NCJ Number
184545
Journal
Journal of Offender Rehabilitation Volume: 31 Issue: 3/4 Dated: 2000 Pages: 81-92
Date Published
2000
Length
12 pages
Annotation
A total of 106 adolescent offenders completed the High Risk Situations Questionnaire for Young Offenders (HRSQ-YO), an instrument designed to assess the self-reported importance of various antecedents to a past, highly salient offense.
Abstract
Participants were first asked to recall a specific, vivid offense from their past and to write down the name of the offense. They were then requested to rate the 66 items of the HRSQ-YO for the effect each potential antecedent had on the offense. Principal components analysis of responses to the 66 HRSQ-YO items resulted in three factors that were rotated to a varimax criterion and labeled Delinquency, Negative Affectivity, and Aggression. Consistent with previous findings, Delinquency factor scores were significantly higher for property offenses than for violent offenses; whereas, Aggression factor scores were significantly higher for violent offenses than for property offenses. Negative Affectivity scores also tended to be higher for violent offenses than for property offenses. These findings may be of use to those who apply the relapse prevention approach to adolescent offenders; for example, an adolescent's offense history may suggest that certain antecedent events were more important than others in contributing to past offenses and, by implication, that the risk of recidivism will be greater under those same circumstances. Other implications of these results for the rehabilitation of adolescent offenders are discussed. 2 tables and 11 references