Empirical Risk Factors for Delinquency and Best Treatments: Where do we go from here?

Abstract

Youth development and prevention of violence are two sides of the same public policy issue. A great deal of theoretical and empirical effort has focused on identification of risk factors for delinquency and development of interventions for general risks. Recent calls for changes in public policy are evaluated here--and challenged--in light of new comprehensive, longitudinal empirical data on urban violent delinquency. Treatments such as prenatal care, home visitation, prevention of bullying, prevention of alcohol and/or drug abuse, promotion of alternative thinking, mentoring, life skills training, rewards for graduation and employment, functional family therapy, and multidimensional foster care are effective because they prevent or ameliorate risks for delinquency occurring during development. At present, the best treatments yield 10 to 40% reductions in delinquent recidivism. Better controlled application of developmentally appropriate treatments in higher doses, with narrow targeting of the highest-risk youth based on actuarial testing--rather than less accurate clinical judgment--should result in higher effectiveness. Such a focused approach in a geographical area with high homicide rates should be cost-effective. A prediction of cost-benefit outcomes for a carefully constructed example of a large-scale program is presented.

Male Abuser: Type of Violence and Perception of the Relationship with the Victim

“…These results reinforce the idea, put forward by various authors, of the existence of an offender profile with a serious risk related to drug use and more widespread violence (Stuart, Temple, Follansbee, Bucossi, Hellmuth, & Moore, 2008;Zagar, Busch, & Hughes, 2009;Loinaz, Echeburúa, & Torrubia, 2010). method studY 2…”

Girls Arrested for Murder: An Empirical Analysis of 32 years of U.S. Data by Offender Age Groups

“…Much could be gained by an in‐depth national study of juvenile murderers that includes psychological, psychiatric, and neurological evaluations of young killers. This research effort could be modeled on the longitudinal study investigating gender differences in antisocial behavior by Moffitt et al (), in addition to the pioneering research done with small samples of primarily male juvenile murderers (see, e.g., Lewis et al, ; Myers et al, ), and more recent studies using larger samples executed by Zagar and his colleagues (see Zagar, Busch, & Hughes, ; Zagar et al, ) and Loeber and Farrington (). This information could be helpful in guiding waiver/transfer decisions.…”

“I Wanna Make My Mom Proud of Me”: Embracing Mothers as Protective Factors Against Future Offending in Delinquent Youth

“…Specific to the topics of parenting and delinquent youth, literature is replete with risk factors (Development Services Group, 2015;Hirschi, 1969;Loeber & Farrington, 2001;Office of the Surgeon General, 2001;Wasserman et al, 2003;Zagar, Busch, & Hughes, 2009), many of which fall on the shoulders of mothers as the resident parent. The relationship delinquent youth have with their mother may be the only, or at least the predominate, parenting relationship they will experience.…”