Leisure is a context for both risk and protection of adolescent well-being. Using a personcentered analysis, the present study examined the links between after-school time use and the adjustment of an urban sample of 7 th to 12 th graders (n = 3808), who self-reported on their leisure activities, school achievement, problem behaviors, and happiness. Results indicated that time use patterns were distributed in five clusters: Creative/Social, Productive/Home, High-Social/Sports, Uninvolved/Sports, and Uninvolved/Home. These patterns of time use varied by age, gender and SES, and were linked with adolescent outcomes in a way that adolescents involved with multiple constructive activities presented better adjustment compared with their either uninvolved or socially oriented counterparts. Specific groups of adolescents were at higher risk for problem behaviors linked to after-school time use. These findings have relevant implications for evidence-based interventions and policies aiming at promoting adolescent well-being and targeting at-risk populations of youth.

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Research on juvenile delinquency and adolescent maladjustment indicates that the beginning of these processes is found in the relationship between multiple risk factors at the individual, family and community levels in this population. The objective of this research was to analyze the risk factors related to the transition from the child welfare system to the adolescent justice system in a group of Chilean male adolescents (n = 108), aged 14–18 years, grouped according to their membership in the child welfare system, the adolescent justice system or both systems. Through a quantitative methodology, variables associated with risk factors were examined by means of the Risk and Resource Evaluation Form FER-R and the Risk and Criminogenic Needs Inventory IRNC instruments. Logistic regression analysis found that the adolescent population within the child welfare system was more likely to enter the adolescent justice system if the following risk factors were present: weak family supervision, consumption of drugs, socially maladaptive peer relationships, and risky free time. These results emphasize that child welfare system interventions should focus on parental support and the management of socio-community networks to prevent re-entry of the adolescent population into the justice system.

This entry aims to provide an approach to the reforms introduced in criminal law in recent years in Portugal and to the results achieved by these reforms in terms of diminishing the sense of insecurity felt by the Portuguese, as expressed in official statistics and victimization studies. Some of the main available materials concerning criminal law and public order tend to emphasize this feeling of insecurity, particularly about violent crimes; yet Portugal is regarded as the ninth safest country in the world and the second in Europe as far as prevalence of crime is concerned. This entry aims to make a modest contribution to the understanding of some of the ideas and goals underlying the reforms in criminal policies designed and followed by Portuguese authorities.