Potential correlates of delinquency among 180 youth with severe emotional disturbance were examined in this study. Specifically, the goal was to explore associations between major or minor offending, based on South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) records and (a) prenatal, birth, or developmental factors; (b) family characteristics; (c) environmental characteristics; and (d) problem behaviors and symptoms. Participants were clients of the Continuum of Care for Emotionally Disturbed Children Division of the Office of the Governor in South Carolina and were in the legal custody of the South Carolina Department of Social Services. Polychotomous logistic regression modeling techniques were used to determine which variables were associated with major and minor offending, compared with youth not involved with DJJ. After adjusting for other variables, the factors significantly associated with minor offending included increasing age and parental incarceration. Factors significantly associated with major offending were increasing age, sibling incarceration, and running away.
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