Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies

Background & Objective: Adolescence is characterized by high risk behaviors such as drugs abuse, delinquency and so on. Some multi– dimensional studies have examined factors influencing juvenile delinquency from various aspects. By this point of view, some individual and environmental factors should be chosen because juvenile delinquency is under the influence of individual factors and adolescent’s experiments in their family and their peers. This study examined the effect of three level factors including individual (emotional intelligence, self–concept), family (perception of parenting styles and family interactions), and social (social support and association with deviant peers) on juvenile delinquency.
Methods: Research methodology is descriptive and research design is correlation with multi–level analysis type. The study population consisted of all high school students Babol, Iran. Cluster sampling was used to recruit 689 students (334 boys & 355 girls). The research instruments were Attitudes toward Juvenile Delinquency Designed by Afzali (2010), Emotional Intelligence Scale by Wong and Law (2002), Self–Concept Scale by Piers and (2008), Perception of Parenting Styles (POPS) by Grolnic, Deci and Ryan (1997), Family Assessment Device (FAD, 1983), the Multidimensional Scale of Received Social Support (MSPSS, 1988), and Association with Deviant Peers Scale by Pascal and colleagues (2003). STATA software, 14th version was used to analyze descriptive statistics such as average and standard deviation and inferential statistics including correlation analysis, multiple linear regression and hierarchical linear modeling. Also the significant level for all of the hypothesis tests was considered 0.05. 
Results: The result of hierarchical linear modeling and multiple linear regression showed that the variables of gender, age, acceptance and self– concept did not have any meaningful effect on the attitude towards delinquency but the variables related emotional intelligence (p<0.001), family function (p<0.001), protecting autonomy (p=0.001), the involvement (p=0.010), Association with deviant peers and social support (p<0.001) showed had a statistically significant effect on the attitude towards delinquency.
Conclusion: Individual, family and social factors have a significant effect on attitudes toward juvenile delinquency. The costs which are spent for coping with delinquency can be consumed for adolescent’s education and apprenticeship. Recognizing effective factors on juvenile delinquency is necessary for achieving this goal. Identifying different individual, family and social predictors of delinquent behaviors in adolescents can be an important effort for reducing and controlling delinquency.