This study examined data from 311 youth (10-17 years old) sent to a juvenile justice alternative education program located in the South West US. The first round of data collection took place between the years of 2001 and 2007, and focused on personal issues and familial and peer relationship variables.. A second round of data was collected in 2010 from the state department of criminal justice. These data consisted of arrest records of the original sample. The strength of predicting arrests for violent and nonviolent criminal behaviors, the severity of crimes, and first arrests after the age of 17 were examined. Parental Verbal Aggression, Peer Alienation and Ethnicity were significant predictors of arrests for violent crimes. For arrests for nonviolent crimes, the level of functioning (General Family Functioning, GFF) in the family was a significant predictor. GFF scores were a significant predictor of arrests for nonviolent crime overall, but also for the seriousness of nonviolent crime and first arrest in early adulthood (after age 17). Gender consistently remained a significant predictor for arrest across hypotheses. Implications of these findings for the juvenile justice system, community agencies and schools, and couple and family therapists were discussed. -- Abstract.
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