traits alone is insufficient in the explanation of juvenile crime.”
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