An exploratory study of delinquency, criminal offenses, and juvenile status offenses via the cross-validation design.

This article reports the results of an exploratory study of thirty variables that may have an effect on delinquency, criminal offenses, and juvenile status offenses. The study is based on secondary data, and the split-sample cross-validation procedure is used for analysis. Prediction equations were generated in Sample 1; Sample 2 was used for validation. In Sample 1, seven significant predictors of delinquency were found, five for criminal offenses, and five for juvenile status offenses. When these prediction equations were subjected to validation in Sample 2, the number of significant predictors was reduced from seven to four for delinquency, from five to four for criminal offenses, and from five to three for juvenile status offenses. The researchers interpreted these findings within the framework of the cross-validation procedure.