572094

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CADXXX10.1177/0011128715572094Crime & DelinquencyMakarios et al.

Article
Crime & Delinquency
1­–25
Adolescent Criminal © The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/0011128715572094
Heterogeneity, cad.sagepub.com

and Cumulative
Disadvantage: Untangling
the Relationship Between
Adolescent Delinquency
and Negative Outcomes
in Emerging Adulthood

Matthew Makarios,1 Francis T. Cullen,2 and

Alex R. Piquero3

Abstract
Developmentalists suggest that adolescent criminal involvement encourages
later life failure in the social domains of education, welfare, and risky sexual
activities. Although prior research supports a link between crime and later
life failure, relatively little research has sought to explain why this relationship
exists. This research attempts to understand why crime leads to negative
social outcomes by testing hypotheses derived from the perspectives of
population heterogeneity and cumulative disadvantage. Using data from the
National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, the results reveal that net of
control variables and measures of population heterogeneity, adolescent

1University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, USA

2University of Cincinnati, OH, USA
3University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, USA

Corresponding Author:
Matthew Makarios, Universtiy of Northern Iowa, Department of Sociology, Anthropology,
and Criminology, Bartlett Hall 1126 Cedar Falls, IA 50614-0513, USA.
Email: matthew.makarios@uni.edu
2 Crime & Delinquency 

criminal behavior consistently predicts school failure, being on welfare, and

risky sexual activities. The findings also suggest that after controlling for
delinquency, adolescent arrest negatively affects these factors. Furthermore,
stable criminal traits and adolescent delinquency interact when predicting
measures of poor social adjustment in early adulthood.

Keywords
adolsecent delinquency, later life outcomes

The discipline of criminology has historically concentrated its attention on

explaining crime, especially adolescent delinquency. As a result, criminal
behavior has been conceptualized primarily as a dependent variable. Some
life-course perspectives, however, also devote specific attention to the idea
that adolescent delinquency is best understood within the broader context of
an individual’s personal and social development and, therefore, should be
viewed as one of a variety of social events or life domains (see Elder, 1985;
Thornberry, 1987). Although the attention paid to explaining crime among
criminologists is certainly warranted, an emerging body of research suggests
that it is also important to understand the negative impact that adolescent
delinquency can have on social outcomes in emerging adulthood (see Arnett,
2000; Krohn, Lizotte, & Perez, 1997; Lopes, Krohn, Lizotte, Schmidtt,
Vasquez, & Bernburg, 2012; Odgers et al., 2008; Piquero, Farrington, Nagin,
& Moffitt, 2010).
Life-course theories that focus on the concept of cumulative disadvan-
tage propose that antisocial behavior can have negative effects on other
social domains (for a thorough discussion of this concept, see Merton,
1988; Sampson & Laub, 1997). For example, Caspi and Moffitt (1995)
contend that although stable individual traits encourage antisocial behav-
ior throughout the life course, antisocial behavior early in life also works
to “knife off” future prosocial opportunities. As a result, early antisocial
behavior, in conjunction with stable traits that encourage criminal behav-
ior, work to cement individuals into a long-term trajectory of offending
(see also Sampson & Laub, 1993). Conversely, the perspective of popula-
tion heterogeneity argues that crime has no independent effect on life out-
comes; rather, an underlying criminal trait determines both involvement in
crime and poor social outcomes (see Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990; Wilson
& Herrnstein, 1985).
Studies that examine the impact of delinquent behavior on later life outcomes
provide an important opportunity for understanding the role that adolescent
Makarios et al. 3

delinquency plays in encouraging life failure in emerging adulthood. Although

this growing field has shown support for the hypothesis that criminal behavior is
negatively related to healthy development in other domains, relatively little
research has sought to examine whether this relationship is due to population
heterogeneity or state dependence (for an exception, see Piquero et al., 2010).
That is, most research to date that has addressed this issue has focused on the
direct relationship between crime and later life failure. In doing so, very few
studies have attempted to understand the role that measures of population het-
erogeneity and cumulative disadvantage play in the relationship between crime
and later life failure.
To address this gap, the current research examines the relationships
between adolescent delinquency, a measure of state dependence (i.e., arrest),
two measures of population heterogeneity (i.e., vocational aptitude and anti-
social personality traits), and social maldevelopment in the domains of edu-
cation, welfare, and sexual activity using the National Longitudinal Survey
of Youth, 1997. This research also includes an examination of the moderating
effects that measures of population heterogeneity have on the relationship
between crime and later life failure. Finally, this research examines the extent
to which adolescent arrest mediates the relationship between adolescent
delinquency and later life failure in emerging adulthood.

Crime and Later Life Failure: Theoretical Issues

The life-course perspective focuses on the causes and consequences of
social events that are linked to trajectories of broader significance (Elder,
1985). In this context, criminal behavior can be conceptualized as an inde-
pendent variable that potentially has negative influences on later life failure
(see Krohn et al., 1997). Life-course perspectives propose that criminal
involvement has an adverse impact on other life domains, thus interfering
with youngsters’ social development. For example, Thornberry’s (1987, see
also Thornberry & Krohn, 2005) interactional theory argues that social
development is best understood when criminal involvement is seen as hav-
ing both causes and effects. In brief, interactional theory contends that
criminal involvement interacts with a variety of other social domains (such
as peer associations, social bonds, and learning environments) to place
individuals on trajectories of general social development. This suggests
that criminal behavior has reciprocal effects with traditional causes of
crime, (Thornberry, Lizotte, Krohn, Farnworth, & Jang, 1991, 1994;
Thornberry, Lizotte, Krohn, Smith, & Porter, 2003) and also alters long-
term developmental trajectories because it encourages maldevelopment in
other social domains, such as school success and negative sexual behavior
4 Crime & Delinquency 

(Aalsma, Tong, Wiehe, & Tu, 2010; Cairns & Cairns, 1994; Fontaine et al.,
2008; Krohn et al., 1997).
Using data from the Rochester Youth Development Study, Krohn et al.
(1997) examined the impact of drug use in early adolescence on “precocious
transitions” in early adulthood. They argued that adolescent drug use can have
a detrimental impact on developmental trajectories by encouraging negative
life events that have long-lasting, negative effects on later life failure. These
authors found that adolescent drug use increased the odds of negative transi-
tions in emerging adulthood such as teen parenthood, pregnancy, dropping out
of school, and the failure to transition to independent living. This research pro-
vides an important first step in understanding how drug use can alter develop-
mental trajectories during precocious transitions in emerging adulthood.
Furthermore, a growing body of research reports findings consistent with
Krohn et al. (1997). That is, research examining the direct relationship between
crime and later life outcomes has found that crime encourages failure in other
social domains later in life (Lopes et al., 2012; Piquero et al., 2010). For exam-
ple, Lopes et al.’s (2012) recent examination of the negative impacts of adoles-
cent arrests found that these negative effects extend into adulthood. Specifically,
adolescent arrest was found to increase the likelihood of drug use, participation
in welfare, and unemployment. Other findings from this body of work indicates
that criminal involvement negatively affects education (Bernburg & Krohn,
2003; Fontaine et al., 2008; Lopes et al., 2012; Sampson & Laub, 1993),
employment and finances (Bernburg & Krohn, 2003; Bushway, 1998; Lopes
et al., 2012; Odgers et al., 2008), mental health (Odgers et al., 2008), risky
sexual behaviors (Aalsma et al., 2010), and teen pregnancy (Cairns & Cairns,
1994; Fontaine et al., 2008; Moffitt, Caspi, Harrington, & Milne, 2002).
Although research has established a link between crime and later life fail-
ure, less is known as to why crime negatively affects social outcomes later in
life. Theoretically, the notion of cumulative disadvantage suggests that crimi-
nal behavior displays continuity over time in part because early criminal
behavior can have serious consequences and elicit negative environmental
responses that encourage future criminal behavior (Caspi & Moffitt, 1995;
Merton, 1988; Sampson & Laub, 1997). The concept of cumulative disad-
vantage developed by Merton (1988) argues that adolescent delinquency that
results in later life failure is likely to lead to future criminal behavior because
later life failure can also encourage antisocial behavior later in life (see also
Sampson & Laub, 1997). For example, when adolescent delinquency results
in incarceration or the accumulation of a criminal history, it can act as a
“snare” into persistent offending because it encourages poor social develop-
ment in the domains of education and finances, which in turn can encourage
future criminal behavior (Moffitt et al., 2002).
Makarios et al. 5

Bernburg and Krohn’s (2003) research on labeling, life chances, and adult
crime is illustrative of how involvement in the criminal justice system can lead
to later life failure and future crime through the process of cumulative disadvan-
tage. They found that adolescent involvement with the criminal justice system
predicted poor school achievement and unemployment in adulthood even after
controlling for antisocial behavior. School achievement and employment in turn
were found to be related to offending in adulthood. Their findings support the
concept of cumulative disadvantage and suggest adolescent delinquency can be
particularly detrimental to normative social development when it leads to offi-
cial involvement in the criminal justice system (see also, Lopes et al., 2012).
Cumulative disadvantage is sometimes seen as a concept that competes
with the notion of population heterogeneity, which suggests that criminal
behavior displays stability over time as a result of individual traits that
encourage antisocial behavior throughout the life course (see Gottfredson &
Hirschi, 1990; Wilson & Herrnstein, 1985). The perspective of population
heterogeneity thus implies that the relationship between crime and social fail-
ure is spurious and exists because underlying antisocial traits encourage both
social maladjustment and crime. For example, Gottfredson and Hirschi
(1990) argue that criminal behavior displays continuity over time entirely
because of the stability of low self-control. They suggest that relatively stable
levels of low self-control encourage crime and poor social outcomes through-
out the life course, creating the appearance of a causal relationship between
these two concepts. Although the concepts of population heterogeneity and
cumulative disadvantage are often viewed as competing, most research pro-
vides support for both—suggesting that these concepts work together to
explain the continuity of criminal behavior (see Nagin & Paternoster, 2000;
Simons, Johnson, Conger, & Elder, 1998).
These concepts have also been shown to be related to risky sexual behav-
iors. A growing body of research has found a link between adolescent delin-
quency and risky sexual behaviors (Aalsma et al., 2010; Belenko et al., 2008;
Crosby, DiClemente, Wingood, Rose, & Levine, 2002; Lofy, Hofmann,
Mosure, Fine, & Marrazzo, 2006). Recent research in this area suggests that
this relationship could be due to the processes of population heterogeneity
and cumulative disadvantage. For example, Aalsma et al. (2010) found that
life-course persistent offenders were more likely to engage in a variety of
risky sexual behaviors. Furthermore, other research has found that childhood
behavioral problems are linked to risky sexual behavior in emerging adult-
hood (Ramrakha et al., 2007). This is likely because stable criminal tenden-
cies work to encourage poor decision making in early adulthood, but also
because involvement in crime is likely to reduce future opportunities that can
work to encourage normative sexual behavior.
6 Crime & Delinquency 

Moffitt’s (1993) developmental taxonomy provides an example of how popu-

lation heterogeneity and cumulative disadvantage are theorized to work together
to encourage persistent antisocial behavior. She suggests that for life-course-per-
sistent offenders, neuro-psychological impairment encourages antisocial behav-
ior and social failure at all stages in life and that antisocial behavior has a
cumulative effect because of its impact on other social domains that encourage
future crime (e.g., getting expelled from school for fighting). In this way, life-
course-persistent offenders become entrenched in a life of crime because their
antisocial activities eliminate social capital and damage prosocial ties. Thus, a
key feature of life-course-persistent offenders is that their antisocial behavior
works to “knife off” future opportunities and entraps these individuals in a trajec-
tory of both criminal behavior and social failure (Caspi & Moffitt, 1995).
Moffitt (1993) notes that the impact of adolescent delinquency can even
have long-term negative effects for offenders whose antisocial behavior is
limited to adolescence. She suggests that aging out of adolescent antisocial
behavior is the norm—a result of good cognitive makeup possessed by youth
that encourage increased maturity among most individuals during late ado-
lescence and early adulthood. For these offenders, adolescent criminal behav-
ior can result in negative life outcomes through the process of cumulative
disadvantage. That is, criminal behavior and poor social development may
continue into adulthood when youth become snared by their antisocial behav-
ior because it results in serious consequences (e.g., arrest or addiction) that
affect other social domains (Moffitt et al., 2002).
Piquero and his colleagues’ (2010) recent examination of the impact of
different offending trajectories on life failure provides support for the per-
spectives of both cumulative disadvantage and population heterogeneity.
Using the Cambridge Study on Delinquent Development, they found that
chronic offending trajectories were related to life failure at age 48. Piquero
et al. (2010) also included a measure of individual propensity (which was
comprised of factors such as verbal IQ, neuroticism, and restlessness) and
found that it predicted life failure at age 48. Their research suggests that mea-
sures of population heterogeneity play an important part in encouraging later
life failure. Furthermore, their findings indicate support for cumulative disad-
vantage because criminal behavior, especially chronic criminal behavior, is
likely to negatively affect normative social development throughout the life
course, even after controlling for measures of population heterogeneity.
Taken together, prior research suggests that criminal involvement during
adolescence can encourage later life failure in the domains of sexual activity,
education, and financial stability. Although prior research suggests that that
there is a direct relationship between crime and later life failure, few studies
have attempted to explain why this relationship exists. Using the perspectives
Makarios et al. 7

of population heterogeneity and cumulative disadvantage, the current

research seeks to extend this body of knowledge by examining why adoles-
cent delinquency results in negative social outcomes in early adulthood.
Specifically, it seeks to determine whether the relationship between crime
and social failure is spurious and caused by measures of population heteroge-
neity or whether a process of cumulative disadvantage operates in which
delinquency encourages failure in other social domains later in life.1
Of interest, the current research also extends prior research by examining
the interaction between personality characteristics and adolescent deviance.
This is an important line of research because an interaction between these two
concepts implies that adolescent deviance and personality characteristics may
work together to negatively influence later life outcomes. That is, those who
engage in delinquency and who also score highly in antisocial personality traits
may face more serious developmental issues than those that score highly on
only one of these categories. The same holds true for crime and vocational
aptitude. A positive interaction between crime and vocational aptitude would
imply that those scoring poorly on vocational aptitude and high adolescent
criminal behavior may create a greater risk of school failure and negative sex-
ual events than those youth who only score highly on one of these risk factors.

Current Focus
Drawing on a developmental perspective that suggests criminal involvement
should be conceptualized as both an independent and dependent variable, the
current research examines the correlates and consequences of early adolescent
criminal behavior. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY)
1997, it investigates the effects of adolescent criminal behavior on measures
of social failure in early adulthood. This research extends the current body of
research by (a) examining the impact of adolescent criminal involvement on a
variety of measures from social domains in a national sample of school-aged
youth, (b) examining the independent effects of two measures of population
heterogeneity, (c) examining the interaction between adolescent delinquency
and measures of population heterogeneity, and (d) examining the role that
adolescent arrest, a measure of cumulative disadvantage, plays in the relation-
ship between adolescent delinquency and later life failure.

Method
Participants
The participants in this study come from the NLSY 1997. The NLSY was
funded primarily by the Bureau of Labor to examine the transition of youth
8 Crime & Delinquency 

from school into the labor market (Center for Human Resource Research,
2003). Beginning its first wave of data collection in 1997, it followed a
nationally representative sample of high school students and gathered infor-
mation at yearly intervals. The data used for this project come from the first
seven waves of the study. The full sample involved a stratified cluster sam-
pling technique that provided a total of 8,984 respondents ranging in age
from 12 to 18 (for full details of the sampling techniques, see Moore, Pedlow,
Krishnamurty, & Wolter, 2000). As the current study sought to examine the
impact of adolescent delinquency on social maladjustment in emerging adult-
hood (Arnett, 2000), the sample was restricted to specific age categories.
Specifically, the sample used in this study is restricted only to those youth
who were ages 13 and 14 during the first wave (n = 3,584) to gather informa-
tion on a group of youth during their early adolescent years. The sample is
further restricted to youth who were administered the Armed Services
Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) during Wave 1 and who were admin-
istered a series of questions regarding personality characteristics at Wave 4.
These restrictions leave a final sample of 2,642 youth.

Measures
This research examines the impact of adolescent criminal behavior on the
later life outcomes of graduating high school, going to college, being on wel-
fare, the number of sexual partners, having sexual relations with strangers,
and teen pregnancy. Adolescent criminal behavior is gathered during the first
two waves of the NLSY when youths were ages 13 to 15, and later life out-
comes are measured during the Waves 6 and 7, when the youths were 18 to
20 years old. Table 1 presents descriptive statistics for all measures used in
the analyses. Educational achievement is measured with two outcome vari-
ables gathered from Wave 7: whether youth had received their high school
diploma and whether they had enrolled in college. Being on welfare is mea-
sured by whether youth reported the use of Aide to Families With Dependent
Children or other public assistance during Wave 7.
The NLSY also contains a series of questions that were administered dur-
ing the later waves of the data collection that asked respondents about their
sexual activity, pregnancies, and parenthood. Measures used in the current
analyses include the number of sexual partners the respondents reported dur-
ing Waves 6 and 7, whether youths reported engaging in sexual intercourse
with a stranger during Waves 6 and 7, and whether the youths reported get-
ting pregnant (or getting someone pregnant in case of males) prior to age 18.
The primary independent measure of early adolescent delinquency
includes summary scores from five measures of delinquent behavior across
Makarios et al. 9

Table 1.  Descriptive Statistics for Study Sample (n = 2,642).

Minimum-
Variable N Missing M SD Maximum
Male 2,642 0 0.51 0.40 0.00-1.00
Parental monitoring 2,622 20 9.36 3.26 0.00-16.00
Parental relationship 2,622 20 24.69 4.65 6.00-32.00
Delinquent peers 2,522 120 9.69 4.38 5.00-25.00
Vocational aptitude 2,642 0 0.00 1.01 −2.52-2.84
Antisocial 2,642 0 17.60 4.42 5.00-34.00
personality
Adolescent 2,561 81 0.67 1.07 0.00-5.79
delinquency
Adolescent arrest 2,572 70 0.20 0.96 0-13
Vocational aptitude 2,545 97 −0.08 1.08 −9.60-5.91
× Adolescent
delinquency
Personality × 2,545 97 0.66 4.81 −44.43-40.89
Adolescent
delinquency
Graduate high 2,522 120 0.79 0.40 0-1
school
Enter college 2,494 148 0.42 0.49 0-1
Welfare 2,486 156 0.14 0.34 0-1
Sexual partners 2,333 309 3.62 6.86 0-121
Stanger sex 2,002 640 0.18 0.39 0-1
Minor pregnancy 2,522 120 0.14 0.34 0-1

Waves 1 and 2. During every wave, the NLSY measured the number of times
the youths reported engaging in vandalism, minor theft (less than US$50),
serious theft (more than US$50), other theft, and assault in the past year.
Similar to Krohn et al. (1997), this research uses the natural log of the sum of
the counts from each of these variables across two waves to reduce skewness
and provide more stable estimates.
The concept of cumulative disadvantage suggests that criminal behavior
displays continuity over time because early antisocial behavior has negative
consequences that discourage healthy development of other social domains
that are related to crime. A serious negative consequence of adolescent delin-
quency is that it may result in an arrest. As Moffitt et al. (2002) note, an arrest
is an adverse event that can act as a snare to elicit negative environmental
responses in other social domains. As a result, adolescent arrest is used here
as a measure of cumulative disadvantage—it is conceptualized as a variable
10 Crime & Delinquency 

that works to explain the relationship between delinquency and poor social
adjustment in adulthood. Adolescent arrest is measured by adding the number
of arrests reported by each case during the first two waves of data.
This research uses two measures of population heterogeneity: antisocial
personality characteristics and vocational aptitude. Personality characteris-
tics have been consistently linked to antisocial behavior (Caspi et al., 1994;
Miller & Lynam, 2001) and are important individual differences that display
stability over time (Caspi & Bem, 1990). Antisocial personality characteris-
tics are measured at Wave 4 using a scale that sums youths’ responses to eight
items on the following specific personality characteristics: lack of organiza-
tion, being quarrelsome, undependable, unconscientious, careless, difficult,
stubborn, and distrustful (α = 0.63).
Vocational aptitude is measured at Wave 1 using scores saved from a fac-
tor analysis on items from the ASVAB. During Wave 1, staff from the NLSY
1997 administered the ASVAB to all available participants to provide an indi-
cation of the academic potential of each participant. The ASVAB is tradition-
ally used by the U.S. Military enlistment personnel to place applicants into
particular positions. The areas that the standardized testing covers include
arithmetic reasoning, mathematics knowledge, numerical operations, coding
speed, assembling objects, word knowledge, paragraph comprehension, gen-
eral science, auto information, shop information, mechanical comprehension,
and electronics information. Research on the ASVAB suggests that it has
acceptable levels of predictive validity for a variety of outcomes including
grades in school, measures of job performance, and early discharge from ser-
vice (for a review, see Welsh, Kucinkas, & Currins, 1990). Furthermore, prior
research indicates that the factor structure of the ASVAB produces a higher-
order factor that resembles that of general intelligence (Ree & Carretta,
1994). The results from the factor analysis for the current research indicate
that the items display strong correlations/partial correlations (Kaiser-Meyer-
Olkin Statistic [KMO] = 0.95) and that a single factor emerged explaining a
substantial proportion of the variance in the items (see appendix for detailed
statistics).
The moderating influence of the measures of population heterogeneity on
the relationship between adolescent arrest and later life failure is accom-
plished by including interaction terms between these variables. They were
created by mean centering each variable of interest and then multiplying ado-
lescent delinquency by each measure of vocational aptitude. This created two
interaction terms, the interaction between adolescent delinquency and voca-
tional aptitude, and the interaction between adolescent delinquency and per-
sonality. Preliminary analyses of these interactions indicated no concerns
with multicolinearity.2
Makarios et al. 11

Other control variables used in the current research are gender, measures
of parental control, and peer delinquency. Gender is measured with a dichoto-
mous variable where females = 0 and males = 1.3 Parental control is mea-
sured using two indices that were designed to measure parental bonds and
parental monitoring that sum Likert-type scaled questions (for a detailed dis-
cussion of these items, see Appendix 9 in the codebook from Center for
Human Resource Research, 2003). The parental monitoring scale is taken
from the parent interview and adds responses ranging from 0 to 4 regarding
how much the parent knows about the youths, their teachers and school, their
friends, their friends’ parents, and who the youths are with when they are not
at home. The parental relationship scale consisted of an adapted version of
parental attachment measured in the Iowa Youth and Families Project (Conger
& Elder, 1994). Included in the parental attachment scale are items that ask
respondents to rate things such as how much they enjoyed spending time with
their parent, how often their parent criticized them, and how often their par-
ent praised them for doing well. Peer delinquency is a summed scale mea-
sured at Wave 1 that asks youth to report the portion of their peers that engage
in five different activities: smoking, drinking, illegal drugs, cutting class, and
belonging to a gang.

Analyses
To examine the correlates and consequences of adolescent criminal behavior,
estimates from regression models are presented first that predict criminal
behavior and then that predict the measures of social development in emerg-
ing adulthood. Negative binomial regression models are used to predict met-
ric outcomes because of their restricted distribution and over-dispersion.
Logistic regression models were used to predict dichotomous outcomes.
Incidence-rate ratios and odds ratios are presented for negative binomial
regression models and logistic regression models, respectively. Robust stan-
dard errors were used because of the clustered nature of the sampling method.

Results
Table 2 presents the results of negative binomial regression models that pre-
dict criminal behavior during early adolescence (when youths were ages
13-15). Incidence-rate ratios are presented and can be interpreted as the
change in the likelihood of incidents of the dependent variable occurring that
is associated with a 1 unit change in the independent variable. Incidence-rate
ratios are centered on 1, meaning that estimates that are above 1 indicate
increases in the odds occurring; estimates that are below 1 indicate decreases
12 Crime & Delinquency 

Table 2.  Negative Binomial Regression Models Predicting Delinquent Behavior.

Adolescent Adolescent Adolescent

Variable delinquency arrest arrest
Male 1.70** 2.90** 2.04**
Parental monitoring 0.92** 0.93* 0.98
Parental relationship 0.96** 0.93** 0.96
Delinquent peers 1.05** 1.15** 1.11**
Vocational aptitude 0.96 0.62** 0.61**
Antisocial 1.03** 1.06** 1.04*
personality
Adolescent — — 1.83**
delinquency
Wald chi-square 480.3** 227.9* 398.1**
N 2,431 2,441 2,427

Note. Incidence-rate ratios reported with robust standard errors are reported.

in the odds occurring. For example, the coefficient of 1.70 for males in the
first column predicting adolescent delinquency suggests that males experi-
ence arrests 70% more often than females. The results in the first model sug-
gest that all measures other than the ASVAB factor display a significant
relationship with delinquency in early adolescence. The second and third
models predict adolescent arrest without and with adolescent delinquency
included in the model. The results from Model 2 indicate that all measures
but parental monitoring are significantly related to arrest. Of interest, includ-
ing adolescent delinquency substantially improves the predictive power of
Model 3 (chi-square values = 227.9 and 398.1, respectively). Model 3 sug-
gests that every unit increase in adolescent delinquency is associated with an
83% increase in the number of arrests.
Table 3 presents estimates from logistic regression equations that predict
the likelihood of graduating high school, entering college, and being on wel-
fare. Odds ratios (also referred to as Exponent β) are also centered on 1 and
can be interpreted as the change in odds of the dependent variable occurring
for a unit change in the independent variable. Overall, prior to entering the
additional variables, the results indicate that adolescent delinquency is sig-
nificantly associated with substantive reductions in the odds of graduating
high school, entering college, and with increases in the odds of being on
welfare (β = 0.74, 0.84, 1.13, respectively). Also of interest, the measure of
vocational aptitude was significantly related to all outcomes in the expected
direction, and antisocial personality was negatively related to graduating
high school and enrolling in college.
Makarios et al. 13

Table 3.  Logistic Regression Models Predicting Poor Social Adjustment in Early
Adulthood.
High school College Welfare

Male 0.83 0.85 0.54** 0.56** 0.31** 0.31**

Parental monitoring 1.03 1.03 1.01 1.01 0.99 0.99
Parental relationship 1.03* 1.02 1.04** 1.03** 0.99 0.99
Delinquent peers 0.97 0.98 0.95** 0.96** 1.03** 1.02*
Vocational aptitude 2.87** 3.01** 2.83** 2.81** 0.54** 0.53**
Antisocial personality 0.95** 0.95** 0.97** 0.97** 1.01 1.01
Adolescent delinquency 0.74** 0.75** 0.84** 0.88* 1.13* 1.11
Adolescent arrest — 0.78** — 0.65* — 1.14*
Vocational aptitude — 0.86** — 1.01 — 1.01
× Adolescent
delinquency
Personality × — 0.99 — 0.99 — 1.08
Adolescent
delinquency
Wald chi-square 347.3** 335.4** 444.8** 431.6** 208.2** 211.6*
Pseudo R2 .20 .22 .19 .20 .11 .12
N 2,327 2,323 2,303 2,299 2,431 2,427

Note. Odds ratios from logistic regression equations with robust standard errors are
reported.
*p < .05. **p < .01.

The second column presents coefficients from a model predicting graduat-

ing high school that includes adolescent arrest and the interaction terms
between adolescent delinquency and the measures of population heterogene-
ity. Including these new predictors fails to reduce the relationship between
adolescent delinquency and graduating high school to non-significance. Also,
the measures of adolescent arrest and the interaction between vocational apti-
tude and delinquency are significantly related to graduating high school. The
significant interaction between vocational aptitude and delinquency suggests
that the impact of adolescent delinquency on graduating high school increases
as vocational aptitude decreases. The significant coefficient for arrest sug-
gests that for every arrest that occurred during adolescence the odds of gradu-
ating high school decreased by 22%. The results in the third and fifth columns
that predict going to college and being on welfare suggest that adolescent
arrest is significantly related to these outcomes in the expected directions.
The coefficients suggest that each arrest decreases the odds of enrolling in
college by 35% and increases the odds of being on welfare by 14%.
Table 4 presents incidence-rate ratios from negative binomial regression
models predicting the number of sexual partners. The results indicate that
14 Crime & Delinquency 

Table 4.  Regression Models Predicting Poor Social Adjustment in Early

Adulthooda,b.
Sexual partnersa Sex with strangerb Minor pregnancyb

Male 1.46** 1.46** 2.15** 2.12** 0.35** 0.36**

Parental monitoring 1.00 1.00 0.98 0.98 0.98 0.98
Parental relationship 0.98 0.98 0.96** 0.96* 0.97 0.97
Delinquent peers 1.02** 1.02** 1.01 1.02 1.06** 1.05**
Vocational aptitude 0.88** 0.89** 0.87* 0.89 0.57** 0.54**
Antisocial personality 1.03** 1.03** 1.03* 1.03** 1.03 1.01
Adolescent delinquency 1.11** 1.11** 1.39** 1.40** 1.23** 1.26**
Adolescent arrest — 1.02 — 1.13* — 1.06
Vocational aptitude × — 1.00 — 0.98 — 1.20**
Adolescent delinquency
Personality × Adolescent — 0.99 — 0.98 — 1.01
delinquency.
Wald chi-square 172.9** 179.14* 143.1** 144.7** 208.0** 217.0**
Pseudo R2 — — .08 .09 .12 .13
N 2,163 2,159 1,868 1,865 2,327 2,323
aIncidence-rateratios from a negative binomial regression equation with robust standard errors are
reported.
bOdds ratios from logistic regression equations with robust standard errors are reported.

*p < .05. **p < .01.

gender and delinquent peers are associated with significant increases in the
likelihood of having more sexual partners during Waves 6 and 7. The mea-
sures of population heterogeneity indicate that more sexual partners are asso-
ciated with increases in antisocial personality and decreases of vocational
aptitude. Of interest, after controlling for the measures of population hetero-
geneity, every unit change in adolescent delinquency is associated with an
11% increase in the number of sexual partners. The second column predicts
the number of sexual partners and includes the interaction terms and arrest
variable. The results indicate that none of the additional variables are signifi-
cantly related to the number of sexual partners.
The third and fourth columns of Table 4 present odds ratios from logistic
regression equations that predict whether the youths engaged in sexual rela-
tions with a stranger. The results from the third column indicate that both
measures of population heterogeneity are significantly related to having sex
with a stranger in the expected direction. Furthermore, after controlling for
these factors, every unit increase in adolescent delinquency is associated with
a 39% increase in the odds of having sex with a stranger. Column 5 includes
the additional variables and suggests that every adolescent arrest is signifi-
cantly associated with a 13% increase in the odds of having sex with a stranger.
Makarios et al. 15

The fifth and sixth columns in Table 4 display results from logistic regres-
sion models that predict whether the youth got pregnant (or got someone
pregnant in case of males) before age 18. The results in the fifth column
indicate that gender, delinquent peers, vocational aptitude, antisocial person-
ality, and adolescent delinquency are all significantly related to teen preg-
nancy in the expected directions. Specifically, every unit increase in
adolescent delinquency results in a 26% increase in the odds of a minor preg-
nancy occurring. Of interest, the results from the last column that includes the
additional variables indicate a significant interaction between adolescent
delinquency and vocational aptitude. Specifically, the positive interaction
term suggests that the effects of delinquency on minor pregnancy increase as
vocational aptitude increases. That is, increases in vocational aptitude and
delinquency result in much higher rates of minor pregnancy than the additive
effects of each variable alone.
In all, the results from these analyses indicate that net of controls for popu-
lation heterogeneity, adolescent delinquency is a substantively important pre-
dictor of graduating high school, going to college, being on welfare, the
number of sexual partners, the likelihood of engaging in sex with strangers,
and the likelihood of pregnancy as a minor. This suggests that the impact of
adolescent delinquency on poor social development is not spurious and
caused by the measures of population heterogeneity observed here.
Furthermore, in several cases, significant relationships were found between
arrest and poor social development, thus supporting the state dependence
hypothesis because it suggests that adolescent delinquency may have its most
detrimental effects on social development when it results in an arrest. Finally,
the results also provide support for population heterogeneity in that measures
of population heterogeneity were consistently related to the negative life out-
comes examined and that there were several instances when the interaction
between adolescent delinquency and population heterogeneity were found to
have negative effects on social development in early adulthood.

Discussion
The current research draws on a life-course perspective that contends that
crime should be viewed as one of many domains that influences the general
social development of individuals (Thornberry, 1987). This perspective is
consistent with developmental criminology research that suggests adolescent
criminal behavior negatively affects social development in early adulthood
through the process of cumulative disadvantage (Krohn et al., 1997; Piquero
et al., 2010; Sampson & Laub, 1993). To do so, the current study examined the
relationship between adolescent delinquency and adult social development
16 Crime & Delinquency 

while controlling for measures of population heterogeneity. Importantly, the

analysis built on prior research by examining the impact of adolescent crimi-
nal behavior on social adjustment in early adulthood using a national sample
of school-aged youth, examining both the direct and moderating effects of
several population heterogeneity measures, and examining the impact of ado-
lescent arrest as a measure of state dependence.
Several important findings emerge from this research. First, this research
suggests that measures of population heterogeneity were related to both ado-
lescent criminal behavior and social development in early adulthood.
Consistent with Piquero et al.’s (2010) analysis of data from a sample of
South London males, the measures of stable individual traits failed to elimi-
nate the relationship between criminal involvement and poor social develop-
ment, but they did maintain direct effects on both criminal behavior and
social development. The measure of vocational aptitude consistently had
positive effects on graduating high school and going to college. It was also
negatively related to being on welfare, the number of sexual partners, and the
likelihood of becoming a teen parent. The measure of antisocial personality
was positively related to adolescent criminal behavior, the number of sexual
partners, and having sex with a stranger and negatively related to the likeli-
hood of graduating high school and going to college. These relationships
indicate that stable individual traits play an important role in the social devel-
opment of youth and should be considered in future research that attempts to
understand the relationship between crime and social development.
Furthermore, the results here reveal that adolescent delinquency interacts
with population heterogeneity to encourage negative life events. For exam-
ple, the negative interaction between vocational aptitude and delinquency
suggest that youth who engaged in delinquency and had low vocational apti-
tude were the least likely to graduate high school. These interactions under-
score the importance of understanding how population heterogeneity and
cumulative disadvantage work together to negatively affect life outcomes.
That is, those youths who had the greatest disadvantages in terms of stable
individual differences (population heterogeneity) were also most likely to
experience the negative effects of their delinquent behavior (cumulative
disadvantage).
Of interest, the results from this research suggest that personality charac-
teristics did not interact with adolescent delinquency to negatively affect later
life outcomes. This implies that although personality characteristics are
directly related to the negative life events of graduating high school, going to
college, the number of sexual partners, and having sex with strangers, being
involved in adolescent delinquency did not substantively change in the
strength of the relationship. This is likely because antisocial personality
Makarios et al. 17

characteristics provide a direct contribution to the events but does not work
together with delinquent behavior to produce further negative outcomes.
The findings from this research also support the developmental perspec-
tive of cumulative disadvantage in that net of individual differences, adoles-
cent criminal behavior was found to adversely affect a variety of social
domains in early adulthood. Consistent with prior research (Arnett, 2005;
Krohn et al., 1997), youths who reported antisocial behavior in early adoles-
cence experienced a decreased likelihood of graduating high school, were
less likely to go to college, were more likely to be on welfare, and more likely
to engage in a variety of risky sexual behaviors. Of interest, these findings
resonate well with those from Piquero et al. (2010) and indicate support for
the concept of cumulative disadvantage because the direct effects of early
criminal behavior remained after controlling for measures of population
heterogeneity.
The impact of arrest is also an important finding. As an arrest is (typically)
a negative consequence that results from antisocial behavior and has the
potential for producing negative effects in other social domains, it is concep-
tualized as a measure of cumulative disadvantage. Although it was not found
to affect risky sexual activities, arrest during adolescence was found to have
a negative impact on graduating high school, going to college, and being on
welfare. Including this variable also helped to either reduce or eliminate the
relationship between adolescent delinquency and these outcomes. This sug-
gests that arrest mediates, in part, the impact of delinquency on negative life
events and indicates that the impact of adolescent delinquency on educational
outcomes may be indirect and operate through criminal arrest. This finding is
consistent with Bernburg and Krohn (2003) and has important implications.
Thus, delinquency in and of itself may not always directly lead to school
failure; instead, the evidence reveals that delinquency is more likely to lead
to school failure if youth are arrested.
To be sure, the current study is limited in some respects. For example,
because the current study was focused on establishing a linkage between ado-
lescent delinquency and later life outcomes, it did not examine the possible
reciprocal relationship between more contemporary measures of crime and
social maldevelopment (see Thornberry, 1987). Life-course explanations of
criminal involvement contend that the limited decision making exhibited by
adolescent delinquents produces immediate consequences and that those con-
sequences can have both immediate and long-terms effects (Caspi & Moffitt,
1995; Laub & Sampson, 2003; Thornberry, 1987). Although beyond the
scope of this article, future research should consider simultaneous equations
that treat criminal activity as a lagged endogenous variable that has both
causes and effects. Other important questions include consideration of
18 Crime & Delinquency 

whether the linkages between adolescent delinquency and subsequent social

development outcomes vary according to demographic characteristics, pri-
marily race, and gender. The experience of an arrest, for example, may have
potentially exacerbating consequences for minorities and males during
emerging adulthood (Arnett, 2005).
Future research should also seek to model the interrelationships between
adolescent delinquency and negative social outcomes to better understand
how these factors can result in a turning point that place youths on a pathway
of maldevelopment. For example, one could hypothesize that graduating high
school is linked both to entering college and to being on welfare. Thus, ado-
lescent delinquency may be a turning point that places youths on a long-term
trajectory of failure in the workforce. Similarly, the number of sexual part-
ners and having sex with a stranger is likely related to teen pregnancy, sug-
gesting that criminal involvement may display indirect effects by altering
developmental trajectories in these social domains over time. Of course,
these possibilities are only speculative and future research should explore the
indirect effects that adolescent delinquency has on interrelated negative life
events and developmental trajectories.
Finally, it is worth noting that the current operationalizations of popula-
tion heterogeneity, cumulative disadvantage, adolescent delinquency, and
later life failure are limited by the measures used. That is, there are likely
other measures of these concepts that also could provide a meaningful contri-
bution to the specification of the current models. For example, although this
research examined adolescent delinquency, other research suggests that drug
use can also negatively affect social maladjustment in emerging adulthood
(Arnett, 2005; Krohn et al., 1997). Furthermore, an emerging body of research
on the biosocial contribution to the development of criminal behavior sug-
gests that biological factors are also likely to affect the relationship between
adolescent delinquency and later life failure (for a review, see Wright,
Tibbetts, & Daigle, 2008). For example, measures of executive functioning,
emotional regulation, and genetic risk factors could provide potential mea-
sures of population heterogeneity that may work to mediate the relationship
between crime and poor social development (e.g., Vaske, Makarios et al.,
2009). There are also other important social domains to examine, such as
mental health (Vaske Beaver et al., 2009), interpersonal relationships, and
religious involvement (e.g., Farmer, Sinha, & Gill, 2008). Taken together,
this suggests that although the findings from this research represents an
extension of the current knowledge regarding our understanding of the rela-
tionship between adolescent delinquency and social failure in emerging
adulthood, there is much more to be learned.
Makarios et al. 19

The findings from this research have several implications. First, they sug-
gest that adolescent delinquency can have long-term consequences. Youth
who engaged in criminal behavior in early adolescence experienced reduced
opportunities later in life: They were less likely to graduate from high school
and go to college, and they were more likely to become a parent and be on
welfare early in adulthood. It is worth noting that youth who experienced
these outcomes were also more likely to have antisocial personality charac-
teristics and low vocational aptitude. This implies that interventions that seek
to target youth that are at high risk of school failure and teen pregnancy
should consider criminal involvement and stable individual differences as
important risk factors.
This research also implies that adolescent criminal activity can work to
propel and potentially cement offenders along a trajectory of poor social
development. As Caspi and Moffitt (1995) note, criminal behavior and anti-
social traits elicit negative environmental responses, reducing prosocial
bonds, social capital, and social support. Thus, the findings here suggest that
poor social development can increase the likelihood of adolescent criminal
involvement and that criminal involvement works to further encourage poor
social development. The reciprocal nature of these relationships is troubling
because it implies that poor social development can become a downward
spiral that reinforces itself, making it difficult to alter this trajectory once an
individual has been placed on it for a long period of time.
Furthermore, the current research is consistent with other findings that
show that interventions that are successful in reducing the criminal involve-
ment of high-risk youth may also have hidden benefits that extend to other
social domains such as school and family life (for a discussion, see Farrington
& Welsh, 2007). The primary outcome for early interventions that target at-
risk and delinquent youth is almost exclusively considered to be reductions in
recidivism. By ignoring the impact that delinquency has on other social
domains, cost–benefit analyses likely underestimate the true benefits of
effective programs because recidivism affects outcomes such as educational
status, being on welfare, risky sexual activity, and teen pregnancy (see Cohen
& Piquero, 2009; Cohen, Piquero, & Jennings, 2010). Thus, the current
research implies that programs that are effective in reducing criminal behav-
ior in adolescence may also indirectly decrease the odds of negative social
events such as dropping out of high school, being on welfare, and experienc-
ing teen pregnancy (Farrington & Welsh, 2007; Piquero, Farrington, Welsh,
Tremblay, & Jennings, 2009). As adolescent delinquency can be a turning
point that can place offenders on a trajectory of social failure, it stands to
reason that interventions that reduce recidivism may have long-term positive
effects on development across life domains. Future research in the area of
20 Crime & Delinquency 

program evaluation should seek to extend the outcomes of treatment inter-

ventions beyond recidivism and also focus on other social outcomes such as
school achievement, financial status, and teen pregnancy.
In sum, this research provides support for a life-course perspective that
seeks to understand how criminal involvement works in concert with other
domains to place youth on long-term trajectories of poor social development.
Indeed, it indicates that poor social development is an antecedent to criminal
behavior and that criminal behavior works to further embed juvenile delin-
quents on a trajectory of poor social and personal development. As Thornberry
(1987) suggests, this research supports the idea that crime is best viewed as
one of several domains that have both causes and effects that interact with
one another to influence social development.

Appendix
Factor Analysis of the Vocational Aptitude Scale.

Extraction: Principle Components

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Statistic (KMO) = .95

Percentage of
Eigen value Score variance
Component 1 7.12/12.00 59.33

Component matrix Factor loadings

Arithmetic reasoning .87
Mathematics knowledge .86
Numerical operations .63
Coding speed .60
Assembling objects .73
Word knowledge .86
Paragraph comprehension .86
General science .86
Auto information .59
Shop information .65
Mechanical comprehension .83
Electronics information .81

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article
Makarios et al. 21

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publi-
cation of this article.

Notes
1. Our project is primarily concerned with the impact of crime on subsequent
adult functioning. Equally important, but summarily ill-investigated, is the link
between victimization and subsequent adult functioning. In one of the few stud-
ies to investigate this issue, Haynie, Petts, Maimon, and Piquero (2009) exam-
ined the life-course implications of adolescent’s exposure to violence, finding
that exposure to violence was associated with a higher likelihood of running
away from home, dropping out of high school, having a child, attempting sui-
cide, and having contact with the criminal justice system in later adolescence.
2. Preliminary analyses examining bivariate relationships between all variables
used in the current study revealed that no variables displayed correlations above
.70, suggesting collinearity was not a concern.
3. Scholarship on gender and criminal offending suggests that because of differ-
ences in the prevalence and context of offending by gender, it is important to
ensure that independent variables do not display gender-specific effects (see
Daly & Chesney-Lind, 1988). The current research did so in preliminary analy-
ses by including interaction terms between gender and adolescent delinquency
in the models for each outcome examined here. None of the interaction terms
included in the models were found to be significant, indicating the relationships
between adolescent criminal behavior and later life outcomes that are observed
here do not vary by gender. As the interaction between gender and adolescent
delinquency was not found to be related to any of the outcomes examined, it was
not included in the models reported for the current study.

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Makarios et al. 25

Author Biographies
Matthew Makarios is an Assistant Professor at the University of Northern Iowa. He
received his doctorate degree from the University Cincinnati. His areas of expertise
included life-course criminology and evidenced-based corrections.
Francis T. Cullen is a distinguished research Professor of criminal justice and sociol-
ogy at the University of Cincinnati. His recent works include The Oxford Handbook
of Criminological Theory, The American Prison: Imagining a Different Future, and
Reaffirming Rehabilitation (30th anniversary edition). His current research focuses on
the organization of criminological knowledge and on rehabilitation as a correctional
policy. He is a Past President of both the American Society of Criminology and the
Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences.
Alex R. Piquero is Ashbel Smith Professor of criminology at the School of Economic,
Political, and Policy Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas; adjunct professor
at the Key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice, and Governance, Griffith University
Australia; and faculty affiliate, Center for Violence and Injury Prevention George
Warren Brown School of Social Work Washington University in St. Louis. From
2008 to 2013, he was also the co-editor of the Journal of Quantitative Criminology.
He is Fellow of both the American Society of Criminology and the Academy of
Criminal Justice Sciences.