Criminal legal system involvement is a consequential and disproportionately experienced life-course turning point that can shape youths’ educational, health, and economic trajectories well into adulthood. Prior research links adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and early life adversity (ELA) to delinquency and later justice involvement, yet cumulative approaches often obscure heterogeneity in how adversities cluster within families. Using longitudinal data from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 4,898), this study adopts a person-centered approach to identify distinct profiles of early family adversity (ages 3–5), childhood delinquency (age 9), and developmental pathways linking adversity to adolescent justice system involvement (age 15). Latent class analyses reveal six substantively meaningful ELA profiles and three delinquency profiles, including a small but high-risk poly-delinquency group. Planned class-to-class and regression analyses examine how specific configurations of adversity—such as maltreatment, family instability, and parental incarceration—shape pathways into delinquency and subsequent legal system contact, with attention to heterogeneity by sex and race/ethnicity. By moving beyond cumulative risk frameworks, this research clarifies which clusters of early family conditions are most strongly associated with delinquency trajectories that precede legal system involvement, offering policy-relevant insights for prevention-oriented, equity-focused interventions aimed at reducing harm and promoting more just developmental outcomes.

Authors:
Ayana April-Sanders, Rutgers School of Public Health, United States
Keisha April, Rutgers School of Criminal Justice, United States

About the Presenter(s)
Ayana K. April-Sanders is an Assistant Professor at the Rutgers School of Public Health. Her research examines early life adversity and health equity, including current work on childhood adversity profiles, delinquency, and youth justice involvement.

See this presentation on the full schedule – Monday Schedule

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