Developing an empirically based typology of delinquent youths

A number of personality-based typologies have been developed to differentia te juvenile delinquents. Some of these typologies have been faulted for the ir method of construction, for their failure to provide outcome measures, o r because they are dated and have not been retested with more recent delinq uent populations. This paper describes efforts to develop an empirically de rived, inductive typology of juvenile delinquents that can be used in appli ed settings to facilitate a better understanding of program outcomes and en able placement authorities better to predict program effectiveness. The dat a employed in the analysis come from an outcome-based information system-Pr oDES-that has been operational for more than 4 years in Philadelphia Unlike many such databases, ProDES was jointly designed by researchers and practi tioners to serve a large system of community and institutional programs. In cluded among the outcome measures are four standardized, self-reported pers onality scales that comprise 14 subscales and form the basis of the typolog y. This paper describes the methods used to construct the typology, the sub stance of the classification system, and its potential utility for program evaluation.