Patterns of Korean Adolescents Delinquent Behaviors: A Latent Class Analysis

Abstract

The present study identified distinct classes of delinquent adolescents as they relate to risk or protective factors at individual and contextual level. Latent class analysis was employed to examine the heterogeneity of delinquent adolescents by using a nationally representative sample of 1,979 1st year high school students from the 2016 Korean Children and Youth Panel Survey(KCYPS). The results show as follows. Three classes of delinquent adolescents were identified: 'low-level delinquency group'(91%), 'status offenses group'(4.5%) and 'cyber delinquency group'(4.5%). Additionally, the result of multinomial regression employed to examine the relations between risk or protective factors and latent delinquent classes showed that group membership was found to be associated differentially with adolescents' individual and contextual factors. In particular, aggression had a great impact on status offenses group, whereas depression was closely related with cyber delinquency group. Results from the current study imply that because delinquent adolescents present with different risk profiles, schools or communities should meet different service needs for differential prevention and intervention responses.