Prediction of Recidivism With the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (Reduced Version) in a Sample of Young Spanish Offenders

Abstract

Intervention in youth recidivism is critical in helping prevent young people from continuing their criminal career into adulthood, on a life-course-persistent trajectory. Andrews and Bonta attempt to provide an explanation of risk and protective factors using a conversion of the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (YLS/CMI), which predicts recidivism. In this study, scores have been obtained from 382 adolescents ( M age = 16.33 years) from the juvenile court, to check the ability of a reduced version of the YLS/CMI, to predict recidivism. The outcome variables for recidivism were examined in the 2-year follow-up period, after their first assessment in the court. The risk factors showed good levels of recidivism prediction. Recidivists obtained significant higher mean total risk scores than nonrecidivists in the reduced ( M = 6.54, SD = 2.44; M = 3.66, SD = 2.85), with areas under the curve (AUCs) ranging from .601 to .857. The factors that emerged as the most discriminative were education/employment, criminal friends, and personality. All the protective factors differentiated between recidivists and nonrecidivists. The results, therefore, showed that this reduced version would be capable of predicting youth recidivism in a reliable way.

The prediction of criminal recidivism in male juvenile delinquents

“…This potential association of personality traits, antisocial personality disorder and psychopathy in delinquents requires further research. Interestingly, grade point average as a covariate was significantly related to Negative Valence and rejection by mother, thus confirming the importance of education in understanding criminal recidivism in juveniles, as has also been reported in other studies (Cuervo & Villanueva, 2018).…”

“…Criminal recidivism may initially occur in youth, and a general rule states that the more an individual is antisocial, the earlier antisocial behavior occurs (DeLisi et al, 2013;Rhee et al, 2013). Recent data (Durose, Cooper, & Snyder, 2014) from the U.S. and Europe (Cuervo & Villanueva, 2018) are alarming due to warning of high recidivism among juvenile delinquents and the threat of recidivism in the further development of criminal behavior among young people.…”

Prediction of Youth and Adult Recidivism Among Spanish Juveniles Involved in Serious Offenses

“…Few studies have analyzed the validity of the YLS/CMI in populations outside the Anglo-Saxon countries. Nonetheless, these few studies showed strong predictive validity for the YLS/CMI according to Rice and Harris’s (2005) classification in Asian (Benuto et al, 2014; Chu et al, 2015; Mori et al, 2017), Spanish (Cuervo & Villanueva, 2015, 2018), Portuguese (Pimentel et al, 2015), or Dutch populations (De Ruiter & Hildebrand, 2009). Nevertheless, some specific dimensions, such as Prior Criminal History and Substance Abuse, lacked content representativeness and predictive validity and the risk score means were lower than those on Anglo-Saxon countries (Takahashi et al, 2013).…”

High‐Risk Youth and Their Families: A Qualitative Needs Assessment

“…After receiving the institutional review board approval, the research team selected all participants (youth and parent/guardians) by using purposive sampling (Creswell, 1998), primarily for their ability to provide information that reflected the needs of county high-risk youth and their interest in the well-being of these youth. HHS personnel circulated an electronic flyer detailing the focus of the study to county-funded organizations, such as community mental health centers, hospitals, schools, and homeless shelters, and arranged for focus groups to be held in those organizations' own settings.…”

“…A high-crime, disadvantaged neighborhood may influence a positive parent and child relationship and expose youth to criminal behavior. Poor quality education, academic failure, underachievement, high absenteeism, and a sporadic attendance pattern have been linked to delinquency, especially violent delinquency (Cuervo & Villanueva, 2018;Lane & Carter, 2006). Due to no-or low-tolerance school policies, youth with educational issues face a more punitive approach, which leads to criminal involvement with juvenile court and paves the way for the school-to-prison pipeline (Mallett, 2016).…”