Lecture 10: - Young offenders
Overview of legislation
-​ Prior to 1908: No difference between child + adult, same prisons and same codes
-​ 1908: Juvenile delinquents act
-​ Offender to delinquents, different court system, parents deemed important
-​ Charged ages 7 to 16 or 18
-​ 1984: Young offenders act
-​ Emphasis on young offender being held responsible
-​ Get tough on adolescents
-​ Move adolescent from juvenile to adult court
-​ Age of criminal responsibility to age 12 instead of 7
-​ 2003: youth criminal justice act
-​ Rehabilitation, trying to keep youth out of justice system, ban youth from juvenile
to adult court, 14 or older can have adult sentence, minimize use of incarceration
Youth criminal justice act (2003-present)
-​ Main objectives:
-​ Prevent youth crime
-​ Provide meaningful consequences
-​ Improve rehabilitation and reintegration
-​ Decrease use of custody
-​ Extrajudicial measures and sanctions
-​ Transfer to adult court eliminated (14+ can be given adult sentence)
Extrajudicial measures
-​ Extrajudicial measures: instead of charging youth, police can:
-​ Take no further action
-​ Give an informal or formal warning (called police caution)
-​ Referral to community program
-​ Don't get a record, didn't go to court
Extrajudicial sanctions
-​ Extrajudicial sanctions: after youth is charged courts can divert youth from court system
-​ Youth must admit to offence (if sanction successfully completed – charges
withdrawn)
-​ Attend counseling
-​ Make restitution
-​ Community service
-​ If followed through charge is lifted, does not go on record
-​ Tend goes with minor crimes
Does youth diversion work?
-​ Meta-analysis: Wilson and Hoge (2012)
-​ 43 studies of different types of diversion programs
-​ Diversion programs DO help reduce recidivism among youth
-​ BUT: only for low risk youth not for moderate to high risk youth
Order of systems
-​ Child and family services act
-​ Under age 12
-​ Cannot be charged
-​ Youth criminal justice act
-​ 12-17
-​ Canadian criminal code
-​ Over 18
Age crime curve
-​ Peak rate of criminal offending
in canada is age 18
Why should youth receive less
severe sanctions as compared to
adults
-​ Brains are not fully developed
-​ PFC
-​ Less able to understand
consequences of actions
-​ Less able to control impulses
-​ More amenable to rehabilitation
Changes in sensation seeking and self
control: global study (steinberg 2018)
-​ Sensation seeking peaks at 18
-​ Self control peaks around 23
Lionel Tate
-​ Age 12, 168-pound Lionel killed 48
pound 6-year-old Tiffany Eunick
-​ Defence: Claims Lionel was practicing his wrestling moves on Tiffany
-​ Prosecution: Claims Lionel beat her to death; 35 injuries
-​ 8-year history of disruptive behaviour at school, including bullying, stealing, & lying (15
school suspensions)
-​ Charged with first degree murder = life without parole
What factors should be considered when determined the length of a youth sentence
-​ Serious of offense, age of youth, maturity level, degree of remorse, criminal history
Public beliefs about youth crime
-​ Since 2010
-​ Increase in the number of youth charged by police - incorrect
-​ Most youth commit violent crime - incorrect
-​ Youth are receiving more lenient dispositions - correct
-​ Boys and girls are now engaging in the same amount of violent crimes - incorrect
-​ Youth Crime Rates, 2003 to 2023
-​ Steady decrease ->
-​ Youth Incarceration Rate: 25-year Trend
-​ Decreased
Types of offences 2021/2020
-​ Most common sentence for youth is
probation **
The Gender gap
-​ Boys outnumber girls in nearly all types of
crimes (2022 – 72% male; 21% female; 7% not reported)
-​ Is the gender gap closing?
-​ US study concludes “there is no burgeoning national crisis of increasing serious violence
among adolescent girls” (Zahn et al., 2008, p. 15)
Can girls be that mean?
-​ June 2012 - 3 adolescent females charged in ottawa for running a prostitution ring
-​ Lure teens using social media, drug them, take pornographic photos, dress them, told to
lie about age, and delivered to men to perform sex acts
-​ Two pled guilty to human trafficking, robbery, threats
-​ Ringleader found guilty of 27 crimes
-​ Human trafficking, forcible confinement, assault, robbery, sa, child luring,
distributing child pornography
Types of problems in youth
-​ Internalizing:Emotional problems such as anxiety and depression
-​ Externalizing :Behavioural problems such as lying, fighting, bullying, or antisocial acts
-​ More difficult to treat
Externalizing/Disruptive Disorders (DSM5)
-​ Oppositional defiant disorder
-​ Preschool ages
-​ Prevalence: 4% community;
-​ 75% youth offender
-​ 40% develop Conduct Disorder
-​ More common in boys
-​ 1:4 ratio to boys
-​ Conduct disorder
-​ Emerges in middle childhood or early adolescence
-​ Prevalence: 4% community; 60% youth offender
-​ More common in boys
-​ Subtypes: childhood onset(prior to age 10) & adolescent onset(after age 10)
-​ Specifier: Limited prosocial emotions
-​ 30 - 50% develop Antisocial Personality Disorder
-​ 15 different symptoms into 4 main groups: Aggression, property disruption,
deceitful affect, violation of rules
-​ 4 specifiers : Lack or remorse, callousness , poor attachment to others, poor
school performance
-​ Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
-​ Inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity symptoms
-​ Emerges in early childhood
-​ Prevalence: 3% community; 30% youth offender
-​ More common in boys
-​ 1:2 ratio
Need to identify the chronic offenders
-​ Most persistent 5% of the boys were responsible for 50% of the known crimes (Moffitt,
1993)
-​ 987 males and females followed to age 17 (Piquero, 2000)
-​ 5% of males responsible for 51% police contacts
-​ 2% of females responsible for 44% of
police contacts
Trajectories of Youthful Offenders (Moffitt, 1993)
-​ Adolescent-limited
-​ Begin in adolescent
-​ Do not persist into adulthood
-​ Crimes with others
-​ Less serious crimes
-​ Theft and vandalism
-​ About 70% of youth fit into this
-​ Life-course persistent
-​ Begin in childhood
-​ Chronic
-​ More serious offending
-​ Tend to commit crimes on their own
Four developmental paths (Nagin 2005)
-​ Longitudinal research from England, US and Canada
-​ Non-offending
-​ Most common (69.5%)
-​ Low-level chronic
-​ 12.4% of sample
-​ Adolescent-limited
-​ 12.2% of sample
-​ Life-course persistent
-​ 5.9% of sample
Types of aggressors
-​ Reactive aggressors
-​ Hostile attribution bias
-​ Attribute ambiguous situations as hostile and respond aggressively
-​ Proactive aggressors
-​ Plan an aggressive response to achieve an instrumental goal
Hostile Attribution Bias Scale for Children (Dodge et al., 1990)
-​ If you have hostile attribution bias you assume girl broke your toy on purpose
-​ Want to get back at her for doing that
Individual and family factors
Domain
Example risk factors
Example protective factors
Individual
• Early onset antisocial
behaviour
• Poor cognitive ability
• Hyperactivity
• Poor social skills
• Willingness to please adults
• High cognitive ability
• Religious and club
affiliation
• Prosocial supportive non
familial adult
Family
• Inadequate parenting
• Maltreatment
• Separation from parents
• Parental pathology
• Positive parent/child bond
• Participation in shared
activities
• Positive familial role
models
Peer and school/community factors
Domain
Example risk factors
Example protective factors
Peer
• Delinquent friends
• Prosocial friends
School/Community
• Gang involvement
• Being bullied or rejected
• Participation in prosocial
activities with peers
• Poor academic
performance
• High crime
neighbourhood
• Schools with safe
environments
• Schools that address
academic AND emotional
needs
Timeline and influence of risk factors
-​ Risk factors present at different points in development
-​ Family factors: present prior to birth
-​ Individual factors: develop gradually
-​ Peer factors: later in development but have high impact
-​ Greater likelihood of offending
-​ More risk factors present
-​ Cross domain risk factors
Risk factors and offending trajectories
-​ Two types of trajectories for offending: adolescent-limited and life-course persistent
-​ Which risk factors are most important?
-​ Adolescent limited: peer
-​ Life Course persistent: family and individual
Biological theories
-​ Children who have an antisocial biological father are more likely to engage in antisocial
behaviour even when raised apart from the father
-​ Antisocial youth have slower heart rates (perhaps higher threshold for excitability and
emotionality)
-​ Engage in risk taking to increase heart rate
-​ Antisocial youth may have less frontal lobe inhibition (impulsivity is increased)
Cognitive theories
-​ Cognitive deficits and distortions occurring in social interactions may explain antisocial
behaviour
-​ Limited problem solving in conduct disordered children produce fewer solutions to
problems and the solutions are more likely to be
aggressive
Dodge's social information processing theory of
aggression Know steps for exam
Pathways to crime: trauma pathway (Daly 1992)
-​ Daly (1992): 40 women offenders
-​ Childhood trauma was the main cause
-​
Transgender women: patterns of experiences
(Hereth 2020) ->
-​ Samples 298 young transgender women
(16-29 year)
-​ Protective factors are key
-​ *exam = importance of protective factors
Social theories
-​ Bandura's social learning theory
-​ children learn antisocial behaviour
from observing others, especially
when they see the behaviour being positively reinforced
-​ Most potent to explain criminal behaviour
-​ Strongest support comes from studies where modeling is combined with a lack of
parental supervision and inconsistent discipline
Real world application of SLT
-​ predicts that exposure to violence will increase
violent
-​ behaviour
-​ Meta-analysis of experimental, cross-sectional,
&
longitudinal 130 studies of the association
between violent video games, aggression, and
positive behaviours (Anderson et al., 2010)
Three levels of intervention
-​ Tertiary intervention
-​ Goal
-​ Minimize the impact of existing risk factors and foster the development of
protective factors in order to reduce likelihood of re-offending
-​ Aimed at juveniles who have engaged in criminal acts and who have gone
through court proceedings
-​ Strategies are all about treatment rather than prevention
-​ Examples:*textbook
-​ institutional-based treatment
-​ community-based treatment
-​ What works for youth offenders? (Dowden & Andrews,2003)
-​ 134 studies
-​ Huge variation in effectiveness of different treatment programs
-​ Treatment programs that target criminogenic needs most successful
-​ 20-40% reduction in recidivism
-​ What works
-​ Family supervision, family affection, self control, anger control,
academic skills, prosocial model, reduce antisocial attitudes,
reduce antisocial peers
-​ What does not work
-​ Physical activity, emotional problems, target self esteem, increase
contact with antisocial peers, fear of punishment
-​ Bootcamps, scared straight programs
-​
-​ Secondary intervention
-​ Goal
-​ Provide juveniles who have had contact with the CJS or who have
exhibited behavioural problems in school with social and clinical services
so that their behaviour does not escalate
-​ Multisystemic Therapy (MST)
-​ Delinquent behavior is
multi-determined
-​ Targets high-risk youth
-​ Features
-​ Low caseload (4 – 6 families)
-​ Very expensive
-​ Community based (4 – 6
months in length)
-​ Therapists available 24 hours/7 days
-​ Effectiveness of MST (Borduin 1995)
-​ 175 high risk juvenile offenders
-​ Randomly assigned to
-​ Individual therapy (IT)
-​ Multisystemic therapy
(MST)
-​ Follow-up: 5 years
-​ Outcome: Arrests
-​ The higher on the graph= the better
-​ MST completers have the best
outcome**** exam
-​ MST: Meta analysis of effectiveness
Van der Stouwe et al., 2014)
-​ Most effective in US with
younger and white youth
-​ Not good in skills and cognition
-​ Primary intervention
-​ Goal
-​ Identify groups of children that have numerous risk factors and intervene
with these kids to prevent antisocial behaviour
-​ Family oriented
-​ Parent focused
-​ training parents to manage behavioural problems that arise
-​ Family supportive
-​ connect at risk families to various support services (e.g.,
child care, counseling)
-​ Short terms success but attrition(drop out) is high (50%) so usually
not stand-alone programs
-​ School oriented
-​ Preschool programs
-​ Project Head Start
-​ Elementary school programs
-​ Social skills or empathy training for children
-​ Roots of empathy: positive effects (Schonert and Reichl 2012)
-​ Increase in prosocial behaviours
-​ Reduced aggression
-​ Better social-emotional understanding
-​ BUT: no change in empathy
-​ Community oriented
-​ Provision of structured community activities to increase children’s participation
and community cohesion
-​ SNAP – Stop Now And Plan (gender specific programs for ages 6 and 11)
-​ teaches children self-control & problem solving, child management skills
for parents, also provides family counseling, prosocial adult, tutoring
-​ Effectiveness of SNAP (Burke & Loeber 2015)
-​ Randomly assigned 252 boys (mean age 9) to SNAP vs standard
service
-​ SNAP
-​ 10 hours per week of service
-​ Both child and parent weekly modules
-​ Individual standard treatment
-​ Assessed for aggression and externalizing problems over 3 time
points
-​ Results
-​ Dark line is
always lower=
less aggressive behaviour
-​ Short time change
-​ Did Not pop back up in 15 months
-​ SNAP was most useful
** she will finish this lecture next class