Criminal Activity of Adjudicated Youth Long-term Follow-up of Criminal Activity with Adjudicated Youth in Ontario

This article examines the criminal trajectories and childhood and adolescent risk factors of trajectory group membership in a sample of 386 adjudicated youth in Ontario. Participants had served a sentence at one of two open custody facilities in Toronto, over an 11-year period, between 1986 and 1997. Criminal offending, based on official records, was tracked for 16.4 years, on average (SD = 4.1, range = 9.8 – 28.7 years), from late childhood/early adolescence into their early 30s. Childhood and adolescent risk and protective factors reflecting individual, family, peer, and school domains were extracted from client files. Seven trajectories fit the sample. Results of the multinomial regression analyses indicated that early antisocial behaviour and poor academic achievement in childhood and poor family relations, involvement in alternative care, and poor academic achievement in adolescence differentiated the low risk desisters from the moderate and high rate offence trajectories. Implications for early intervention and prevention programs and further research are discussed.