Validating the High Risk Situations Questionnaire for Young Offenders in a Forensic Hospital

Abstract

One hundred and six adolescent offenders completed the High Risk Situations Questionnaire for Young Offenders (HRSQ-YO), an instrument designed to assess the self-reported importance of various antecedents to a past, highly salient offense. Principal components analysis of responses to the 66 HRSQ-YO items resulted in three factors which were rotated to a varimax criterion and labelled Delinquency, Negative Affectivity, and Aggression. Consistent with previous findings, Delinquency factor scores were significantly higher for property offenses than for violent offenses, whereas Aggression factor scores were significantly higher for violent offenses than for property offenses. Negative Affectivity scores also tended to be higher for violent offenses than for property offenses. Implications of the results for the rehabilitation of adolescent offenders are discussed.