Needs and Achievements of the Juvenile Justice System: Insights From Two Empirical Studies With Portuguese Young Adults

Abstract

Over the last decade, studies have evaluated the effectiveness of interventions for juvenile offenders; nonetheless, those studies were more focused on recidivism than on the mechanisms associated with criminal perpetration. The current study explores the role of juvenile justice involvement and detention measures in a set of psychological, social, and criminal behavior characteristics in early adulthood. Seventy-five young adults with official records of juvenile delinquency in 2010-2011 and 240 young adults from the community filled out our protocol in 2014-2015. Young adults with juvenile justice involvement showed worse psychological, social, and criminal outcomes than those from community. Detention appears to be related to the number of deviant friends, delinquency, and school achievement in early adulthood. Our findings are in line with the labeling and deviant peer contagion theories and establish the main areas of interventions that affect the identified needs. A set of policy implications is provided.

How to Improve the YLS/CMI? Exploring a Particularly Predictive Combination of Items

“…One possible explanation is that youths in these countries are especially protected from labeling and deviant peers contagion effects compared with young people in other Western countries. For instance, in these jurisdictions (Spain and Portugal), crimes committed during adolescence are erased from their official records, and juvenile detention measures in custody centers rarely applied (see Basto-Pereira, Ribeiro, & Maia, 2018; Spanish Statistical Institute (INE), 2016).…”

Is a 7-Item Combination from the YLS/CMI an Effective Screening Strategy for Risk to Reoffend? Findings from a Cross-National Study

“…For example, while Spain is marked by a toughening of juvenile justice laws, Portugal and Canada are still far from a “punitive turn” (Cartuyvels & Bailleau, 2010). More legal differences emerge regarding the minimum age for a youth to be intervened by a justice system (12 years old for Canada and Portugal, and 14 for Spain; Cuervo & Villanueva, 2015), as well as associated labeling effects (Basto-Pereira et al, 2018). Finally, language differences exist between the countries.…”

The Impact of Juvenile Educational Measures, Confinement Centers, and Probation on Adult Recidivism

“…These results support the promotion of measures based on child-friendly justice principles, and implemented in the minor's real context, such as probation, as opposed to restrictive and costly confinement in juvenile centers. Promoting these community measures for young offenders will respect the principle of minimum intervention (Dünkel, 2016) and will lead to a decline in adult reoffending (Basto-Pereira, Ribeiro, & Maia, 2017), reducing the psychological, social, and economic costs associated to adult crime. Second, the results highlight the need to take into account the level of risk in the minor's life, because this variable is crucial when proposing the educational measure, and presents a predictive effect on youth and adult recidivism.…”