Drug use and delinquency: shared and unshared risk factors in African American and Puerto Rican adolescents

The shared and unshared psychosocial risk factors related to stage of drug use and delinquency were examined. The sample consisted of 655 African American and 600 Puerto Rican male and female adolescents. Net regression analysis was used to analyze the data. The results showed that adolescent stage of drug use and delinquency reflect shared and unshared risk factors. The magnitude of the risk factors for adolescent delinquency was greater than for stage of drug use. The findings support a socialization hypothesis (from parent, to personality, to behavior), and the data were congruent with a dispositional model (from child, to parent or peer, to behavior).