Concentrated Disadvantage and Juvenile Delinquency across Generations in the U.S.: A Forty-Year Analysis

• In Event: Generational Change in Youth Behaviors and Attitudes: New Insights from the MTF Data, 1976–2019

Abstract

Prior research indicates that concentrated disadvantage is significantly associated with juvenile delinquency, yet few studies have examined how this relationship has changed over time. The current study fills this gap by assessing the impact of school‑area concentrated disadvantage on adolescents’ property and violent offending across four decades. Using the Monitoring the Future restricted‑use data for 12th graders (1976–2019), the study links individual-level measures of behaviors, including self-report delinquency, with school zip code level measures of concentrated disadvantage. Preliminary results reveal a non‑linear association between concentrated disadvantage and offending among earlier cohorts (1976–1985 and 1986–1995), but minimal effects for more recent cohorts. Notably, adolescents attending schools in the most disadvantaged areas in recent years experienced a 65% decline in property offending and a 75% decline in violent offending relative to their counterparts in the 1980s and 1990s. These findings highlight the importance of accounting for changes in the community effects when examining its influence on individual-level delinquent behaviors.

Author

• Yunmei Lu, State University of New York at Buffalo