This article considers the development of adolescents’ delinquent behavior and its emergence. A theoretical model, developed to allow consideration of sociological and social psychological approaches to these matters, distingusihes several levels of analysis. Descriptive and multivariate analysis techniques were used to analyze the ubiquity, intensity, and decline of delinquency. While evidence of relatively large differences concerning ubiquity emerged in models controlling for gender and type of school, differences concerning the trajectories were small. The results obtained of the mixture models gave a more sophisticated picture. Further analyses confirmed, in line with hypotheses aligned with the theory of planned behavior the importance of the perceived consequences of delinquent behavior, the risk of detection and the behavioral intention for the explanation of juvenile shoplifting.

Keywords
youth delinquency, youth criminality, panel design, longitudinal analysis, theory of planned behavior