Background: Mental health problems (MHPs) have been seen to be associated with crime involvement among adolescents, especially externalising problems. Previous studies have often been made internationally and less research has been conducted within the Nordic countries, especially using self-reported data. Aims: To explore how differences in MHPs are associated with differences in crime involvement between adolescents, and how an individual’s change in mental health is associated with a change in crime involvement over time.

Methods: Data were drawn from the research project Malmö Individual and Neighborhood Development study (MINDS) and include 386 adolescents (53% girls; 47% boys). Longitudinal multilevel analysis was applied to assess the association between MHP and crime involvement.

Result: Overall, MHPs, particularly externalising problems, were associated with crime involvement. Also, changes in MHPs were related to changes in crime involvement over time. Fitting separate models for girls and boys yielded partly different results.

Conclusion: The results support previous findings that externalising problems are associated with crime involvement and show that an increase in externalising MHPs over time is associated with increased crime involvement. This underscores the importance of identifying and addressing externalising MHPs at an early stage to prevent a negative development.