Many programs for offenders with mental illness (OMIs) seem to assume that serious mental illness directly causes criminal justice involvement. To help evaluate this assumption, we assessed a matched sample of 221 parolees with and without mental illness and then followed them for over 1 year to track recidivism. First, compared with their relatively healthy counterparts, OMIs were equally likely to be rearrested, but were more likely to return to prison custody. Second, beyond risk factors unique to mental illness (e.g., acute symptoms; operationalized with part of the Historical-Clinical-Risk Management-20; Webster, Douglas, Eaves, & Hart, 1997), OMIs also had significantly more general risk factors for recidivism (e.g., antisocial pattern; operationalized with the Level of Service/Case Management Inventory; Andrews, Bonta, & Wormith, 2004) than offenders without mental illness. Third, these general risk factors significantly predicted recidivism, with no incremental utility added by risk factors unique to mental illness. Implications for broadening the policy model to explicitly target general risk factors for recidivism such as antisocial traits are discussed.

Theory and empirical research suggest that psychopathy may be disaggregated into primary and secondary variants. In practice, individuals with high scores on psychopathy measures are treated as a homogenous group. In this study, interviewers recruited 355 incarcerated youth to assess potential differences in trauma history, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, and dissociative symptoms among high-anxious (secondary) and low-anxious (primary) variants of psychopathy. Results indicate that youth with secondary psychopathy report a greater history of traumatic experiences and past PTSD symptoms-but not dissociative symptoms-than primary variants. These results suggest that youth with high scores on measures of psychopathy are a heterogeneous group, necessitating nuanced assessment and treatment practices.

The current study examined the association between perceived procedural injustice of court experiences and emotional, attitudinal, and behavioral outcomes among 94 adolescent and young adult females incarcerated in a high security juvenile facility. Specifically, perceived injustice was related to background characteristics (e.g., race), as well as increased levels of depressive symptoms, institutional offending, and substance use within the facility. These negative effects of perceived injustice were most evident among participants who had been incarcerated for longer periods of time. This suggests that perceived unjust treatment during a court proceeding may have long-term effects once an offender is incarcerated and that both court and correctional settings need to take these perceptions into account.

Substance use disorders are associated with psychopathy, a personality disorder that is heterogeneous in both adults and youth; secondary variants of psychopathy with comorbid psychopathology and primary variants without comorbidity show distinct correlates and outcomes. In adult criminal populations, secondary variants report greater substance abuse compared with primary variants. The primary aim of this study is to replicate and extend these findings to a juvenile offender population. Compared with primary variants of juvenile psychopathy, secondary variants (a) reported significantly more frequent substance—particularly alcohol—use within the six months prior to incarceration (d = .43), (b) were almost twice as likely to abuse substances while incarcerated, and (c) were more likely to be diagnosed with a current DSM-IV substance use disorder. Practical implications for working with justice-involved youth are discussed.

There has been a surge of interest in using 1 type of risk assessment instrument to tailor treatment to juveniles to reduce recidivism. Unlike prediction-oriented instruments, these reduction-oriented instruments explicitly measure variable risk factors as "needs" to be addressed in treatment. There is little evidence, however, that the instruments accurately measure specific risk factors. Based on a sample of 237 serious juvenile offenders (M = 18, SD = 1.6), we tested whether California Youth Assessment Inventory (CA-YASI) scores validly assess the risk factors they purport to assess. Youth were assessed by practitioners with good interrater reliability on the CA-YASI, and by research staff on a battery of validated, multimethod criterion measures of target constructs. We meta-analytically tested whether each CA-YASI risk domain score (e.g., Attitudes) related more strongly to scores on convergent measures of theoretically similar constructs (e.g., criminal thinking styles) than to scores on discriminant measures of theoretically distinct constructs (e.g., intelligence, somatization, and pubertal status). CA-YASI risk domain scores with the strongest validity support were those that assess criminal history. The only variable CA-YASI risk domain score that correlated more strongly with convergent (Zr = .35) than discriminant (Zr = .07) measures was Substance Use. There was little support for the construct validity of the remaining 6 variable CA-YASI risk domains-including those that ostensibly assess strong risk factors (e.g., "Attitudes," "Social Influence"). Our findings emphasize the need to test the construct validity of reduction-oriented instruments-and refine instruments to precisely measure their targets so they can truly inform risk reduction. (PsycINFO Database Record

Psychopathy, as it is popularly conceptualized, includes personality features (callousness, lack of remorse or shame, manipulativeness, and pathologic egocentricity) which imply impediments to the formation of traditional social bonds. However, it has been suggested that individuals with psychopathic traits may be affected by their social context, which may fuel their engagement in antisocial activity (Kerr, Van Zalk, & Stattin, 2012; Martens, 2002, 2003). As adolescents are inherently more susceptible to social influences than other developmental stages, it is especially important to understand the role of interpersonal context, particularly among youth with psychopathic traits. This study examines whether psychopathic traits moderate the relation between the antisocial influence of peers, parents, and very important nonparental adults on institutional (both self-report and official records of) offending in a sample of serious juvenile offenders in Southern California. Results indicate that greater exposure to antisocial influence from peers and very important nonparental adults translated to more delinquent behavior among all youth in the current study, but the impact of peer influence on institutional misconduct were particularly pronounced for youth high in psychopathic traits. These findings imply that taking a youth’s social environment into account is paramount when examining the importance of psychopathic traits to adolescent antisocial behavior.

Despite indications that acts of frotteurism and exhibitionism are frequent occurrences, these sexual paraphilias have received little empirical attention. To address this gap in our knowledge about these paraphilias, 459 undergraduate students in a major metropolitan city completed a self-report measure designed to investigate the frequency and correlates of frotteurism and exhibitionism. Results indicate a high rate of victimization among female college students for both paraphilias. Furthermore, acts of frotteurism and exhibitionism most often occurred in places related to public transportation (e.g., subway trains or platforms) in this urban setting. In addition, victims reported a number of negative outcomes as a consequence of victimization, including feelings of violation, changes in behavior, and even long-term psychological distress. Older females were the most likely to be victimized. These findings are discussed as they pertain to the prevention and deterrence of paraphilic sexual acts.

The current study examined perceptions of fair treatment in a past court experience among a sample of incarcerated youth (n = 364). Perceptions were compared for youth whose cases were processed through the juvenile (n = 261) versus adult court (n = 103) systems. In general, youth who were adjudicated in adult court felt more justly treated by legal authorities than youth adjudicated in juvenile court. Specifically, youth in adult court rated judges as only marginally more just than youth in juvenile court, but rated their defense attorney’s treatment as significantly more just. Youth rated the prosecutor’s treatment as relatively unjust regardless of where their case was handled. Differences in perceptions of procedural justice were also observed based on prior arrest history and race, with minority youth and repeat offenders perceiving the process to be less procedurally just. Our findings should not be used as support for the increased transfer of youth into adult court, as other studies have demonstrated these youth tend to have worse outcomes. However, our findings do suggest that improvements should be made to increase elements of procedural justice in juvenile court settings.