Heavy-Contact Sport Participation and Early Adolescent Delinquency

Abstract

Sports is one of the most popular youth activities, yet a consensus has not been reached as to whether playing sports facilitates or deters youths’ delinquency. This study uses longitudinal data on youths ages 12–15 to test the association between participation in noncontact (tennis, golf, track and field, swimming, volleyball), semi-contact (soccer, basketball, baseball/softball) and heavy contact (football, hockey, wrestling, lacrosse) sports, and juvenile delinquency. In models accounting for potential selection effects and a full array of confounding influences, playing semi- and noncontact sports is largely unrelated delinquency, whereas greater participation in heavy-contact sports is uniquely associated with increased commission of violent and property crimes in early adolescence. The theoretical and policy implications of these finding are briefly discussed.