The Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument as a Predictor of Institutional Maladjustment in Severe Male Juvenile Offenders

Abstract

The Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument-Version 2 (MAYSI-2) is a brief triage tool designed to pinpoint youth in the juvenile justice system at risk for mental health-related difficulties. The current study investigated the relation between the MAYSI-2 and institutional maladjustment at a residential treatment facility specializing in the rehabilitation of severe male juvenile offenders. Institutional maladjustment data were collected during the first 90 days of commitment for 104 male juvenile offenders who also completed the MAYSI-2 during orientation to the facility. The Angry-Irritable subscale of the MAYSI-2 uniquely predicted severe rule violations and intensive supervision placement. However, hit rate analyses revealed a high level of false negatives for the published subscale cut scores. Implications of these and related findings are discussed.

The Cycle of Violence Behind Bars: Traumatization and Institutional Misconduct Among Juvenile Delinquents in Confinement

“…Consistent with the cycle of violence hypothesis (Widom, 1989a(Widom, , 1989b(Widom, , 1999, wards with greater lifetime exposure to traumatic events, such as experiencing a terrible event, experiencing intrusive memories of a terrible event, being in danger of serious injury or death, witnessing serious injury or death, and being in danger of rape or actual rape victimization were more noncompliant behind bars. The current analyses lend partial support to the use of the MAYSI-2 as a predictor of institutional misconduct that is supportive of prior research (Butler, Loney, & Kistner, 2007;Cauffman, 2004;DeLisi et al, 2008;Ford et al, 2008;Vaughn et al, 2006;Vaughn et al, 2007). The Traumatic Experiences Scale was the only MAYSI-2 scale that was significantly associated with all three outcome measures.…”

Angry Inmates Are Violent Inmates: A Poisson Regression Approach to Youthful Offenders

“…Administration takes only 10 to 15 minutes to complete and is available in English and Spanish. A recent meta-analysis of more than 70,000 youths from 283 juvenile justice settings supported the validity of the MAYSI-2 (Vincent, Grisso, Terry, & Banks, 2008), and prior investigators have shown that it is a useful predictor of diverse forms of institutional misconduct (Butler et al, 2007;Cauffman, 2004;Cauffman & MacIntosh, 2006;DeLisi et al, , 2009Ford, Chapman, Pearson, Borum, & Wolpaw, 2008;Vaughn, Freedenthal, Jenson, & Howard, 2007;Vaughn, Howard, & Harper-Chang, 2006). Internal reliability for the MAYSI-2 with the current data was adequate (α = .794).…”

“…Doyle and Dolan found that the strongest correlate of physical violence (r = .28, p < .001) and physical violence and threats of violence (r = .56, p < .001) was anger. Butler, Loney, and Kistner (2007) assessed the predictive validity of the Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument-Version 2 (MAYSI-2; Grisso & Barnum, 2003) on institutional misconduct among a sample of confined male delinquents (n = 104). They found that the angryirritable subscale was the only one of seven subscales significantly correlated with major misconduct for serious violations (r = .20, p < .01), intensive supervised placement for behaviors characterized as acute or severe threats to others (r = .28, p < .01), and placement on suicide watch (r = .40, p < .01).…”

Juvenile sex offenders and institutional misconduct: the role of thought psychopathology

“…It is sometimes an early indication of a psychotic state, but it may simply arise in anxiety or dissociative states as well. The MAYSI-2 Thought Disturbance Scale has been found to be correlated with institutional misconduct in severe institutionalised offenders (Butler et al, 2007).…”