Exploring the Associations Between Community Gun Violence Exposure and Adolescent Delinquency: Evidence from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study

In the past decades, an increasing body of research has delved into the mechanisms of adolescent delinquency from various perspectives, including individual characteristics, interpersonal relationships, school environments, and community settings. However, limited research focused on its association with community gun violence exposure. Utilizing data from 3,595 adolescents ( M = 15.63, SD = 0.71) and their families, we examined how the number of gun violence incidents proximal to adolescents’ homes and schools was linked with their self-reported delinquent behaviors, controlling for other important individual, interpersonal, and community-level predictors of adolescent delinquency. Results revealed relationships between gun violence within 1,000 and 500 m of homes (but not schools) and adolescent delinquency; yet the direction of the relationship differs by distance.