Integrating models of risk and protection for the prevention of adolescent delinquency

A risk and resilience approach has been increasingly utilized to develop interventions to prevent youth problems such as adolescent delinquency. This approach to prevention uses ecological theory as a framework for understanding adolescent development and behavior and adds information about delinquency from research on risk and protective factors.; This study addressed gaps in research and practice by combining two risk and resilience models of delinquency prevention---risk reduction and protection enhancement---in a comprehensive manner. An additional goal was to examine the utility of considering domains of risk and protection, rather than overall numbers of risk and protective factors, for delinquency prevention efforts. Finally, gender, urban/rural, and racial/ethnic differences in risk and protection were explored, as well as whether individual, family, peer, school, and community protection moderated risk for youth within these sociodemographic groups.; A survey measuring risk and protective factors in the individual, family, peer, school, and community domains was administered to 452 students from an urban and a rural middle school in a medium-sized Midwestern city. Of these, 57% were from the urban school and 43% were from the rural school, and slightly over half were female. Within the urban site, 48% were Caucasian and 52% were youth of color, and 92% were Caucasian in the rural site.; The results revealed differences in levels and types of risk and protection within sociodemographic groups, and confirmed that information about domains of risk and protection significantly predicted delinquency beyond the amount explained by overall levels of risk and protection. The findings also showed a main effect of family and school protection on delinquency. In addition, school protection had a main effect on delinquency and family protection buffered risk for youth with the highest levels of risk. Finally, community protection was found to buffer the effects of risk for youth of color, and individual protection had an exacerbating effect on risk, particularly for youth from the urban area.; A number of implications for current practice emerged from this study. One, prevention efforts must attend to risk, as it is unlikely that protection by itself can mitigate the effects of risk. Two, type of protection matters for preventing delinquency. Using a protective factor enhancement model to build any type of protection will not necessarily be beneficial and may potentially do more harm than good. Three, consideration of youth sociodemographic characteristics may be useful in delinquency prevention efforts. Four, information about protective factors youth have may be used to direct strength-based interventions to prevent delinquency.; Future studies should include a greater number of protective factors and also re-examine the role of individual protections such as self-esteem and independence. In addition, future research should utilize longitudinal designs and ecological approaches to assessing risk and protection for real world views of how they influence youth outcomes.