文章基本信息

标题：Multiple Service System Involvement and Later Offending Behavior: Implications for Prevention and Early Intervention
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作者：Charlotte Lyn Bright ; Melissa Jonson-Reid
期刊名称：American journal of public health
印刷版ISSN：0090-0036
出版年度：2015
卷号：105
期号：7
页码：1358-1364
DOI：10.2105/AJPH.2014.302508
语种：English
出版社：American Public Health Association
摘要：Objectives. We investigated patterns of childhood and adolescent experiences that correspond to later justice system entry, including persistence into adulthood, and explored whether timing of potential supports to the child or onset of family poverty, according to developmental periods and gender, would distinguish among latent classes. Methods. We constructed a database containing records for 8587 youths from a Midwestern metropolitan region, born between 1982 and 1991, with outcomes. We used data from multiple publicly funded systems (child welfare, income maintenance, juvenile and criminal justice, mental health, Medicaid, vital statistics). We applied a latent class analysis and interpreted a 7-class model. Results. Classes with higher rates of offending persisting into adulthood were characterized by involvement with multiple publicly funded systems in childhood and adolescence, with the exception of 1 less-urban, predominantly female class that had similarly high system involvement coupled with lower rates of offending. Conclusions. Poverty and maltreatment appear to play a critical role in offending trajectories. Identifying risk factors that cluster together may help program and intervention staff best target those most in need of more intensive intervention. Crime has devastating effects on individuals, families, and communities. Prevention and early intervention have the potential to save millions of dollars in justice system and victim costs. 1 A vast literature has documented offense trajectories and risk and protective factors, but most of this research has focused on individual or peer characteristics in relation to types and persistence of offending. 2,3 Scant research has viewed offender typology and offense trajectory from the perspective of public service systems encountered. Not only do these data contain markers of risk, but they may also help identify promising systems to use as platforms for purposes of prevention and early intervention. Furthermore, it is important to understand whether key clusters of system involvement, along with individual and community factors, might inform models of collaboration to improve outcomes. Although the connection between child welfare involvement and entry into juvenile and criminal justice systems has been well documented, 4,5 evidence that offending risk accumulates with involvement in multiple systems is relatively limited. Children with child welfare system contact are likely to be poor and to experience other risk factors for criminal behavior. For example, children who were involved with both income maintenance and child welfare systems were about twice as likely to have delinquency petitions as other youths, 6 and a sample of youths with income maintenance and child welfare histories had an average of 3 delinquency petitions per child. 7 The relation between timing of service involvement and offending behavior has been largely unstudied. Adolescent and persistent child maltreatment have been found to be predictive of delinquency, as compared to maltreatment limited to early childhood. 8 Repeated maltreatment reports have been associated with an increased likelihood of a range of adult outcomes such as perpetration of maltreatment and mental health service use, even controlling for delinquency and mental health treatment during adolescence. 9 It is unknown, however, whether the timing of a child’s or family’s involvement with income maintenance or publicly funded mental health is related to later offending. Although contact with a system such as mental health occurs in recognition of a need, contact is not synonymous with adequate or timely service. 10 For example, 1 study found that mental health and substance use services appeared to magnify the risk of juvenile justice entry for youths with child welfare system involvement, 11 when in reality youths contacting those systems may receive little or low-quality care.