Head injury, sleep disturbance, and delinquent offending: Evidence from a longitudinal sample of juvenile detainees

Juvenile youth are disproportionately more likely to experience head injury (HI), and HI is associated with reoffending. Yet, little is currently known about the extent to which common symptoms of HI – such as sleep disturbance – condition this relationship. The current study uses prospective data to investigate within-individual changes in HI and reoffending and the moderating role of sleep disturbance on these associations across males and females. Data are drawn from the Northwestern Juvenile Project (NJP), a longitudinal sample of previously adjudicated juveniles. Random intercept cross-lagged models are estimated to assess within-individual changes in HI, violent offending, and nonviolent offending over a two-year period as well as the moderating role of sleep disturbance. Findings indicate that within-individual increases in HI are associated with within-individual increases in violent, but not nonviolent offending. The relation between HI and violent offending is stronger at higher levels of sleep disturbance for males, but not females. Taken together, the results suggest that relations between HI and offending are complex, with different mechanisms likely explaining associations across males and females. • Head injury is associated with increased violent offenses among participants. • Head injury is not associated with increased nonviolent offenses among participants. • Sleep disturbance moderates the link between head injury and violence in males.