Many delinquent youth stop offending sometime in late adolescence or
early adulthood. However, little is known about individual differences
in desistance and which factors promote or inhibit desistance. In the
current study, young males in the oldest sample of the Pittsburgh Youth
Study were followed from ages 13 to 25. About one-third became
persistent serious delinquents between ages 13 and 19. Out of that
group, almost 40% desisted in serious offending between ages 20 and 25.
Significantly more of the desisters, compared to the persisters in
serious delinquency, had been employed or in school. Bivariate analyses
demonstrated many predictors of desistance of serious delinquency in
early adulthood in the domains of individual, family, and peer factors
measured from early adolescence onward. Multiple regression analyses
showed that the following promotive factors were associated with
desistance: low physical punishment by parents in early adolescence and
being employed or in school in early adulthood. The following risk
factors were inversely associated with desistance during early
adulthood: serious delinquency during late adolescence, hard drug use,
gang membership, and positive perception of problem behavior in early
adulthood. The article discusses the implications of promotive and risk
factors for preventive interventions.This article was prepared under Grant 96-MU-FX-0012 from
the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and Grant
050778 from the National Institute of Mental Health. The points of view
in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily
represent the official position or policies of the US Department of
Justice. We acknowledge Rebecca Stallings for assistance in preparing
the data files. Our coauthor, Evelyn Wei, has unfortunately died in a
car accident.