NCJ Number
247022
Journal
Criminology and Public Policy Volume: 13 Issue: 1 Dated: February 2014 Pages: 83-116
Date Published
February 2014
Length
34 pages
Annotation
This study assessed the prevalence of serious, violent, and chronic offenders across 5 years (2007-2012) of delinquency referrals to the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice.
Abstract
For the full sample of 363,617 juvenile offenders, 43.5 percent did not meet criteria for serious, violent, or chronic (SVC) offenders, 54.7 percent had serious offense histories; 29.0 percent had violent offense histories; 15.4 percent were chronic offenders; and fewer than 8.9 percent were SVC offenders. SVC youth were almost three times more likely than other juvenile offenders to have been 12 years old or younger when they received their first official delinquency referral. Males were approximately twice as likely as females to meet SVC criteria. Black youth met criteria for SVC at a rate twice that of Hispanic youth and 2.5 times that of White youth. SVC youth had fewer protective factors in 12 of 16 factors examined. Very few dynamic risk or protective factors predicted whether an already categorized SVC youth would reoffend. Only current substance use (as a risk) and having prosocial attitudes (as a protective factor) predicted subsequent SVC rearrest in the expected direction. On the other hand, many risks increased and protective factors decreased a non-SVC youth's likelihood of reoffending. These findings are helpful in targeting the dynamic risk and protective factors most likely to change offending patterns for SVC youth. Substance abuse treatment and treatment that develops prosocial attitudes are apparently the most important intervention targets for SVC youth. 7 tables, 1 figure, 73 references, and appended Pact Scoring Matrix and Domains