Citation

Baglivio MT, Wolff KT. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2017; 14(2): e14020197.

Affiliation

Department of Criminal Justice, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, New York, NY 10019, USA. kwolff@jjay.cuny.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, MDPI: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute)

DOI

10.3390/ijerph14020197

PMID

28212340

Abstract

While homicide perpetrated by juveniles is a relatively rare occurrence, between 2010 and 2014, approximately 7%-8% of all murders involved a juvenile offender. Unfortunately, few studies have prospectively examined the predictors of homicide offending, with none examining first-time murder among a sample of adjudicated male and female youth. The current study employed data on 5908 juvenile offenders (70% male, 45% Black) first arrested at the age of 12 or younger to prospectively examine predictors of an arrest for homicide/attempted homicide by the age of 18. Among these early-onset offenders, males, Black youth, those living in households with family members with a history of mental illness, those engaging in self-mutilation, and those with elevated levels of anger/aggression (all measured by age 13) were more likely to be arrested for homicide/attempted homicide by age 18. These findings add to the scant scientific literature on the predictors of homicide, and illustrate potential avenues for intervention.

Language: en

Keywords

homicide; juvenile offending; murder; violence