학술논문

Using Crime Data to Assess Longitudinal Relationships between Community Violent Crime and Aggressive Behavior among At-Risk Youth
Document Type
Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Author
Source
Journal of Early Adolescence. Mar 2022 42(3):431-448.
Subject
Crime
Violence
Aggression
At Risk Persons
Correlation
Antisocial Behavior
Community Problems
Neighborhoods
Environmental Influences
Preadolescents
Grade 4
Grade 5
Economically Disadvantaged
Language
English
ISSN
0272-4316
Abstract
The goal of this study was to assess longitudinal, predictive relationships between community violent crime and reactive and proactive aggression. Community violent crime data were gathered from local law enforcement agencies and combined with an existing dataset of at-risk youth. Aggression was assessed by parents using the Reactive and Proactive Aggression Questionnaire (RPQ). Data were examined over four time points. Autoregressive cross-lagged modeling was used to test two models: one for proactive aggression and one for reactive aggression. Results revealed a positive relationship between community violent crime and proactive aggression, whereas the model including reactive aggression had poor model fit. Therefore, results support reactive and proactive aggression as distinct constructs. Findings also demonstrate that publicly accessible violent crime data can be used to predict children's behavior over time. Finally, results have important implications for preventive interventions for at-risk youth.