Adolescent risk and protection profiles for violence perpetration: Insights for family‐ and community‐based prevention

Abstract Youth violence continues to be a major developmental and health concern. Preventative resources at individual, family, and community levels may reduce risk, yet the extent to which youth violence perpetration differs by patterns of risk and protective factors remains unknown. Using data from the Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey ( N = 4630; 49% female; M age = 14.69), we conducted person‐centered, latent profile analyses to identify four patterns for risk of violence perpetration among middle and high school youth. Youth in the Low Risk‐High Protection profile (37%) had low likelihood of violence perpetration. Youth in the Low Risk‐Low Protection profile (4%) were characterized by poor family functioning, low school belonging, and low community protection. These youth had similar odds of violence perpetration as youth in the Moderate Risk‐Moderate Protection profile (44%), which were elevated compared to the Low Risk‐High Protection profile. Youth in the High Risk‐Low Protection profile (15%), which had the highest levels of risk factors and lowest levels of protective factors, had the highest likelihood of violence perpetration. The High Risk‐Low Protection profile was expected based on past research, but the emergence of the Low Risk‐Low Protection profile is a unique contribution to the research. Findings contribute to the literature by going beyond a cumulative risk model, identifying subgroups with various patterns of risk and protection in the population, and highlighting the importance of selected prevention for subgroups of youth with high risk or challenging family and community environments.