Domains of the YLS: Do Some Matter More than Others?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52935/23.231020.7Keywords:
Delinquency, treatment, prediction, regression analysisAbstract
Data were obtained in Pennsylvania to examine referrals to juvenile courts in the Commonwealth for the 2021-2022 school year that include any felony, misdemeanor or summary offenses that occurred on school property. This study looked at the referrals to see if any of the individual domains of the Youth Level of Service Case Management Inventory 2.0 (YLS/CMI) had more of an effect on how the case was disposed of, which was defined as dismissed or handled informally, or formally adjudicated, in juvenile court. The research found that while the overall YLS risk score influenced juvenile court outcomes, only five of the eight individual domains of the YLS had a significant effect on how a case was processed in juvenile court, which calls into question how closely juvenile probation officers are following the instrument in their practice.
References
Andrews, D.A. & Bonta, J. (2010). The psychology of criminal conduct (5th edition). Anderson Publishing.
Andrews, D.A. & Dowden C. (2006). The psychology of criminal conduct (4th edition). Anderson Publishing.
Borum, R. & Verhaagen, D. (2006). Assessing and managing violence risk in juveniles. The Guilford Press.
Borum, R., Bartel, P.A. & Forth, A. (2006). Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth (SAVRY). Florida: Psychological Assessment Resources, Inc.
Calley, N.G. & Richardson, E.M. (2011). Clinical prediction making: Examining influential factors related to clinical predictions of recidivism among juvenile offenders. Journal of Addictions & Offender Counseling, 32, 2-15.
Chu, C.M., Yu, H., Lee, Y., & Zeng, G. (2014). The utility of the YLS/CMI-SV for assessing youth offenders in Singapore. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 41(12), 1437-1457.
Cuervo, K. & Villaneuva, L. (2018). Prediction of recidivism with the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (reduced version) in a sample of young Spanish offenders. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 62(11), 3562-3580.
Demuth, S. & Brown, S.L. (2004). Family structure, family process, and adolescent delinquency: The significance of parental absence versus parental gender. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 41(1), 58-81.
Flores, A.W., Travis III, L.F. & Latessa, E.J. (2004). Case classification for juvenile corrections: An assessment of the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (YLS/CMI), executive summary. Washington, DC: United States Department of Justice.
Gomis-Pomares, A., Villanueva, L. & Adrian, J.E. (2022). The prediction of youth recidivism in a Spanish Roma population by the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (YLS/CMI). International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 66 (8), 791-806.
Gottfredson, S.D. & Moriarty, L.J. (2006). Clinical versus actuarial judgments in criminal justice decisions: Should one replace the other? Federal Probation, 70(2), 15-18.
Grove, W.M. & Meehl, P.E. (1996). Comparative efficiency of informal (subjective, impressionistic) and formal (mechanical, algorithmic) prediction procedures: The clinical-statistical controversy. Psychology, Public policy, and Law, 2, 293-323.
Heiman, G. (2014). Basic statistics for the behavioral sciences. Wadsworth.
Hjalmarsson, R. (2008). Criminal justice involvement and high school completion. Journal of Urban Economics, 63, 613-630.
Huang, S., Peterson-Badali, M., Jang, E.E. & Skilling, T.A. (2021). IRT-based differential item functioning analysis of the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory across Indigenous and Non-Indigenous youth. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 48(4), 502-517.
Kitzmiller, M.K., Hiskins, K. & Cavanagh, C. (2022). Examining sex-based measurement invariance in the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory. Crime & Delinquency, 0(0), 1-22.
Kovera, M.B. (2019). Racial disparities in the criminal justice system: Prevalence, causes and a search for solutions. Journal of Social Issues, 75(4), 1139-1164.
Leban, L. & Gibson, C.L. (2020). The role of gender in the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and delinquency and substance abuse in adolescence. Journal of Criminal Justice, 66, 1-11.
Leiber, M.J. & Fix, R. (2019). Reflections on the impact of race and ethnicity on juvenile courtoutcomes and efforts to enact change. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 44, 581-608.
Lovenheim, M. & Owens, E.G. (2014). Does federal financial aid affect college enrollment? Evidence from drug offenders and the Higher Education Act of 1998. Journal of Urban Economics, 8, 1-13.
McGrath, A.J., Thompson, A.P. & Goodman-Delahunty, J. (2018). Differentiating predictive validity and practical utility for the Australian Adaptation of the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 45(6), 820-839.
Miller, J., Maloney, C., Harding, C.S., Palmer, K, Brey, J & Sandoval, J.R. (2021). Assessing Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory implementation outcomes: Lessons from five diverse Pennsylvania counties. The Prison Journal, 101(2), 212-233.
Novak, A. (2019). The school-to-prison pipeline: An examination of the association between suspension and justice system involvement. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 46(8), 1165-1180.
Olver, M.E., Stockdale, K.C., & Wormith, J.S. (2009). Risk assessment with young offenders: A meta-analysis of three assessment measures. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 36, 329-353.
Pennsylvania Juvenile Court Judges’ Commission (2020). Statewide outcome measures. Harrisburg, PA: Pennsylvania Juvenile Court Judges’ Commission.
Perrault, R.T., Paiva-Salisbury, M. & Vincent, G.M. (2012). Probation officers’ perceptions of youth’s risk assessment in case management. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 30, 487-505.
Pusch, N. & Holtfreter, K. (2018). Gender and risk assessment in juvenile offenders: A meta-analysis. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 45(1), 56-81.
Schwalbe, C.S. (2007). Risk assessment for juvenile justice: A meta-analysis. Law and Human Behavior, 31, 449-462.
Schwalbe, C.S., Fraser, M. & Day, S. (2007). Predictive validity of the joint risk matrix with juvenile offenders: A focus on gender and race/ethnicity. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 34, 34-361.
Tabachnick, B.G. & Fidell, L.S. (2007). Using multivariate statistics (5th edition.). Allyn and Bacon.
Van de Ven, J. (2004). Assessment of risk and need factors and service use in diverted youth (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Department of Psychology Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Verrecchia, PJ & Arp, R. (2015). Family structure in Pennsylvania and its effects on delinquent acts: A data analysis. International Journal of Criminology and Sociology, 4, 52-58.
Verrecchia, PJ & Wood, C. (2017). Family environment and delinquency: Impressions of people doing the work. Journal of Applied Juvenile Justice Services, 4, 16-27.
Weisburd, D. (1998). Statistics in criminal justice. Wadsworth.
Witherup, K.L & Verrecchia, PJ (2022). The relationship between YLS score and placement length. Journal of Applied Juvenile Justice Services, 9, 1-9.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Journal of Applied Juvenile Justice Services
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
