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Background: The juvenile justice system's interventions are expected to help reduce recidivism. However, previous studies suggest that official processing in juvenile court fails to reduce adolescents' criminal behavior in the following year. Longer term effects have not yet been investigated with a rigorous method. This study used propensity score matching to assess the impact of juvenile court processing into young adulthood. Method: Participants were part of a prospective longitudinal study of 1,037 boys from low- socioeconomic areas of Montreal, followed from ages 6-25 years. During their adolescence, 176 participants were processed in juvenile court, whereas 225 were arrested, but not sent to court. Propensity score matching was used to balance the group of participants exposed to juvenile court and the unexposed comparison group on 14 preadolescent child, family and peer characteristics. The two groups were compared on their official adult criminal outcomes. Results: The risk of conviction for an adult offence was 50.0% for court-processed participants compared with 24.3% for their matched counterparts, OR = 3.13, 95% CI = 1.80-5.44. Court-processed participants committed an average of 0.39 violent crimes, compared with 0.15 for their matched counterparts; Poisson model IRR = 2.60, 95% CI = 1.39-4.87. They also committed an average of 2.38 nonviolent crimes, compared to 1.30 for their matched counterparts, IRR = 1.87, 95% CI = 1.19-2.93. Conclusions: Rather than decreasing recidivism, juvenile court intervention increased both violent and nonviolent future crimes. Along with previous studies, this study highlights a pressing need for more research and knowledge transfer about effective interventions to reduce recidivism among youths who commit crime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Youth follow one of three drinking trajectories: normative, early-onset, late-onset. • Parents' alcohol use predicts their offsprings' drinking trajectories. • Mothers', but not fathers', alcohol use predicts youths' early-onset drinking. • Low alcohol use in mothers and fathers predicts a late-onset drinking trajectory. • Insufficient family income is associated with non-normative drinking trajectories. Research shows that parental alcohol use predicts youths' alcohol use, but this intergenerational continuity may vary across countries, and little is known about its moderators. This study examined for the first time the intergenerational continuity in alcohol use in a population sample of families in Canada, and tested whether it varied by youths' sex, family income, or family structure. We used prospective longitudinal data on 1632 families from the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development (QLSCD), a representative sample from the province of Quebec, Canada. Youths self-reported alcohol use and binge drinking frequency at seven timepoints from early adolescence to early adulthood. Predictors were mothers' and fathers' self-reported alcohol use from youths' infancy through age 13, and mother-reported socioeconomic variables. We identified three trajectories of alcohol use from ages 13 to 21 years: normative, late-onset and early-onset. Maternal alcohol use increased the youths' risk of following the early-onset trajectory of alcohol use, while both parents' alcohol use decreased the odds of the youths following the late-onset trajectory, compared to the normative trajectory. Insufficient family income increased youths' risk of following either the early-onset or late-onset trajectories. Mothers' and fathers' alcohol use did not interact in predicting youths' trajectory, and we found no moderating effects of the youths' sex, insufficient income, or years as a single-parent family. The results suggest modest intergenerational continuity of alcohol use in Quebec families which may be used, with income insufficiency, to help identify at-risk children for targeted interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Testosterone is the key hormone for the development of male reproductive organs and secondary sexual characteristics. In addition, testosterone is associated with behavioural traits, including sexual behaviour and social dominance. The level of circulating testosterone in the human body is determined by genetic and environmental factors. Twin studies have shown moderate to high heritability in adolescence and adulthood, but heritability in early childhood has not been investigated. This study aimed at disentangling the genetic and environmental contributions to testosterone levels soon after birth., Methods: Using a sample of 314 twin pairs, saliva testosterone levels were measured at 5 months after birth. Quantitative genetic modelling was used to assess genetic and environmental contributions to the variation in testosterone levels., Results: Variation in testosterone levels was explained by common (56.6%) and unique (43.4%) environmental factors., Conclusions: Taken together, these data from the largest study of twin testosterone levels suggest that, in contrast to findings in adulthood, environmental factors determine the interindividual variability in testosterone levels in early infancy. This may have consequences for the development of sex-related behaviour during childhood and calls for studies designed to unravel specific genetic and environmental factors involved in this process., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)