Developmental pathways to antisocial behavior: Implications for Juvenile justice policy and practice

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-18-2023

Abstract

This chapter illustrates a developmental psychopathology approach to understanding antisocial behavior in children and adolescents. Specifically, the chapter summarizes research suggesting that there are three common ways that various risk factors can influence critical developmental mechanisms that make a child more likely to act in ways that violate the rights of others or that violate major societal norms, both of which can lead to justice system involvement. One such pathway involves youth who do not show serious conduct problems until they approach adolescence and who then seem to experience an exaggeration of typical adolescent rebellion associated with identity formation. Two other pathways involve conduct problems that emerge earlier in development and that are related to either deficits in the typical development of conscience or deficits in the typical ability to appropriately regulate emotions and behaviors. In summarizing the research supporting these different developmental pathways, the chapter illustrates the implications of this approach for research, assessment, and treatment of youth who show serious antisocial behavior, as well as the implications for juvenile justice policy.

Publication Source (Journal or Book title)

The Oxford Handbook of Developmental Psychology and the Law

First Page

37

Last Page

56

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