COVID-19-related stress affects justice-involved youth. This study looked at changes in psychological distress and antisocial behaviour indicators in 557 probationary teenagers who completed two assessments before COVID-19 and two assessments after COVID-19. The study used multivariate latent growth models based on Agnew's General Strain Theory to look at (a) changes in psychological distress and antisocial behaviour over time, (b) the associations between the changes, and (c) differences in changes in psychological distress across sex, race, and ethnicity. Results show that indices of psychological distress and antisocial behaviour rose during post-COVID-19 conditions when compared to pre-COVID-19 settings for the entire sample and subsamples of youth grouped by sex, race, and ethnicity, supporting the General Strain Theory.
