Parental Support and Knowledge as Protective Factors for Youth at Risk for Future Offending: Targeting the Antisocial Thinking That Links Past and Future Delinquency

The goal in conducting this study was to determine whether two forms of criminal thought process—moral neutralization and cognitive impulsivity—mediate the past delinquency-future delinquency relationship. An additional goal was to see whether parental support and knowledge served as moderators of the mediating effect of moral neutralization and cognitive impulsivity on future delinquency. Participants were 845 early adolescents (406 boys, 439 girls) from the Pocono Bullying Study (PBS). A causal mediation analysis was performed in three waves with 1 year between adjacent waves. Findings indicate that while moral neutralization and cognitive impulsivity both mediated the past delinquency-future delinquency relationship, parental support and knowledge only moderated the effect of moral neutralization on future delinquency. These results suggest that parental support and knowledge may serve as protective factors in youth at risk for future delinquency by virtue of elevated levels of moral neutralization.