Risks, strengths, gender, and recidivism among justice-involved youth: A meta-analysis.

Abstract

Objective: Debate ensues regarding female-specific risk and strength factors among adolescent offenders. Using meta-analysis, we examined whether risk and strength factors predicted recidivism differentially between male and female youth. Method: Database searches identified 22 studies, representing 50,601 justice-involved youth (11,952 females and 38,649 males) and a total of 584 effect sizes. Results: For the global risk domains, there is some evidence for gender neutrality (i.e., risk factors predict to the same degree for both males and females) among most domains (e.g., antisocial peer relations, problematic family circumstances and parenting, substance abuse, antisocial personality/behavior, and antisocial attitudes/orientation). Although the global domains of mental health and child abuse were not significantly predictive for either gender, the global child abuse results trended in favor of predicting recidivism for females. When global risk domains were broken into indicators, some evidence for gender differences emerged (e.g., chronic alcohol use and family substance abuse predicted more strongly for females than for males). Last, gender comparisons among the global strength domains revealed that prosocial peers and the absence of substance abuse predicted success (i.e., no recidivism) for both genders, though a stronger effect emerged for males. In addition, education/employment strengths predicted success for males, whereas prosocial values predicted success for females. Limitations such as the lack of studies that defined constructs from the female experience, and the small number of primary studies are discussed. Conclusions: Advancing the future of gender informed practice with justice-involved youth will require careful consideration of both gender similarities and differences. What is the public health significance of this article?This study highlights the importance of considering gender differences as well as similarities in risk and strength factors when working with justice-involved youth, particularly when broad level constructs are disaggregated. Especially when working with girls in a justice context, factors that emerge with smaller effect sizes (e.g., abuse and mental health) or not significantly related to outcome may still be relevant in providing holistic and responsive services and, as such, should not be ignored.

Strengths Matter: Evidence From Five Separate Cohorts of Justice-Involved Youth and Adults Across North America

“…One pressing avenue of exploration is the empirical identification of factors that are truly mixed — can be either a need or a strength—(Farrington et al, 2016) versus risk factors that have no valid strength pole or strength factors that have no valid risk pole. For example, there is debate regarding whether the absence of substance abuse/presence of sobriety can function as a strength; while some researchers do conceptualize the absence of substance abuse/presence of sobriety as a strength (see a meta-analytic review by Scott & Brown, 2018), some instruments (e.g., YASI, SPIn) do not. In addition, it is largely unknown whether there are certain “pure” strength factors that only exhibit promotive or protective effects when present but do not elevate recidivism likelihood when absent.…”

Comparing Gender Differences and Similarities in How Risks and Strengths Cluster to Form Profiles of Justice-Involved Youth: A Latent Profile Analysis

“…Gender salient: Although this term has been used interchangeably with gender responsive, gender salient has also been used to better distinguish gender differences (e.g., Scott & Brown, 2018). Gender salient corresponds to risk factors which are predictive for both males and females, however, there is a stronger magnitude of the effect for one gender over the other (Scott, 2017).…”

“…Gender informed: Although this term has been used interchangeably with gender responsive, gender informed has also been used to better distinguish gender differences (e.g., Scott & Brown, 2018). Gender informed corresponds to a blended approach which encompasses both gender neutral and gender responsive perspectives.…”

“…Briefly, a risk factor has been defined as a condition or variable that is associated with a higher probability of a negative outcome such as an increased risk for recidivism (Cottle et al, 2001;Lösel & Farrington, 2012). Alternatively, a strength factor refers to a positive or prosocial aspect of an individual's life (Jones et al, 2015), with the potential to decrease the impact of a risk factor(s) (Scott & Brown, 2018). Although there is a considerable debate within the literature of what constitutes a strength factor (Hemphill et al, 2016), for the purpose of this study it will be used as an all-encompassing term synonymous with the term 'protective factor'.…”

Protective Factors for Reducing Juvenile Reoffending: An Examination of Incremental and Differential Predictive Validity

“…The differential predictive validity of protective factors across gender has been rarely investigated; however, it is imperative to support gender-specific rehabilitation as well as the improvement of recidivism predictions for female youth (see Scott & Brown, 2018). Jones and colleagues (2016) published the first investigation of the Youth Assessment and Screening Instrument (YASI).…”