Abstract
Despite calls for strength-focused approaches in juvenile justice, there is little research on the role of strengths in probation case management. This is one of the first studies to examine whether strengths function as specific responsivity factors as proposed by the risk–need–responsivity model, through mediating and moderating effects, and findings lend preliminary support to this conceptualization. In a sample of 261 justice-involved youth, the relationship between strengths and recidivism was found to be partially mediated by the service-to-needs match rate, even while controlling for risk—suggesting that strengths have an important indirect effect on recidivism through their impact on youth’s engagement in and completion of services. Strengths, however, did not moderate the relationship between service-to-needs match and reoffending, suggesting that appropriately matched services are essential irrespective of a youth’s strength profile. Research corroborating these findings and examining the feasibility of front-line use of strengths information is warranted.
Highlights
Beyond ensuring public safety, one of the main aims of youth criminal justice policy is rehabilitation: To help justice-involved individuals reduce and eventually cease offending (Bonta & Andrews, 2017)
Research looking into the efficacy of probation services that follow the RNR model has found that matching probation services to youth’s individually identified criminogenic needs is linked to reduced reoffending, with higher proportions of met needs associated with significantly lower rates of reoffending (Luong & Wormith, 2011; Vieira et al, 2009); these findings lend support to the idea that probation and appropriate case management are important for supporting pathways out of crime
A systematic review conducted by Dickens and O’Shea (2017) found that while youth with higher scores on the protective factors section of a well-known risk assessment measure (Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth [SAVRY]; Borum et al, 2006) were somewhat less likely to reoffend than other adolescents, there was no evidence that this measure improved the predictive accuracy over known risk factors
Summary
One of the main aims of youth criminal justice policy is rehabilitation: To help justice-involved individuals reduce and eventually cease offending (Bonta & Andrews, 2017). Research looking into the efficacy of probation services that follow the RNR model has found that matching probation services to youth’s individually identified criminogenic needs is linked to reduced reoffending, with higher proportions of met needs associated with significantly lower rates of reoffending (Luong & Wormith, 2011; Vieira et al, 2009); these findings lend support to the idea that probation and appropriate case management are important for supporting pathways out of crime. In other words, based on the supposition that strengths function as factors that improve program engagement (Bourgon & Bonta, 2014; Taxman, 2014), we hypothesized that youth possessing a greater number of strengths would end up having a higher proportion of identified criminogenic needs met via services provided over the course of probation and that this would account at least in part for the reduced recidivism among these youth. We hypothesized that strengths would moderate the relationship between service-to-needs match and reoffending, such that at higher levels of service-toneeds match, youth with a greater number of strengths would be even less likely to reoffend than youth with fewer strengths because of their enhanced ability to engage and, benefit from the services provided
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