Abstract

"Introduction: The juvenile delinquency has grown worldwide in alarming form in the last time, a multicausality is recognized in the origin of this phenomenon, but it becomes necessary to identify the importance of each one of this causes, and its specific impact in the time. Objective: To identify individual, educational and family factors associated with criminal conduct in a sample of adolescent offenders. Method: Observational study, crossectional, of case-control. From a universe of adolescents between 12 years old and 17 years with 11 months and 30 days, offenders, imprisoned in penal or protection institutions, a convenience sample of 100 adolescents was chosen, which was equalled in gender, age range, and socioeconomic level with a control group of the same size. To both groups a battery of instruments, DISC IV, WISC-R or WAIS, and the Family History Screen, was applied. Results: During the 12 months prior to the study 64% of the offenders and 18% of the controls presented a psychiatric diagnosis. Among the offenders the most prevalent disorder were conduct disorder (46.99%), abuse of alcohol (26%) and dependence of other substances (18%); among the control group the most prevalent were attentional deficit disorder (5%) and conduct disorder (5%). There are statically significant differences between both groups when measuring the intellectual level of functiong, 31%) of the offenders were in the rank of borderline and 34%> of controls were classified as low average. Conclusions: Lower intellectual capacity, school failures, number of sexual partners and conduct disorder were the variables that better predicted inclusion in the group of juvenile offenders."