Background Identifying underlying subgroups might be a way to examine the development of co-occurrent substance use and delinquency. The aim of this study was to identify latent classes of substance misuse and delinquency in adolescence and which general risk factors are associated with these classes. Methods Data of two waves from a national representative Swedish birth cohort was used that consisted of 4,013 randomly selected adolescents (Male=1,798, Female=2,201, Missing=14) Latent class analysis was used to identify classes of substance misuse and delinquency at age 17/18 and. logistic regression analysis was used to assess risk factors at age 15/16. Results Identified classes were: “Low/abstainers” (74.80%, n=2858, Male=1191 Female=1656, Missing=11) which acted as reference, “Alcohol only” (22.21%, n=849, Male=420, Female=426, Missing=3), “Polydrug use and crime” (2.15%, n=82, Male=52, Female=30) and “High crime” (0.84%, n=32, Male=30, Females=2). Factors associated with belonging to any classes engaging in substance use and delinquency were lower parental support, supervision, peer problems, and higher conduct problems, sensation-seeking behavior, distrust in society, and truancy. Conclusions Most people did not engage in substance use or delinquency. When accounting for less frequent behaviors such as normative adolescent drinking and one-time events of crime and drug use, about 3% of the population engaged in co-occurring substance use and delinquency. Several different factors from several domains where related to belonging to a class that used substances and/or engaged in delinquency. There were indications that the most extensive users and offender displayed a wide variety of severe level risk factors, which could have implications for targeted interventions. Though, statistical power was a problem and future research should use larger samples or alternative methods.

Crime is unequally distributed with respect to both who becomes involved in offending and the frequency with which these individuals offend. However, we know less about how these properties of the crime distribution have themselves changed over time. In cases where crime levels have changed, have these changes been general, affecting all social groups equally, or have they been more focused on certain social groups? We examine the changing social composition of known offenders using Swedish administrative data to determine whether inequality in offending is increasing or decreasing. Our analyses are based on a multicohort approach. The results show that the proportion of convicted men has decreased. Those who are convicted for crimes have therefore become an increasingly selected group. This has also entailed that they have increasingly come to be made up of groups with less resourceful socio-economic backgrounds, which in turn has fostered a more unequal distribution of crime.

Youth violence has decreased in many Western countries, including Finland and Sweden, during the 2000s. A worrying deviation from this decline concerns lethal youth violence in the two countries, in particular Sweden, which has experienced a clear increase. In this study, we analyze the extent to which this divergence mirrors a concentration of violence whereby fewer and fewer young people are subject to the criminal justice system, but where those who are, are increasingly high-frequent and/or severe offenders. We employ full population longitudinal register data on Finnish and Swedish birth cohorts born between 1986 and 1998 who are followed with conviction data for violent crimes between ages 15 and 20. We disaggregate the trends across these cohorts into criminal career parameters, break down violent crime into specific violent categories, and scrutinize the trends by sociodemographic background variables that are typically associated with violent crime: sex, foreign background, family income, and urban residence. Our findings show that the overall decline in juvenile violent convictions is primarily driven by a declining proportion of violent offenders. This decline is fairly uniform across the examined background variables in both countries. At the same time, this study gives a less optimistic picture of the development within the convicted population of juvenile violent offenders. Convicted juvenile violent offenders born in the late 1990s offend with the same frequency, have a similar debut age of convicted violent crime, but are recorded for more severe offenses as their same-age counterparts born just a decade earlier. Longitudinal data on multiple birth cohorts are needed to understand whether we are seeing more lasting changes in criminal careers, and how these developments look like in comparative terms.

Objective: Alcohol misuse and criminal offending often co-occur, and although previous studies indicate an overlap in risk factors, this evidence originates from studies focusing on either alcohol misuse or criminal offending. Co-occurrence might also stem from the severity or accumulation of risk factors. The aim of the following study was to examine whether risk factors for developing co-occurring alcohol misuse and criminal offending in adolescence are similar or unique, and to examine whether risk factors are more severe or accumulative compared with alcohol misuse only and criminal offending only. Method: Data were used from the prospective longitudinal project Futura01, consisting of 4,013 randomly selected adolescents in Sweden (males: n = 1,798). Outcomes and a wide variety of risk factors were measured by self-report at two time points. Logistic regression analysis was carried out on groups of (a) no behavior (reference), (b) alcohol misuse only, (c) criminal offending only, and (d) co-occurring behaviors. Results: The findings indicated that similar factors predicted co-occurring behaviors for alcohol misuse only and criminal offending only. Regarding severity, only more severe sensation seeking was associated with co-occurring behaviors compared with alcohol misuse and criminal offending only. Instead, an accumulation of risks (i.e., more risk factors present) increased the probability of co-occurring behaviors compared with alcohol misuse only and criminal offending only. Conclusions: The results indicated that the risk factors for developing co-occurring alcohol misuse and criminal offending in adolescence are similar rather than unique and that it is the accumulation of the risk factors, as opposed to their severity, that is associated with co-occurring behaviors when comparing with alcohol misuse and criminal offending only.

Aim: The current study explores heterogeneity in the aggregate age-crime curve. This is achieved by analyzing to what extent there is empirical support for the existence of pivotal typologies in developmental and life-course criminology, as well as whether there is any heterogeneity in trajectories among adult-onset offenders (first recorded for crime at age 25 or later).

Methods: Data were drawn from a population-representative birth cohort of 14,608 males and females, followed prospectively in registers from age nine to 64. Trajectories of antisocial and criminal behavior were identified by means of group-based trajectory modelling.

Results: A small group with a high prevalence of crime across the life course, among both males and females, was found. Furthermore, a large proportion of offenders were adult-onset offenders, and there was meaningful heterogeneity in their criminal trajectories. However, the data did not lend much support to the hypothesized phenomenon of late-blooming.

Conclusion: There is meaningful heterogeneity in the aggregate age-crime curve, including trajectories that resonate fairly well with predictions derived from Moffitt's taxonomy. Nevertheless, there are firm reasons for theorizing proximate causes for the onset and continuation of crime beyond emerging adulthood.

Background: Intellectual disability (ID), schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SSD), bipolar disorder (BD), substance use disorder (SUD), and other mental disorders (OMDs) are associated with increased risks of criminality relative to sex-matched individuals without these conditions (NOIDMD). To resource psychiatric, addiction, and social services so as to provide effective treatments, further information is needed about the size of sub-groups convicted of crimes, recidivism, timing of offending, antecedents, and correlates. Stigma of persons with mental disorders could potentially be dramatically reduced if violence was prevented.

Methods: A birth cohort of 14,605 persons was followed to age 64 using data from Swedish national health, criminal, and social registers.

Results: Percentages of group members convicted of violence differed significantly: males NOIDMD, 7.3%, ID 29.2%, SSD 38.6%, BD 30.7%; SUD 44.0%, and OMD 19.3%; females NOIDMD 0.8%, ID 7.7%, SSD 11.2%, BD 2.4%, SD 17.0%, and OMD 2.1%. Violent recidivism was high. Most violent offenders in the diagnostic groups were also convicted of non-violent crimes. Prior to first diagnosis, convictions (violent or non-violent) had been acquired by over 90% of the male offenders and two-thirds of the female offenders. Physical victimization, adult comorbid SUD, childhood conduct problems, and adolescent substance misuse were each associated with increased risks of offending.

Conclusion: Sub-groups of cohort members with ID or mental disorders were convicted of violent and non-violent crimes to age 64 suggesting the need for treatment of primary disorders and for antisocial/aggressive behavior. Many patients engaging in violence could be identified at first contact with clinical services.

Objectives This study examines the relationship between incarceration time and post-release recidivism among first-time incarcerated adult offenders.

Methods A quasi-experimental design was adopted consisting of three policy reforms that were treated as separate natural experiments. While holding imposed sentence length constant, these policy reforms either decreased or increased the required share of a sentence inmates needed to be incarcerated before being eligible for parole. Data consisted of large-scale administrative records containing all convictions for the Swedish cohorts born in 1958 and later.

Results Results indicate that neither increased nor decreased incarceration time had a statistically significant effect on post-release recidivism, irrespective of how recidivism was measured.

Conclusions Findings reveal little evidence for incarceration time having a criminogenic or specific preventive effect on post-release recidivism.

Objectives: The current study analyzed the association between a final paternal conviction that occurred sometime 10 years prior to birth through age 14 and subsequent child conviction risk to age 25.

Methods: We used Swedish register-based data on a two-generation dataset originating from a parental generation born in 1953. We employed a combination of population-averaged models that controlled for measured confounding together with an analysis of full siblings that ruled out unmeasured confounding shared between full siblings.

Results: The results showed that boys, but not girls, who were exposed to a paternal conviction during upbringing had an increased risk of being convicted themselves, net of measured and unmeasured familial confounds. There was, however, little indication for an age-effect at the time of a final paternal conviction, and there were no significant differences in violent crime between exposure-discordant siblings.

Conclusions: The results provide evidence for an effect of the exposure to a paternal conviction on child subsequent conviction risk that cannot merely be explained by familial factors shared between full siblings. These results are, however, conditional on gender and on the type of criminal outcome.