Selected Research Findings: Problem Behavior Program

Protective factors, such as a positive orientation to school, the perception of social controls in the daily environment, and having friends who model conventional behavior, not only promote prosocial adolescent behavior and development but also buffer the impact of exposure to risk.
Psychosocial protective factors such as a positive orientation to school, participation in prosocial activities like school clubs, and church attendance are positively related to adolescent health-enhancing behavior, including healthy diet, regular exercise, adequate amount of sleep, and regular seatbelt use.
There is a linear decline in risky driving from age 18 to 25, and the decline is associated with a developmental increase in psychosocial and behavioral conventionality and with entry into the conventional young adult social roles of marriage, child rearing, and work. This pattern holds even for the riskiest subsample of youthful drivers.
Among adolescents who are not problem drinkers (frequent drunkenness and alcohol-related problems), higher levels of psychosocial risk and lower levels of psychosocial protection accelerate the transition into problem drinking in subsequent years.
The variance in youth development outcomes such as grades, prosocial attitudes, personal competencies, and involvement in delinquent behavior, is typically greater within than between neighborhoods.
The effects of poverty and disadvantage are mediated by the types of neighborhood social organization and culture that emerge from the informal interactions of neighbors.
Type of neighborhood, family, school, and peer group together account for 70-90% of the variation in neighborhood rates of successful adolescent development in Denver and Chicago.
Over half of those adolescents growing up in high-poverty, disadvantaged neighborhoods look like they are on track for a successful course of adolescent development and responsible, healthy, productive adult lives in Denver and Chicago.
In national sample data, there appear to be no racial or ethnic differences in the prevalence of serious violent behavior or in individual violent offending rates.
There are large racial differences in the probability of arrest for violent offenses.
In the vast majority of cases, the onset of serious violence occurs in the second decade of life.
Approximately 80% of those youth involved in serious forms of violence will terminate their violent behavior as they enter their adult years and responsibilities.
While there is a reciprocal interaction between involvement in delinquent behavior and acquiring delinquent friends, exposure to delinquent friends has a stronger influence on subsequent illegal behavior than illegal behavior has on subsequent associations with delinquent friends.
Teenagers arrested for serious crimes are equally or more likely to commit subsequent serious crimes than youth who commit similar crimes but are not arrested.
Among teenagers, drug use is lower today than in the 1970s. In the '70s, most serious delinquents were drug users, but today the majority of serious delinquents are not drug users.
Parental criminality and drug use affect the delinquency and drug use of their children, but peers have a greater influence on delinquent behavior, and the combination of "problem parents" and delinquent peers results in the highest levels of delinquency and drug use.