Family and personality factors in juvenile delinquency

The current study investigated relationships between youth offending, family factors, and personality factors. As a follow-up study to McLoughlin et al, one of the primary focus of this study was to examine whether callous-unemotional traits and aggression could predict offending. The second primary focus of this study was to determine whether family factors also predict offending in combination with callous-unemotional traits and aggression. Police records of 126 youths were obtained, and these were analysed along with the responses that were collected in the previous years during 2007-2010. Several theories involving crime and family factors were also addressed. The results revealed that callous-unemotional trait and aggression were both related to offending. Family factors, particularly ones related to parenting were correlated with youth offending and antisocial behavioural traits

\u3ci\u3eCourt Review\u3c/i\u3e, Volume 46, Issues 1-2 (Complete)

Articles 6 A Review of Findings from the “Gender and Aggression Project” Informing Juvenile Justice Policy and Practice Through Gender-Sensitive Research (Candice L. Odgers, Marlene M. Moretti, & N. Dickon Reppucci) 10 Racial Disparities among Female Juvenile Offenders: The Contribution of Neighborhood Disadvantage and Exposure to Violence in Antisocial Behavior (Preeti Chauhan, Mandi L. Burnette, & N. Dickon Reppucci) 16 Profiles of Mental Disorder among Incarcerated Adolescent Females (Michael A. Russell & Emily G. Marston) 24 Substance Dependence Disorders and Patterns of Psychiatric Comorbidity among At-Risk Teens: Implications for Social Policy and Intervention (Ingrid Obsuth, Gillian K. Watson, & Marlene M. Moretti) 30 Incarcerated Girls’ Physical Health: Can the Juvenile Justice System Help to Reduce Long-Term Health Costs? (Summer J. Robins, Candice L. Odgers, & Michael A. Russell) 36 Predicting and Preventing Aggression and Violence Risk in High-Risk Girls: Lessons Learned and Cautionary Tales from the Gender and Aggression Project (Stephanie R. Penney & Zina Lee) 44 Social-Cognitive Processes Related to Risk for Aggression in Adolescents (Tania Bartolo, Maya Peled, & Marlene M. Moretti) 52 Romantic Relationships Matter for Girls’ Criminal Trajectories: Recommendations for Juvenile Justice (Barbara A. Oudekerk & N. Dickon Reppucci) 58 Translating Research into Intervention: Lessons Learned and New Directions (Marlene M. Moretti, Margaret Jackson, & Ingrid Obsuth) Departments 2 Editor’s Note 3 Outgoing President’s Column 4 Incoming President’s Column 64 The Resource Pag

Direct aggression and generalized anxiety in adolescence:Heterogeneity in development and intra-individual change

Co-occurrence of aggression and anxiety might change during adolescence, or stay stable. We studied change and stability of four types of co-occurrence regarding direct aggression and anxiety in adolescence: an anxious and non-aggressive type, an aggressive and non-anxious type, a comorbid aggressive-anxious type and a no problems type. We applied a person-centered approach to assess increases and decreases of these types, and tested various models of intra-individual change of the types: the stability, acting out and failure models. We used data from a five-wave study of 923 early-to-middle and 390 middle-to-late adolescents (48.5 % male), thereby covering the ages of 12–20. We observed accelerated development in the older cohort: adolescents tended to grow faster out of the aggressive types in middle-to-late adolescence than in early-to-middle adolescence. We observed one other group-dependent pattern of heterogeneity in development, namely “gender differentiation”: gender differences in aggression and generalized anxiety became stronger over time. We found support for two perspectives on intra-individual change of the four types, namely the stability and the acting out perspective. The no problems—and to a lesser extent the anxious—type proved to be stable across time. Acting out was found in early-to-middle adolescents, males, and adolescents with poorer-quality friendships. In all three groups, there were substantial transitions from the anxious type to the aggressive type during 4 years (between 20 and 41 %). Remarkably, acting out was most prevalent in subgroups that, generally speaking, are more vulnerable for aggressive behavior, namely early-to-middle adolescents and males. We interpret acting out as the attempt of adolescents to switch from anxiety to instrumental aggression, in order to become more visible and obtain an autonomous position in the adolescent world. Acting out contributed to the explanation of accelerated development and gender differentiation. We also observed an increase of adolescents with no problems. These findings highlight that the co-occurrence of aggression and anxiety changes considerably during adolescence, but also that the anxious and no problems types are quite stable in this period. Keywords: Direct aggression Generalized anxiety Adolescence Longitudinal researc

The validity and reliability of the violence risk scale-youth version (VRS-YV)

The present study examines the validity, reliability, and psychometric properties of a newly developed violence risk assessment and treatment planning measure for youth – the Violence Risk Scale-Youth Version (VRS-YV; Lewis, Wong, & Gordon, 2004). Composed of 4 static and 19 dynamic items, the VRS-YV is designed to assess violence risk, identify targets for treatment, and evaluate changes in risk as a function of treatment. Change is evaluated through a modified application of Prochaska et al.’s (1992) Transtheoretical Model of Change. Stages of change ratings made pre- and post-treatment are summed across dynamic items to yield change scores. The VRS-YV, Youth Level of Services/Case Management Inventory (YLS/CMI; Hoge & Andrews, 2003), and Psychopathy Checklist-Youth Version (PCL-YV; Forth, Kosson, & Hare, 2003) were each rated from file information on a sample of 133 young offenders (68 males and 65 females) who had received assessment and/or treatment services from a community mental health facility in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. All youths had been charged or convicted of a violent offense. This tended to be a rather high risk sample with a large proportion of Aboriginal youths.The VRS-YV demonstrated good internal consistency (VRS-YV total á = .91) and interrater reliability (VRS-YV total ICC = .90), while most of the individual items had acceptable inter-item (mean r = .32) and item total correlations (range r = .30 to .70). Male and female youths displayed few differences on the three risk measures or their respective scale components; however, Aboriginal youths scored significantly higher on these measures than non-Aboriginal youths, with the trend being particularly strong among males.The VRS-YV showed good convergence with the YLS/CMI and PCL-YV. The three measures significantly postdicted violent offending, that is, youth who were repeat violent offenders tended to score significantly higher on each of the measures, than first time violent youth (i.e., those who had no previous history of violence). Similar postdiction was observed for general criminal offending. Recidivism data were available for roughly half of the total sample (n = 62) over a mean follow-up time of approximately 2 years. Preliminary evidence was obtained for the predictive accuracy of the VRS-YV with respect to violent and general recidivism. Predictive accuracy statistics were comparable to those obtained for the YLS/CMI and PCL-YV, with correlations generally being in the .40 to .50 range and Areas Under the Curve (AUCs) in the mid .70s to low .80s. There was also a significant relationship between VRS-YV risk level and both violent and general recidivism. Survival analyses further confirmed that the VRS-YV was able to differentiate those who were more likely to recidivate and more likely to do so more quickly.Change ratings were available for a small subsample of youth (n = 39), which were used to compute post-treatment dynamic ratings. Youths appeared to demonstrate some degree of change, indicating possible therapeutic progress after receiving treatment services. While the trends for the change results tended to be in the expected direction across several of the analyses, the small nature of the sample precluded meaningful interpretation of these findings.In sum, these data provide preliminary evidence for the ability of the VRS-YV to evaluate risk and predict violent and general recidivism with comparable accuracy to that of two well-known and psychometrically robust instruments in the field. The results further demonstrate that the VRS-YV, YLS/CMI, and PCL-YV can have predictive validity for future violent and general recidivism among a diverse sample of youth that includes both male and female, Aboriginal, and community-based youth, living in the province of Saskatchewan. Limitations and future directions are discussed