Delinquency among adolescents with psychopathic traits in high-risk neighborhoods.

Sammanfattning: The study examine if there is a direct link between adolescents with psychopathic traits and delinquency, secondly if there is a direct link between neighborhood and delinquency. Gender differences were also examined as a control variable. The third aim is to look at the interaction between psychopathic traits and neighborhood on delinquency. We hypothesized that adolescents with psychopathic traits are more likely to engage in delinquent behaviour. We also hypothesized that adolescents who lives in high-risk areas are more prone to engage in delinquent acts. Regarding gender, we believe that boys have higher risk of becoming delinquent. We hypothesized that the interaction between psychopathic traits and high-risk neighborhood would increase the likelihood to engage in delinquent behaviour. The study is conducted by self-report of 1.485 adolescents (10–18 years of age) in a medium-sized city in Sweden. Analyses show that adolescents with high levels of psychopathic traits are more engaged in delinquency. Regarding neighborhood the analyses showed that high-risk neighborhood increases the risk for adolescents to engage in delinquent behaviour. The findings suggest that boys in high-risk areas is more likely to engage in delinquent behaviour compared to girls. Last, the moderation analysis shows that neighborhood accentuated the differences in delinquency between adolescents who has low, medium or high levels of psychopatic traits. In low-risk neighborhoods there are few differences in delinquency between adolescents who has low, medium or high levels of psychopathic triats. In high-risk neighborhoods there are substantial differences between adolescents who has low, medium or high levels of psychopathic traits. This suggest that the effect personality risks have on delinquency is accentuated by contextual risk factors.