Criminological, psychological, and developmental researchers have relentlessly explored behavioral characteristics and juvenile justice outcomes in an effort to establish the most appropriate means of analyzing childhood and adolescent problem behaviors. Cross-discipline, empirical evidence and factor analytic research has consistently identified the presence of two predictive concepts, physical aggression and nonaggressive rule-breaking. Research pertaining to the risk factors and correlates of these two distinct substructures of offending align with theoretically postulated typologies of delinquency and offending as well as the frequently cited patterns of delinquency and offending within reviews of longitudinal research. Using longitudinal data from a sample of 756 at-risk, males and females during late childhood and early adolescence, the present research examined variations in latent trajectories of physical aggression and nonaggressive rule-breaking as well as empirically substantiated risk factors that may influence problem behaviors and juvenile justice involvement. The findings support a 4-class model for both physical aggression and nonaggressive rule-breaking as well as a relationship between supported risk factors and latent class membership. A comprehensive understanding of physical aggression and nonaggressive rule-breaking may provide the basis for targeted, problem-specific strategies aimed at early intervention.

Few, if any, researchers have investigated the relationship between eye contact and aggression or hostility in aggressive, incarcerated adolescents where eye contact may induce hostility or where aggression would seem most prevalent because aggressive youth may be more provoked by ambiguous provocation stimuli (eye contact). Therefore, this study investigated possible differences in the interpretation of staring between incarcerated aggressive and nonincarcerated nonaggressive adolescents. Aggressive adolescents were selected from a juvenile justice center in California, while nonaggressive adolescents were recruited from a high school. Following tile lines of the hostile attributional bias theory (Dodge & Coie, 1987), three predictions were made. Compared to nonaggressive youth, aggressive youth would be more likely to: (a) attribute hostile intent to someone who stared at them; (b) expect to act aggressively if confronted by someone who stared at them, especially when the staring person does something unpleasant in which the intent is ambiguous; and (c) rate someone with direct eye contact higher on potency. To manipulate eye positions, the researcher utilized photographs, which the adolescents rated to test the above three predictions. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)