title: The longitudinal associations between substance use, crime, and social risk among emerging adults: A longitudinal within and between-person latent variables analysis.
abstract: The reciprocal relationship between crime and substance use is well known. However, when examining this relationship, no study to date has disaggregated between- and within-person effects, which represents a more methodologically sound and developmentally-appropriate analytic approach. Further, few studies have considered the role of social risk (e.g., deviant peers, high-risk living situations) in the aforementioned relationship. We examined these associations in a group of individuals with heightened vulnerability to substance use, crime and social risk: emerging adults (aged 18-25 years) in substance use treatment.
  
  
  
  Participants were 3479 emerging adults who had entered treatment. We used auto-regressive latent growth models with structured residuals (ALT-SR) to examine the within-person cross-lagged association between crime and substance use and whether social risk contributed to this association. A taxonomy of nested models was used to determine the structural form of the data, within-person cross-lagged associations, and between-person associations.
  
  
  
  In contrast to the extant literature on cross-lagged relations between crime and substance use, we found little evidence of such relations once between- and within-person relations were plausibly disaggregated. Yet, our results indicated that within-person increases in social risk were predictive of subsequent increases in crime and substance use. Post-hoc analyses revealed a mediation effect of social risk between crime and substance use.
  
  
  
  Findings suggest the need to re-think the association between crime and substance use among emerging adults. Individuals that remain connected to high-risk social environments after finishing treatment may represent a group that could use more specialized, tailored treatments.
authors.affiliation: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Department of Educational Psychology, United States. Electronic address: Merrin1@illinois.edu.
authors.forename: Gabriel J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Merrin
authors.affiliation: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, School of Social work, United States.
authors.forename: Jordan P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Davis
authors.affiliation: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Department of Educational Psychology, United States.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Berry
authors.affiliation: RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, CA, United States.
authors.forename: Elizabeth J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: D'Amico
authors.affiliation: Huron University College at Western University, London, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Tara M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Dumas
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003415:Crime / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D012309:Risk-Taking; D012919:Social Behavior; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Criminal behavior; Delinquency; Latent growth; Substance use; Substance use treatment