Screening of Serious and Violent Juvenile Offenders: Identification, Classification, and Prediction (From Serious and Violent Juvenile Offenders: Risk Factors and Successful Interventions, P 167-193, 1998, Rolf Loeber, David P. Farrington, eds. - See NCJ-171234)

• NCJ Number: 171243
• Author(s): M Le Blanc
• Date Published: 1998
• Length: 27 pages
• Sale Source: Sage Publications, Inc
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: *This document is currently unavailable from NCJRS.

Annotation

This chapter discusses how criminology can help policy- makers and clinicians select an appropriate screening strategy and construct an accurate screening instrument for serious and violent juvenile (SVJ) offenders.

Abstract

The chapter discusses the purposes of identifying potential juvenile offenders and classifying delinquents; reviews screening methods to identify validated strategies and instruments; and discusses several important legal, ethical, policy, and practical issues. The chapter delineates an appropriate screening strategy for secondary and tertiary prevention of SVJ offending behavior while recognizing the need for validation studies. Secondary prevention of SVJ offending should rest on a multiple-stage, multiple-informant, multiple-method strategy and multiple-variable domains. The research could not identify the best predictors for screening, although there was a large consensus about the variable domains that are most important. While some screening strategies and instruments are promising, the chapter does not recommend any of them for immediate use to policymakers and practitioners.