Patterns of juvenile criminal activity as a function of demographic, family, and individual variables

Patterns of juvenile criminal activity were investigated with respect to differences in a range of demographic, family, and individual variables. Subjects were 89 juveniles who were referred to a county juvenile services center (70 males, 19 females; 78 Caucasians, 10 Blacks, 1 Oriental; mean age = 15.7). Discriminant function analyses were used to assess the discriminating power of the variables across crime categories (felony vs. misdemeanor), crime subcategories (person vs. property), number of prior referrals (none vs. one or more), and grade level (junior vs. senior high). All groups could be discriminated effectively on the basis of Wilks' lambda and associated chi-square tests of statistical significance.