The Cracow Instrument and Moffit's Developmental Theory of Juvenile Delinquency

Over the decade extending from the mid-1 980s to mid-1 990s, official crime statistics indicated a sharp upward trend in violent crime arrests of youth. A number of factors in the individual, family, and environmental domains have been shown to be associated with the etiology of juvenile violent crime and delinquency. Recently, a developmental perspective has gained influence in the understanding of delinquency, in which two distinct trajectories of antisocial behavior have been identified, hypothesized to result from interactions between different individual and environmental factors (Moffit, 1993, 1997). The purpose of the current study was to investigate risk correlates of these distinct trajectories using a new, developmentally-oriented risk needs tool, the Cracow Instrument, Institutional records of 78 American male delinquent juveniles were reviewed. Results indicated small but significant differences between violent and nonviolent offenders in cognitive abilities, and problems in substance use and accommodation. Given a dearth of file information on risk in early developmental periods, no valid conclusions could be drawn regarding differences between early and late onset of antisocial behavior. Implications of results are discussed and suggestions for future research directions are provided.