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Income and gender as predictors of violent offending in childhood: Testing for interactive effects

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  • Wojciechowski, Thomas

Abstract

Boys are at greater risk for involvement in violent offending than girls and low income is also a risk factor for violent offending. However, there remain gaps in our understanding of these relationships. There is limited work which has examined the relevance of these factors as predictors of early involvement in violence in childhood. There has yet to be any study examining the interaction between gender and income for predicting violent offending in childhood. This study sought to address these gaps in the literature. The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development dataset was analyzed. This dataset was comprised of 2422 youth aged 9–10 at baseline (Boys = 52.31 %, N = 1267; Girls = 47.69 %, N = 1155). Negative binomial regression was used to test for the direct and interactive effects of gender and income on violent offending variety. Direct of income and gender and moderated effects were both statistically significant prior to inclusion of control covariates. Findings indicated that low income was a risk factor for greater violent offending variety and boys reported significantly greater violent offending variety than girls. The interaction between gender and violent offending just missed the threshold for statistical significance (p < .053). Additional analyses indicated that there were no gender differences in violent offending variety at lower income. There was a protective effect of higher income for boys and girls, but this protective effect was significantly greater for girls. Findings indicated that programming to address poor socioeconomic conditions may aid in mitigating risk of violence among youth, but these effects may be especially effective for young girls.

Suggested Citation

  • Wojciechowski, Thomas, 2025. "Income and gender as predictors of violent offending in childhood: Testing for interactive effects," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jcjust:v:101:y:2025:i:c:s0047235225001886
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2025.102539
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    References listed on IDEAS

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