Adolescent involvement in risky behavior is ubiquitous and normative. Equally pervasive is the rapid decline in risky behavior during the transition to adulthood. Yet, for many, risky behavior results in arrest. Whereas prior research finds that arrest is associated with an increased risk of experiencing a host of detrimental outcomes, less understood is the impact of an arrest on the developmental course of offending compared to what it would have looked like if no arrest had occurred—the counterfactual. This study examines the developmental implications of an arrest early in the life course. The sample (N = 1293) was 37% female, 42% non-white, with a mean age of 13.00 years (SD = 0.82, range = 12–14) at baseline and followed annually for 15 years. Analyses combine propensity score matching and multilevel modeling techniques to estimate the impact of early arrest (i.e., 14 or younger) on the development of offending from adolescence into adulthood. The results indicate that early arrest alters the developmental course of offending in two primary ways. First, early arrest heightens involvement, frequency, and severity of offending throughout adolescence and into early young adulthood even after controlling for subsequent arrests. The detrimental influence of early arrest on the developmental course of offending is found regardless of gender or race/ethnicity. Second, even among youth with an early arrest, offending wanes over time with self-reported offending among all youth nearly absent by the mid- to late-twenties. The findings advance understanding of the developmental implications of early arrest beyond typical and expected offending.

青少年参与危险行为是普遍的和规范的。同样普遍的是在向成年过渡期间危险行为的迅速下降。然而，对于许多人来说，冒险行为会导致逮捕。虽然先前的研究发现逮捕与经历一系列有害结果的风险增加有关，但与没有逮捕发生的情况相比，逮捕对犯罪发展过程的影响知之甚少——反事实. 本研究探讨了生命历程早期逮捕对发展的影响。样本（N = 1293) 是 37% 的女性，42% 的非白人，基线时的平均年龄为 13.00 岁（SD = 0.82，范围 = 12-14），每年随访 15 年。分析结合了倾向得分匹配和多层次建模技术，以估计早期逮捕（即 14 岁或以下）对从青春期到成年期的犯罪发展的影响。结果表明，早期逮捕以两种主要方式改变了犯罪的发展过程。首先，即使在控制了随后的逮捕之后，早期逮捕也会增加整个青春期和成年早期犯罪的参与度、频率和严重程度。无论性别或种族/民族如何，都发现过早逮捕对犯罪发展过程的不利影响。其次，即使在早期被捕的年轻人中，随着时间的推移，犯罪行为逐渐减少，到 20 多岁的中后期，所有年轻人几乎没有自我报告的犯罪行为。这些发现促进了对超越典型和预期犯罪的早期逮捕的发展影响的理解。