Development and Assessment of a Classification of High Risk Youths

Abstract

Cluster analysis is applied to substance use and delinquency data collected in a longitudinal study of juvenile detainees to empirically derive five groups of youths from information gathered at their initial interviews (time 1): alcohol/marijuana-hashish users, low-level delinquents, alcohol/ marijuana-hashish and cocaine-using nondelinquents, high delinquency, cocaine users, and heavy cocaine-using nondelinquents. The validity of the typology was supported by a variety of other initial interview and follow-up interview alcohol/other drug use and delinquency data, and by recidivism information — including data on arrests during the three-and-a-half years following the date of the youths' first interviews. Research and policy implications of the findings are drawn.