This study examined the impact of protective factors, assessed by means of the Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth (SAVRY), on desistance from violent reoffending in adolescents. Three samples included male adolescents in different stages of the judicial process: pre-trial (n = 111); during residential treatment (n = 66); and after release from a juvenile justice facility ( n = 47). The results lend support to the hypothesis that protective factors buffer or mitigate the risk of violent reoffending. Using regression analyses, in all samples, the addition of protective factors yielded a significant increment in the amount of variance explained by dynamic risk factors alone. Furthermore, in medium to high risk subgroups, the violent reoffending rate was significantly higher when protective factors were absent, compared to when protective factors were present. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for risk assessment and risk management practice with adolescent offenders.
Studies have demonstrated that self-report tools can be used to reliably and validly examine psychopathic-like traits in adolescents. However, it is unclear if self-report instruments are still reliable and valid when confidentiality cannot be guaranteed, such as during routine assessments in juvenile detention centres. To address this issue, the current study used data from the routine mental health screening of 365 detained male adolescents (12-18 years) in two juvenile detention centres. With the intention of gaining insight in the clinical usefulness of self-reported psychopathic-like traits, we examined relations known from literature with emotional and behavioural features. Self-reported psychopathic-like traits, measured by the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory-Short version (YPI-S), were uniquely associated with substance abuse, anger/irritability, conduct problems and hyperactivity, but not with internalizing problems. YPI-S-dimensions showed several specific relationships with variables of interest. For example, only the callous unemotional dimension was negatively related with prosocial behaviour and only the behavioural dimension was positively related with hyperactivity. In conclusion, self-reported psychopathic-like traits showed expected relations with relevant variables. These findings suggest that self-report can be used to identify detained youths with high levels of psychopathic-like traits outside a research context, thus, even when anonymity and confidentiality are not guaranteed.
This study examines the predictive validity of the Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth (SAVRY) by examining relationships between SAVRY scores and violent reoffending during a 3-year period after sentencing. Two types of sentences were studied: a mandatory treatment order ( N = 77) and a juvenile prison sentence ( N = 40). The predictive validity of the SAVRY was significant for the two types of sentences. The predictive validity of the unstructured clinical judgment proved to be not significant. Support was found for the hypothesis that the juvenile court's sentence (treatment versus detention) might have been influenced by the unstructured clinical risk assessment of the mental health experts, even though this assessment is a poor predictor of violent reoffending.
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