Mental health and the transition from adolescence to emerging adulthood: Examining patterns of comorbidity in the continuity and desistance of criminal offending between two developmental stages

• In Event: Mental Health Problems and Violence: Myths and Science

Abstract

It is well known within criminological research that incarcerated juvenile offenders exhibit higher rates of mental illness and comorbidity compared to the general population. Little research, however, has directly examined the association between comorbid mental health profiles and serious/violent offending nor how these profiles may influence persistence/desistance during the critical transition from adolescence to young adulthood. Using a sample of incarcerated serious and violent young offenders (n = 312), the current study examines the role of mental health comorbidity profiles on offending trajectories measured from age 12 to 23, capturing the transition from adolescence to emerging adulthood. Three analytic strategies (i.e., latent class analysis, semi-parametric group based modeling, multinomial regression) are utilized to identify comorbidity profiles and offending trajectories, as well as to examine the association between comorbidity profiles and offending trajectories, respectively. The results are discussed within the context of developmental criminology and desistance research.

Authors

• Jeffrey Mathesius, Simon Fraser University

• Raymond Corrado, Simon Fraser University

• Evan C. McCuish, Simon Fraser University