The Development of Deviant and Delinquent Behavior of Adolescents: Applications of Latent Class Growth Curves and Growth Mixture Models

The article presents applications of different growth mixture models considering unobserved heterogeneity within the framework of Mplus (Muthén and Muthén, 2001, 2004). Latent class growth mixture models are discussed under special consideration of count variables which can be incorporated into the mixture models via the Poisson and the zero-inflated Poisson model. Four-wave panel data from a German criminological youth study (Boers et al., 2002) is used for the model analyses. Three classes can be obtained from the data: Adolescents with almost no deviant and delinquent activities, a medium proportion of adolescents with a low increase of delinquency and a small number with a larger growth starting on a higher level. The best model fits are obtained with the zero-inflated Poisson model. Linear growth specifications are almost sufficient. The conditional application of the mixture models includes gender and educational level of the schools as time-independent predictors which are able to explain a large proportion of the latent class distribution. The stepwise procedure from latent class growth analysis to growth mixture modeling is feasible for longitudinal analyses where individual growth trajectories are heterogenous even when the dependent variable under study cannot be treated as a continuous