NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS PREDICTING PERSISTENT MALE DELINQUENCY*

In: Criminology: the official publication of the American Society of Criminology, Volume 32, Issue 2, p. 277-300

Abstract

This article reports the first longitudinal evidence that prospective measures of neuropsychological status predict antisocial outcomes. We studied data for a birth cohort of several hundred New Zealand males from age 13 to age 18. Age‐13 neuropsychological scores predicted later delinquency measured via multiple sources: police, courts, and self‐report. Poor neuropsychological scores were associated with early onset of delinquency. The results fit our predictions about two trajectories of delinquent involvement: (1) Poor neuropsychological status predicted specifically male offending that began before age 13 and persisted at high levels thereafter. (2) By contrast, in this sample neuropsychological status was unrelated to delinquency that began in adolescence.