Few studies exploring the association between adolescent self-esteem and crime have considered whether the early adolescent self-esteem has any enduring consequences for young adult crime. Inspired by the life course and developmental criminology approaches, Arnett’s notion of emerging adulthood, and Kaplan’s self-derogation theory, this article examines whether self-derogation predicts young adult crime, controlling for early adolescent behaviors and more temporally proximate risk and protective factors. In addition, the article examines whether the strength of the ties to college and work exhibit interdependence with early self-derogation and young adolescent crime in predicting young adult crime. Using longitudinal data from a sample of males living in Miami-Dade County, the article finds that self-derogation predicts young adult crime. Furthermore, the authors find that early self-derogation exhibits interdependence with the bond to college, consistent with Wright, Caspi, Moffitt, and Silva’s social protection hypothesis, and that youth crime exhibits interdependence with the bond to work in young adulthood.
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