Task persistence as a competency capable of reducing delinquency in early to mid-adolescence
| Published date | 01 March 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/26338076231208028 |
| Author | Glenn D Walters |
| Date | 01 March 2024 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Task persistence as a
competency capable of
reducing delinquency
in early to mid-adolescence
Glenn D Walters
Kutztown University, Kutztown, Pennsylvania, USA
Abstract
In an effort to understand the segment of the juvenile population that seemingly ceases
engaging in delinquency during adolescence, the relationship between a performance compe-
tency (task persistence) and offending was explored in 3,928 youth (2,005 boys and 1,923
girls) from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. Three waves of data, with adjacent
time periods separated by two years, were used to test the hypothesis that a change in task
persistence would correlate with a change in future delinquency. Given that the two depend-
ent variables in this study (delinquency at Time 2 and delinquency at Time 3) followed a nega-
tive binomial distribution, negative binomial regression and binomial logistic regression
analyses were performed. Results from both analyses confirmed the hypothesis that a rise
in task persistence from Time 1 to Time 2 would predict a decrease in delinquency from
Time 1 to Time 2 to Time 3 and that a static measure of task persistence at Time 1 would
predict a change in delinquency from Time 1 to Time 2. These results suggest that task per-
sistence may be a competency capable of suppressing delinquency during a developmental per-
iod in which delinquency ordinarily rises.
Keywords
Task persistence, delinquency, competencies, adolescence
Date received: 16 April 2023; accepted: 27 September 2023
A person need not enrol in therapy to loosen the grip of delinquency, crime, or general antiso-
ciality on their behaviour. In fact, the majority of individuals who desist from crime and delin-
quency probably do so without treatment. That most individuals recover without formal
Corresponding author:
Glenn D Walters, Department of Criminal Justice, Kutztown University, Kutztown, Pennsylvania 19530-0730, USA.
Email: walters@kutztown.edu
Article
Journal of Criminology
2024, Vol. 57(1) 5–22
© The Author(s) 2023
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/26338076231208028
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intervention has been documented with substance abuse (Price et al., 2001; Walters, 2000) and
is strongly implied for crime and delinquency in research on turning points and desistance
(Niebuhr & Orrick, 2020; Wyse et al., 2014). This suggests that spontaneous remission or
natural recovery is the main mechanism by which people exit a drug or criminal lifestyle.
Just because the change is spontaneous or natural, however, does not mean that it is random
or haphazard. There are reasons why it occurs, even if we don’t know what those reasons
are. One such reason is the development of competencies, and another is the alteration of envir-
onments (Walters, 2022). By cultivating social, cognitive, developmental, and performance
competencies, a person may decrease the odds of their future involvement in a delinquent or
criminal lifestyle. Environmental changes that are capable of protecting an individual from
future involvement in delinquency and crime could potentially call upon alterations in one’s
family (either the family of origin, or if married, their current family), peer, neighbourhood,
school, or work situation to bring about a change in behaviour.
Turning points (Sampson & Laub, 2016), despite their significance, are not the only reason
why people desist from crime without treatment. Another reason is that they mature out of this
behaviour. This is perhaps best illustrated by the age-crime curve in which offending has been
found to follow a distinct pattern with age—normally beginning in late childhood/early adoles-
cence, peaking in mid-adolescence, and dropping off in late adolescence/early adulthood
(Hirschi & Gottfredson, 1983; Shulman et al., 2013). This does not mean that change
cannot occur before late adolescence/early adulthood. Thus, while the most common situation
is for offending to begin in early adolescence and end in late adolescence, the so-called
adolescence-limited pattern (Moffitt, 1993), alternate trajectories exist. One such alternative
is Moffitt’s life-course-persistent pattern in which offending begins in late childhood and
ends in mid- to late adulthood. Another is a childhood-limited pattern in which offending
begins and ends in childhood (Gutman et al., 2019; Sentse et al., 2017). Offending, it would
seem, is characterised by variability, and it is this variability that may offer clues as to how
early offending can best be managed. The purpose of the current investigation was to determine
whether changes in certain competencies from late childhood through middle adolescence
predict reductions in the likelihood of delinquency in youth during a period in life
(i.e., early adolescence) when offending normally begins.
Task persistence, academic performance, and delinquency
Competencies are behaviours grounded in a skill set, informed by knowledge, and shaped by
attitudes designed to allow the person to achieve specific goals and objectives (Bandura &
Schunk, 1981). As previously stated, there are several categories of competency, to include
social competencies, cognitive competencies, developmental competencies, and performance
competencies. The focus of the current investigation was on the performance competency
known as task persistence. To be successful and achieve one’s goals and objectives in life,
one must learn to handle adversity, overcome obstacles, and cope with the frustration of
initial failure, all three of which can block attainment of these goals and objectives (Carroll
et al., 2013). Persisting in a task is therefore essential in completing the task and receiving
the benefits conferred by completion. Research indicates that task persistence contributes to
academic achievement (Mih & Mih, 2013; Schmerse & Zitzmann, 2021) and correlates
inversely with dropping out of school (Fitzpatrick et al., 2015). In one study, early adolescent
task persistence predicted educational attainment and occupational success all the way into
6Journal of Criminology 57(1)
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