Delinquency Prevention Programs Research Articles

Relationship between Perceived Maternal Rejection and Neuroticism Delinquency Risk Trait among Female Juvenile Delinquents in Selected Rehabilitation Institutions in Kenya

Juvenile delinquency has been a major problem in most parts of the world including Kenya due to its complexities attributed to its dynamic nature among different categories of children. Gender-based delinquency prevalence studies have identified female juvenile delinquency to be a developing key delinquency challenge as compared to male juvenile delinquency. In addition, research indicates that female juvenile delinquents are more prone to mental health problems attributed to incarceration experiences as compared to male juvenile delinquents. The need to focus more on female juvenile delinquency risk and protective factors studies is thus crucial so as to unravel the prevailing juvenile female delinquency complexities. The purpose of the study was therefore to examine the relationship between perceived maternal rejection and neuroticism delinquency risk trait among female juvenile delinquents in selected rehabilitation institutions in Kenya. Interpersonal Acceptance-Rejection Theory (IPARTheory) was identified to be the key theory that provided the theoretical framework for this study. The research was a correlational study and employed a survey research design in data collection. The study involved 186 female juvenile delinquents incarcerated in selected rehabilitation institutions in Kenya. Purposive sampling was used to select the three government girls’ rehabilitation institutions in Kenya involved in this study. Maternal Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire and Neuroticism Questionnaire were used to collect data. The Statistical Package for Social Scientist (SPSS) version 25 aided in the analysis of quantitative data. To establish the levels of perceived maternal rejection and neuroticism, the data were subjected to descriptive statistics analysis for calculations of percentages, means and frequencies. The data was also subjected to inferential statistical analysis and employed Spearman’s Rank correlation to establish the relationship between maternal rejection and neuroticism. The analyzed data was then presented in form of tables. The study findings indicated that the participants perceived more of maternal rejection than acceptance (M = 163.8) and significantly high levels of neuroticism (M = 28.33). The study found that there was a moderate positive correlation between the perceived maternal rejection and neuroticism [rs(186) = .565, p < .001] among its participants. Understanding of this relationship and its moderators can help in designing accurate female juvenile delinquency prevention and treatment programs.

Applying Decision Analysis and System Dynamics Community Governance in the Evaluation of Juvenile Delinquency Prevention Strategies

Abstract From the perspective of juvenile delinquency prevention theory, this paper explores the current situation of juvenile delinquency in rural areas of W County and the mechanism of relevant functional departments in local community governance based on the questionnaire survey method. Then, six juvenile delinquency prevention service programs are selected as the object of evaluation research, and the intelligent decision analysis system of system dynamics is used as the tool of evaluation research to evaluate the six juvenile delinquency prevention programs systematically and comprehensively. The following conclusions were obtained after the analysis. The crime rate of rural youths in County W is as high as 15.8%, with a wide range of crimes. 81.6% of the relevant departments in community governance did not establish rural juvenile records, and about 13% of the departments did not conduct crime prevention training. The Green Clay People Juvenile Crime Prevention Program, which uses social connection theory as a strategy, has an evaluation value of 0.242, and the completion rate of the agreed service indicators specified in the contract is more than 100%. The overall evaluation of the six programs was 87% satisfied. Therefore, the intelligent decision analysis system in this paper has been well applied in the evaluation of juvenile crime prevention strategies, with the progress and development of society, and will occupy an important position in the future for a considerable time.

Recidivism in a juvenile court‐sponsored delinquency prevention program

AbstractPrevious research on the rates of juvenile re‐offending have been found to be as high as 66% when measuring recidivism by rearrest and as high as 33% when measuring re‐offending by reconvictions within one to three years of release. However, accurately estimating a national juvenile recidivism rate is problematic. This is even more complicated when attempting to determine recidivism for delinquency prevention programs. One of the oldest, and perhaps most successful of these programs, is the Oakland County (Michigan) Youth Assistance Program (OCYA), which began in 1953. The present paper is an attempt to quantify the recidivism rate for youngsters referred to OCYA in a different sample. This study drew on the entire OCYA database from 2004 to 2014 with a random sample of 1540 cases selected. Demographic information of the selected youths, their number of caseworker contacts, the type of offense, and their recidivism record were evaluated using SPSS statistical software. Results showed a relatively low recidivism rate, but participation in OCYA face‐to‐face caseworker contacts or auxiliary programs had no predictive value in forecasting recidivism.

Typologies of Adolescent Delinquent Behaviors and Prediction of Latent Delinquent Groups Using Machine Learning Algorithms

Objectives: With the advances in digital technologies, adolescents are more likely to engage in multiple types of delinquent behaviors; however, few studies have considered various types of delinquencies with a multidimensional approach. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the latent groups based on various delinquencies and examine latent groups’ predictors using machine learning and multidimensional approaches.Methods: Using nationally representative data (N = 8,210; male 52.17%), a latent class analysis was conducted to identify latent groups based on 10 delinquent behaviors self-reported by adolescents. A random forest analysis was then employed to predict latent groups using 53 predictors including demographic (6 items), personal (44 items), and environmental levels (3 items). The Mplus program was used for latent class analysis, and the R version 4.0.5 program was used for random forest analysis.Results: Three latent groups were identified and categorized as “high online delinquency” (3.2%), “drink/media delinquency” (26.8%), and “low delinquency” (70.0%). Random forest analysis found adolescents’ perception of harmful substances was the most important variable predicting the delinquent groups. Partial dependence plots showed the higher the interest in harmful substances, the lower the ability to respond to the harmful substances; the higher the access to harmful environment, the lower the grade; and the lower the autonomy control ability, the more likely the classification as a high delinquency group.Conclusion: This study classified three latent groups while considering the detailed types of delinquencies. The study found the prominent predictors using machine learning and multidimensional approaches to suggest useful delinquency prevention programs.

Supporting youth and families to prevent risky youth behavior and delinquency: An impact evaluation of a family counseling program in the Caribbean

This study provides the first randomized controlled trial (RCT) of a family counseling intervention in the Caribbean, and one of the few RCTs on a violence and delinquency prevention program in the region. This trial studies the impact of the Family Matters program for youth aged 10–18 years old and at risk of engaging in delinquent behavior. As a result of the program, parental supervision improved and there wasareduction insome of the youths’ negativebehaviors and attitudes, but the magnitude of improvements was small: participants’ average number of risk factors decreased by only one fifth of a standard deviation. Improved behaviors did not translate into reduced youth delinquency. The findings suggest that with some adjustments to improve program targeting and address pressing family challenges, the intervention may have a more meaningful impact on caregiving practices and youth behaviors and delinquency levels.

Measuring the association between fathers’ involvement and risky behaviours in adolescence

Understanding the drivers of adolescent risky behaviour is important given the costs that such behaviours impose on society and young people themselves. Evidence shows that early parent-child relations shape children's development and behaviour, however we know relatively little about the potential causal pathways that lead to risky behaviour and the differential impact of fathers' and mothers' childcare involvement. This study tests whether paternal involvement in childcare at age 11 is associated with adolescent risky behaviour at age 14. Accounting for likely mediators, we run a Structural Equation model on three sweeps (2008–2015) of the UK's Millennium Cohort Study. Results show significant associations between father's involvement and reduction in adolescent risky behaviour. Father's involvement and father-adolescent closeness are shown to be stronger predictors of risky behaviours relative to mother's involvement and mother-adolescent closeness. This has implications for delinquency prevention programs that should be (re)designed to encourage healthy father-child bonds in adolescence.

A Comparative Study of Parenting Practices and Juvenile Delinquency between China and the United States

ABSTRACT This study examines the differences in parenting practices and their effects on juvenile delinquency between China and the United States. Its principal goal is to gain a more culturally relevant understanding of the possible ways of preventing delinquency through the improvement of parenting styles. The analyses were based on a nationally representative sample of American adolescents and a probability sample of Chinese adolescents in the same age group. To increase data comparability, the study employed similar measures of parenting practices and delinquency in the two samples. The analysis indicated that the American adolescents perceived a higher level of parental responsiveness but a lower level of parental control than did the Chinese adolescents. While parental responsiveness was inversely related to delinquency in both samples, parental control predicted lower delinquency only in the U.S. sample. Moreover, the negative relationship between parental monitoring and delinquency was stronger among the American adolescents than among the Chinese adolescents. The results underscore the need to consider cultural differences when assessing the impact of parenting practices on delinquency, or when applying the research findings to delinquency prevention programs.

Drug Interactions and Juvenile Delinquency in Mexico

ABSTRACT We analyze the interaction between Marijuana and Alcohol as correlates of property crimes among Mexican adolescents. Data were drawn from two waves of a Mexican national survey of public high school students in Mexico. A complementary log-log multilevel regression was fitted separately for each survey year, controlling for neighborhood, school, family, and demographic characteristics. We found that Marijuana users were more likely to self-report the commission of a property crime than alcohol users. Other contextual variables such as perceived neighborhood unsafety, drug dealing in school, and disrupted family contexts also increased the likelihood of juvenile delinquency. The absence of evidence of an interaction between the two drugs suggests that their combination, even when they may have even co-occurred, made no significant difference in predicting their involvement in property crimes. This study shows that drug use and juvenile delinquency prevention programs cannot be implemented without consideration of school-context characteristics.

Reflections on Six Decades of Research

A brief autobiographical history is presented covering my 57-year career as a criminologist. I begin with my early childhood experiences, growing up during World War II, my undergraduate and graduate school experiences, and my early career years at San Diego State University and the University of Colorado, Boulder. I then discuss two of the major themes in my research developed during these early career years: self-report measures of delinquent behavior and the Integrated Theory of delinquency. My later career years are described, and the third major theme of my work, the identification and promotion of effective delinquency prevention programs, is discussed.

Parenting Practices as a Mediating factor between Neighborhood Disadvantage and Delinquency

The present study examines the mediating role of parenting practices between neighborhood disadvantage and adolescent delinquency by analyzing data from the first wave of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (ADD-Health). The results showed that neighborhood disadvantage, parenting practices, adolescents’ low self-control, and delinquency are significantly interrelated with each other. However, the significant effect of neighborhood disadvantage on delinquency at one time became ‘insignificant’ after four variables of parenting practices are controlled. Furthermore, parenting practices maintained their significant effects on delinquency even after controlling for adolescents’ low self-control and other developmental outcomes. These findings suggest that not only may parenting practices mediate the relationship between neighborhood disadvantage and delinquency, but also parenting practices may have a direct independent effect on delinquency. The present study provides important implications for the development of delinquency prevention programs focused on improving parenting skills.

The Impact of the Representation of Social Space on the Perception of Crime by Juveniles

The relevance of this research is connected with the necessity of develo­ping the theory of delinquent behavior and of improving the prevention of juvenile delinquency. The analysis of clauses that form the foundation of delinquency prevention programs shows the dominance of personal, behavioral and social environment-related views and a poor development of subjective views that modify the understanding of social consequences of crimes by adolescents. The goal of this research was to study the ideas of adolescents regarding social space and their impact on their assessment of crimes and their consequences. The study was based on the principles and clauses of a subjective approach, and the social-cognitive theory. The information processing methods included the frequency content-analysis (text-meaning), the assessment of differences (H-test of Kruskal-Wallis), and the multi-factor, multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). The authors established that juvenile delinquents’ understanding of interactions in the social space has an influence on their description of crimes. They also determined the statistical differences in the understanding of interaction with the social space between law-abiding adolescents and juvenile delinquents. It was shown that juvenile delinquents believe that social space ignores and devalues them, while law abiding adolescents believe that it is sensitive and supportive. Juvenile delinquents consider it possible to be irresponsible and dishonest in their interactions with other people, while law abiding adolescents strive to be responsible, honest and fair. The authors found out that the assessment of relationships with the social environment has an impact on the description of the consequences of a crime in a group of juvenile delinquents. The obtained results specify the ideas on the subjectivity of juvenile delinquents, prove that the subjective world view determines how the crime itself and its consequences are perceived, provide additional evidence that underage crimes are determined by the disruption of the relationship with the social environment, and show that the consequences of crimes are described using the vocabulary of risks and opportunities, consequences and advantages, break-up with the close ones and isolation.

Education versus Punishment? Silo Effects and the School-to-prison Pipeline

Objectives: This article examines the influence of social context on punishment decisions. To this end, we present a theoretical framework to identify outcomes that can occur when police and probation officers work in schools. Method: The proposed framework draws on organizational theory as well as scholarship on school discipline and punishment and the effects of placing officers in schools. It also draws from insights gathered from site visits, interviews, and focus groups conducted as part of a process evaluation of a school-based delinquency prevention program. We then present data from interviews and focus groups with 41 school-based safety staff to examine the plausibility of the hypothesized framework. Results: We find that officers’ goals interact with the goals of school-based actors to influence punishment-related outcomes. We also find that officers are not always the more punitive force in the schools and that placing officers in schools may have positive as well as negative effects for youth. Conclusions: The findings suggest that current accounts of officers in schools are incomplete. Dynamic interactions may occur within organizational partnerships and should be considered when seeking to understand punishment decisions not only in schools but also in other settings.

Ages of Anxiety: Historical and Transnational Perspectives on Juvenile Justice ed. by William S. Bush and David S. Tanenhaus

Reviewed by: Ages of Anxiety: Historical and Transnational Perspectives on Juvenile Justice ed. by William S. Bush and David S. Tanenhaus Tera Eva Agyepong Ages of Anxiety: Historical and Transnational Perspectives on Juvenile Justice. Edited by William S. Bush and David S. Tanenhaus. New York: New York University Press, 2018. ix + 193. Cloth $49. Ages of Anxiety: Historical and Transnational Perspectives on Juvenile Justice is a critically important examination of international juvenile justice policy in the twentieth century. The contributing authors and editors have co-created a cutting-edge volume that surveys the emergence of juvenile justice and the transnational circulation of ideas surrounding delinquency. This six-chapter volume historicizes the middle decades of the twentieth century—a period that has been under-examined in juvenile justice scholarship. Each study highlights the important role that ordinary people and ideas have played in shaping juvenile justice, and the varied responses that modern, developing, and colonial regimes have had to delinquency. The first part of the book examines efforts that reformers and practitioners made to legitimize emergent juvenile justice systems in Belgium, Mexico, and colonial Zanzibar. The second part analyzes the varied approaches to policing and punishing youth crime in Boston, Paris, Montreal, and Turkey. David Niget highlights a transnational movement of ideas about juvenile courts among Belgian reformers, judges, and the International Association of Children's Judges (IACJ) by examining discourses that circulated internationally. Collectively, Belgian reformers, the IACJ, and other international congresses disseminated proposals for juvenile courts based on the "American" or "Chicago" model. This first chapter reveals the significant impact that the emergence of international human rights paradigms had on notions of juvenile justice in the aftermath of the world wars. In the second chapter, Shari Orisich's study of the transformation of Mexico City's juvenile court between the 1930s and 1960s similarly explores the impact of a transnational circulation of ideas. Orisich focuses on juvenile court workers' understanding and application of scientific ideas about delinquency and youth. The chapter contains rich analysis of estudio social (minors' case files that included reports by doctors, psychologists, caseworkers, and other state agents), revealing not only the impact that transnational ideas had on the ground, but the ways in which children themselves asserted agency over their own lives. Orisich's "reading against the grain" of the narratives in the children's case files brilliantly historicizes how [End Page 129] a new welfare state modernized authority on a "body of knowledge that was built on youth" (53). Corrie Decker's chapter on the limits of Western conceptions of juvenile justice in colonial Zanzibar concludes Part I of the text. British colonial administrators resisted calls from the Colonial Office, beginning in the 1930s, and from the United Nations in the 1950s, to follow international blueprints for the administration of juvenile justice. Decker reveals how masheha (local chiefs) and mudirs (Islamic legal representatives) resolved cases of juvenile delinquency before colonial administrators knew about them. As a result, local leaders diverted youth before they could encounter the colonial penal apparatus. Decker's study is an important reminder that the very notions of "delinquency" and "justice" have been culturally and historically contingent categories mediated by local actors even when they have purported to be "universal" and international" in their conception. Part II's examination of approaches to policing and punishing youth crime begins with Tamara Myers' chapter. Myers analyzes the Montreal Police Department's (MPD) approach to a juvenile crime wave that began—as it did in other large cites—in the postwar period. The MPD successfully reduced juvenile delinquency by creating delinquency prevention programs and reconceptualizing the role of police officers so that it emphasized mentorship rather than policing. The chapter is not only an important addition to historical scholarship and policy debates about juvenile justice because of its illumination of a locale where delinquency prevention strategies worked, but also because it highlights how important the construction of youth was to this history. As Myers notes, prevention work "necessitated the production of particular construction of youth—one that was deserving of protection" (96). In "Supervising Freedom: Juvenile Delinquency in Paris and Boston in the Mid-Twentieth Century," Guillaume Périssol's comparative study examines the...

Can Machine Learning Improve Screening for Targeted Delinquency Prevention Programs?

The cost-effectiveness of targeted delinquency prevention programs for children depends on the accuracy of the screening process. Screening accuracy is often poor, resulting in wasted resources and missed opportunities to avert negative outcomes. This study examined whether screening approaches based on logistic regression or machine learning algorithms could improve accuracy relative to traditional sum-score approaches when identifying boys in the 5th grade (N = 1012) who would be repeatedly arrested for violent and serious crimes from ages 13 to 30. Screening algorithms were developed that incorporated facets of teacher-reported externalizing problems and other known risk factors (e.g., peer rejection). The predictive performance of these algorithms was evaluated and compared in holdout (i.e., test) data using the area under the receiver operating curve (AUROC) and Brier score. Both the logistic and machine learning methods yielded AUROC superior to traditional sum-score screening approaches when a broad set of risk factors for future delinquency was considered. However, this improvement was modest and was not present when using item-level information from a composite scale assessing externalizing problems. Contrary to expectations, machine learning algorithms performed no better than simple logistic models. There was a large apparent advantage of machine learning that disappeared after appropriate cross-validation, underscoring the importance of careful evaluation of these methods. Results suggest that screening using logistic regression could improve the cost-effectiveness of targeted delinquency prevention programs in some cases, but screening using machine learning would confer no marginal benefit under currently realistic conditions.

Developing an integrated biosocial theory to understand juvenile delinquency: from the social, cognitive, affective, and moral (SCAM) perspectives

Biosocial theory has made considerable progress in explaining juvenile delinquency and making explicit references for juvenile justice policy during the past decades. However, because biosocial theory aims to identify multiple risk factors, it makes juvenile justice practice and develop delinquency prevention programs difficult. This paper proposes an integrated biosocial theory from the social, cognitive, affective, and moral (SCAM) perspectives to understand juvenile delinquency and facilitate the development and improvement of prevention and intervention programs. The article briefly summarizes the background and the key concepts of the chosen criminological theories and the logic of theoretical integration. Then it articulates the four aspects of the integrated biosocial theory and how it can contribute to criminology in details. Lastly, the paper identifies its potential limitations and provides practical implications.

Changes in delinquency according to socioeconomic status among Finnish adolescents from 2000 to 2015.

Background: Scientific literature suggests that the prevalence of delinquency amongst adolescents has decreased internationally in past decades. However, whether this change is consistent across all socioeconomic groups has not yet been studied.Objective: The aim of this study was to examine changes in delinquency amongst Finnish adolescents according to socioeconomic status between 2000 and 2015.Method: A population-based school survey was conducted biennially amongst 14-16-year-old Finns between 2000 and 2015 (n = 761,278). Distributions for delinquency and socioeconomic adversities (low parental education, not living with both parents and parental unemployment in the past year) were calculated using crosstabs. Associations between delinquency, time, and socioeconomic adversities were studied using binomial logistic regression results shown by odds ratios with 95 % confidence intervals.Results: Delinquency was positively associated with all three socioeconomic adversities studied and cumulative socioeconomic adversity. Although the prevalence of delinquency varied only slightly between 2000 and 2015 in the overall population, it increased significantly amongst adolescents with most socioeconomic adversities.Conclusions: The findings indicate that socioeconomic differences in delinquency have increased amongst Finnish adolescents in past decades. Delinquency prevention and intervention programs should take socioeconomic adversities into account.

Unique Dispositional Precursors to Early-Onset Conduct Problems and Criminal Offending in Adulthood

The aims of this study were to examine whether dispositional interpersonal callousness, negative emotionality, and hyperactivity/impulsivity uniquely influence the development of childhood-onset conduct problems and persistent criminal behavior in males, and to determine whether specific facets of negative emotionality (dysregulated anger versus anxiety) in childhood are differentially associated with the development of chronic antisocial behavior. Childhood dispositional features and conduct problems were assessed semiannually using parent- and teacher-report measures across 9 consecutive assessments in a school-based sample of 503 boys (∼7-11 years of age). Participants' criminal behavior was assessed using official records from adolescence into the early 30s. Interpersonal callousness, dysregulated anger, and hyperactivity/impulsivity were uniquely associated with the development of childhood-onset conduct problems. None of these features significantly predicted official records of juvenile offending after controlling for co- occurring conduct problems. However, interpersonal callousness was robustly and uniquely associated with a pattern of persistent and violent adult offending that continued into the early 30s. In contrast, anxiety problems were inversely associated with criminal offending in adolescence and adulthood after controlling for conduct problems and the other dispositional factors. Findings are consistent with theoretical models indicating that interpersonal callousness, dysregulated anger, and hyperactivity/impulsivity influence the development of childhood conduct problems. In contrast, anxiety problems in childhood tend to reduce the likelihood that boys will engage in later criminal offending. Results suggest that delinquency prevention programs should target children exhibiting features of interpersonal callousness, given that they are at high risk for engaging in chronic and violent offending in adulthood.

Effectiveness of delinquency prevention program using propensity score matching: is trust in teachers a turning point in zero-tolerance policies?

ABSTRACTAlthough the relationship between parental and teachers’ roles and exclusionary discipline practices (EDP) seems intuitive, the link has rarely been supported in school disciplinary literature. This current study tested whether delinquency prevention programs can be directly effective in reducing adolescent delinquency, considering the medium of student’s trust in teachers and parental contact with school. In detail, this study attempted to answer two questions: ‘Do current delinquency prevention programs decrease EDP?’ and ‘Do student–teacher trust and parental contact with school mediate the effectiveness of prevention programs on suspensions?’ Using the techniques of propensity score matching and structural equation modeling, we found that student trust in teachers is a relevant and valid construct and statistically significant mediator on suspensions. The authors suggested some considerations to use student trust in teachers and parental contact with school more effectively as policy tools in disciplinary practices.

The differential influence of absent and harsh fathers on juvenile delinquency

Researchers have identified father absence as a contributor to juvenile delinquency. Consequently, politicians and community leaders are making efforts to re-engage fathers. However, it is possible that the presence of fathers is not, in itself, a substantial protective factor and, in some cases, can even be more detrimental than father absence. Employing a diverse sample of male juvenile offenders in the U.S. (ages 13–17), the present study examined the differential effects of absent fathers and harsh fathers on delinquency. Results indicated that youth in the harsh-father group engaged in more offending behaviors and used more substances than youth in the absent-father group. This difference remained even after controlling for the mother-child relationship. Implications of these findings for future research and delinquency prevention programs are discussed.

Delinquency prevention for individual change: Richard Clarke Cabot and the making of the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study

PurposeRichard Clarke Cabot (1868–1939) designed and directed one of criminology's most well-known delinquency prevention programs and the field's first randomized controlled experiment: the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study (CSYS). This paper aims to develop an historical understanding of the making of the CSYS through a focus on Cabot. MethodsThe present study is guided by the socio-historical approach and informed by past historical research in criminology. It draws upon a wide array of archival records and published works from the late 19th century to present day. ResultsThe CSYS came to fruition through a culmination of personal, professional, and institutional influences on Cabot, including: his ideals and sense of pragmatism, refined by his transition from medicine to social ethics and social work; criminological luminaries in the 1920s and 1930s, who focused on the individual over the environment—most notably, William Healy and Augusta Bronner and Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck; and Cabot's concern with the failures of treatment of offenders. ConclusionsThe study's early history and its lineage to Joan McCord's research on the study allows us to discern some of its legacies for delinquency prevention today, including application of the experimental design and a holistic view of delinquency prevention. The CSYS continues to have an influence on criminological thinking and research.