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What's Maturity Got to Do with It? The Association of Psychosocial Maturity on Adherence to Services for Youth in Contact with the Legal System
Introduction: Roughly 3% of all children in the United States are arrested each year. Once arrested, many juvenile detention centers use the Risk-Needs-Responsivity Framework to calculate a youth’s risk to reoffend and identify criminogenic needs. In this framework, the responsivity component encompasses factors in a youth’s life that may effect the youth’s ability to learn from, and engage in, an intervention. The current study investigates if maturity is a responsivity factor. Methods: The current study assesses three aims in a sample of youths who have committed a serious offense using the Pathways to Desistence dataset (N=1170). Aim 1 investigates if the modality of therapy (individual or group) was associated with engagement in services. Aim 2A assess the association of therapy type (individual or group) on the likelihood of a participant rating therapy as helpful. Aim 2B assesses the association of probation type (typical or intensive) on the likelihood of probation being helpful. Lastly, Aim 3, examines the potential of tailoring services to one’s psychosocial maturity by understanding if psychosocial maturity moderates the relationships of Aims 1 and 2A, and 2B. Results: Results revealed there was no statistically significant association between modality of therapy and engagement in services, b = 0.69, 95% CI(0.42, 1.11), p = 0.13. There was also no statistically significant association between modality of therapy and perceived helpfulness, OR = 0.59, 95% CI(0.26, 1.31), p = 0.20. Furthermore, there was no statistically significant association between probation type and helpfulness, OR = 1.06, 95% CI(.67, 1.64), p = 0.81. In Aim 2B, the sensitivity analysis of helpfulness revealed a biased bifurcation of helpfulness. Aim 3 revealed, overall, that maturity does not significantly moderate the relationships from Aim 1, 2B and 2C. Some aims revealed statistically significant differences in sex and gender. These findings are discussed. Discussion: While these results were not hypothesized, potential reasons for these outcomes are discussed in comparison to the larger literature. The limitations to this study and future directions are also outlined