| Description |
Previous research has indicated that youth with a history of maltreatment are more likely to evidence offending behaviors and experience formal involvement in the juvenile justice system compared to nonmaltreated youth. In recent years, increased efforts have been made towards identifying the specific characteristics and correlates of youth known to both the child welfare and juvenile justice systems, a population often referred to as "crossover youth." However, despite identifying risk factors associated with the crossover population, there are a number of limitations to the extant literature, many of which stem from the fact that the majority of studies involving crossover youth thus far have been descriptive in nature. This study investigated the influence of theoretically- and developmentally-relevant constructs, including attachment- and nonattachment-related trauma, emotion dysregulation, posttraumatic risk-seeking (PTRS), and other posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS), in the trajectory from maltreatment exposure to committing offending behaviors. Specifically, the current study investigated the direct and indirect associations among attachment- and nonattachment-related trauma, emotion dysregulation, PTSS, PTRS, and offending behavior, and whether these relations were moderated by gender or by system status. Additionally, the study investigated the unique contribution of PTRS in predicting offending behavior. Results demonstrated a number of significant differences in means, direct, and indirect effects between crossover and JJ-only youth and boys and girls. Additionally, results of hierarchical Poisson regression demonstrated that PTRS did account for significantly more variance in offending behavior when offending behavior was measured via self-report. Finally, results of mixture modeling identified two distinct risk-seeking groups, and, as predicted, high risk-seekers evidenced significantly greater levels of attachment-related trauma exposure, emotion dysregulation, and PTSS. This study has clinical, research, and theoretical implications for better understanding the risk factors and mechanisms associated with the crossover trajectory. |
