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Such inconsistencies aside, these Canadian studies share a common purpose in advancing appreciation of the diversity in offending pathways, as well as an understanding of the factors associated with different offending profiles and/or persistence in offending. As such, an important finding is that there was a common pattern of risk identification and prediction. It would appear that across studies and regardless of the specific outcome, early disruptive experiences within the family of origin (e.g., broken home/family transitions, involvement with alternate care), family adversity (e.g., parental conflict, poor family management practices), compromised academic achievement (e.g., poor academic performance, poor school attendance, low school bonding) and poor peer relations (e.g., antisocial/delinquent peer associations, unconstructive ties with peers) consistently predict which children and youths will go on to have lengthy criminal careers and, in certain instances, commit more serious, violent offences. Early experiences, such as involvement in aggressive behaviour as a child, also predict more negative outcomes. This general pattern of results remained stable regardless of the point of system intervention at which the studies’ follow-up period began, even in research that drew on a predominantly non-clinical sample of children and youths (i.e., from the general population). Equally importantly, the main findings reported in this paper are consistent with those obtained across multiple data sources, at different time periods and throughout the world.
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