Early life lead exposure from private well water increases juvenile delinquency risk among US teens.

Early life exposure to environmental lead (Pb) has been linked to decreased IQ, behavior problems, lower lifetime earnings, and increased criminal activity. Beginning in the 1970s, limits on Pb in paint, gasoline, food cans, and regulated water utilities sharply curtailed US environmental Pb exposure. Nonetheless, hundreds of thousands of US children remain at risk. This study reports on how unregulated private well water is an underrecognized Pb exposure source that is associated with an increased risk of teenage juvenile delinquency. We build a longitudinal dataset linking blood Pb measurements for 13,580 children under age 6 to their drinking water source, individual- and neighborhood-level demographics, and reported juvenile delinquency records. We estimate how early life Pb exposure from private well water influences reported delinquency. On average, children in homes with unregulated private wells had 11% higher blood Pb than those with community water service. This higher blood Pb was significantly associated with reported delinquency. Compared to children with community water service, those relying on private wells had a 21% (95% CI: 5 to 40%) higher risk of being reported for any delinquency and a 38% (95% CI: 10 to 73%) increased risk of being reported for serious delinquency after age 14. These results suggest that there could be substantial but as-yet-unrecognized social benefits from intervention programs to prevent children's exposure to Pb from private wells, on which 13% of the US population relies.

Making a Bad Situation Worse: Current and Potential Unintended Consequences of Juvenile Registration for Sexual Offences.

Within the US, children and adolescents who engage in sexually abusive behavior are often subjected to sex offender registration and notification requirements, which contribute to stigmatization and forfeiture of their civil rights without empirical basis (Lancaster, 2011; Pickett et al., 2023; Zilney & Zilney, 2009). To date, 39 states subject children with adjudicated sexual offenses to sex offender registration requirements, with most recent estimates revealing that approximately 200,000 youth have been placed on sex offender registries within the US and many are now on the registry as adults (Pickett et al., 2020). This severe response-by both members of the public and policymakers-toward children who engage in inappropriate sexual behavior is imposed upon children and adolescents with adjudicated sexual offenses in an effort to meet goals of reducing sexual violence and increasing community safety. Within the current discourse, we review the history of registration and notification practices for adolescents with sexual offenses, describe what registration and notification policies entail, and then present empirical and theoretical evidence of the harmful outcomes associated with implementation of registration and notification requirements for sexual offenses. Thus, the predominant aim of this discourse is to encourage thoughtful and critical examination of registration and notification policies and their iatrogenic impacts.

Randomized controlled internal pilot trial of a diversion programme for adolescents in police custody who possess illicit substances.

BACKGROUND: Adolescents involved in criminal proceedings are significantly more likely to re-offend than a similar population diverted away from criminal justice. Adolescents who use substances and offend are at higher risk of experiencing negative social, psychological and physical problems that often persist into adulthood. There is some evidence that brief interventions combined with appropriate psychoeducation may be effective in reducing adolescent substance use. METHODS: Prospective two-armed, individually randomized internal pilot randomized controlled trial (RCT) with follow-up at 6 months. Young people across three police forces-Kent, Cornwall and Sefton-arrested in possession of class B or C illicit substances were randomly allocated to receive the ReFrame intervention or business as usual. In total, 102 participants were eligible of whom 76 consented and 73 were followed up at 6 months. Outcomes addressed offending behaviour, frequency of substance use, wellbeing and mental health. The study was conducted between February and December 2022. RESULTS: All progression criteria were met, 80% of those eligible consented, 96% adhered to their allocated treatment and 88% were followed up at the primary endpoint. CONCLUSIONS: The feasibility of conducting the pilot trial was a success and it will now proceed to a definitive RCT.

Hard to reach? Methodological challenges researching vulnerable, gang-involved, young people.

INTRODUCTION: Research with young people (YP) is ethically challenging and bound in a complex maze of issues relating to power, voice and representation. Such sensitivities mean that the challenges raised in researching marginalised YP are often hard to navigate. This paper reports on research carried out with YP to explore links between mental health, school exclusion and involvement in criminal gangs. It aims to provide a practical guide to negotiating some of the methodological and ethical challenges experienced. METHOD: In-depth interviews conducted with 28 YP (aged 14-24 years) who were gang involved or seen to be at risk of gang involvement. Research was conducted in youth clubs, alternative provision and youth justice settings. RESULTS: OBSERVATIONS/REFLECTIONS: We reflect on how navigating ethics can create barriers to involving YP as primary informants in research. We consider why it is important to overcome these hurdles and how public engagement work with recognised gatekeepers and the use of creative interview methods can facilitate meaningful encounters, where YP feel able to share valuable insights into their lives. CONCLUSION: Alongside a number of specific learning points, the paper reflects on theories behind research with YP, including the need for recognition of power imbalances and reflexivity. It concludes with thoughts on the practical realities of achieving meaningful participation or an 'authentic voice' with marginalised groups and the importance of this in informing policy and practice. PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION: The focus of this work was to collect experiences of YP who are recognised as gang-involved or at risk of being so, with a view to informing health and education policies. The scoping study for the project involved extensive public engagement work with YP exploring and trialling suitable methods of accessing, recruiting and ultimately interviewing this target group. This is central to the discussion within the body of the paper.

Early development of local data dashboards to depict the substance use care cascade for youth involved in the legal system: qualitative findings from end users.

INTRODUCTION: Rates of substance use are high among youth involved in the legal system (YILS); however, YILS are less likely to initiate and complete substance use treatment compared to their non legally-involved peers. There are multiple steps involved in connecting youth to needed services, from screening and referral within the juvenile legal system to treatment initiation and completion within the behavioral health system. Understanding potential gaps in the care continuum requires data and decision-making from these two systems. The current study reports on the development of data dashboards that integrate these systems' data to help guide decisions to improve substance use screening and treatment for YILS, focusing on end-user feedback regarding dashboard utility. METHODS: Three focus groups were conducted with n = 21 end-users from juvenile legal systems and community mental health centers in front-line positions and in decision-making roles across 8 counties to gather feedback on an early version of the data dashboards; dashboards were then modified based on feedback. RESULTS: Qualitative analysis revealed topics related to (1) important aesthetic features of the dashboard, (2) user features such as filtering options and benchmarking to compare local data with other counties, and (3) the centrality of consistent terminology for data dashboard elements. Results also revealed the use of dashboards to facilitate collaboration between legal and behavioral health systems. CONCLUSIONS: Feedback from end-users highlight important design elements and dashboard utility as well as the challenges of working with cross-system and cross-jurisdiction data.

Adolescent delinquency following co-occurring childhood head injuries and conduct problem symptoms: findings from a UK longitudinal birth cohort.

Childhood conduct problems and head injuries share a bidirectional association, but how this affects the risk of adolescent delinquency is unknown. Due to their similar underlying mechanisms (i.e. increased impulsivity), this study aims to identify whether their co-occurrence increases the risk of adolescent delinquency. Data was obtained from 11,272 children at age 14 and 10,244 at age 17 years enrolled in the UK Millennium Cohort Study. Conduct problem symptoms (via the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire) and head injuries were parent reported from ages 3 to 14 years. Delinquency was self-reported at ages 14 and 17 including substance use, criminality, and antisocial behaviour. Incident rate ratios (IRR) were estimated for delinquency at ages 14 and 17 by childhood conduct problem and head injury status. Co-occurring head injuries and high conduct problem symptoms presented the greatest risk for overall delinquency and substance use at age 14 compared to those with the presence of one or neither (IRRs from 1.20 to 1.60). At age 17, conduct problems (with or without co-occurring head injuries) presented the greatest risk for overall delinquency, substance use, and antisocial behaviour. There was no evidence for an increased risk of delinquency at ages 14 or 17 following a head injury only. Whilst these findings suggest childhood head injuries alone do not increase the risk of adolescent delinquency, when co-occurring alongside high conduct problem symptoms there is a heightened earlier risk. These results provide further insight into adolescent delinquency and the outcomes of co-occurring childhood head injury and conduct problem symptoms.

Cognitive and affective perspective taking amongst adolescent offenders with variants of callous-unemotional traits.

Evidence suggests that associations between antisocial behaviour, callous-unemotional (CU) traits and cognitive empathy (e.g. perspective taking) vary depending on more fine-grained dimensions of these constructs. This study examined associations between adolescent antisocial behaviour and individual differences in cognitive and affective perspective taking ability. Based on current theory regarding distinct variants of CU traits, we further tested whether the correlates of CU traits differed amongst youth with high versus low levels of anxiety. Participants were 130 male adolescents (81 youth offenders; 49 non-offenders) aged 13-20 years, of predominantly Caucasian and Aboriginal Australian ethnicity. Perspective taking skills were indexed using performance-based testing, and self-report data was collected on CU traits and anxiety in a cross-sectional design. Offender status was associated with poorer cognitive and affective perspective taking. In addition, associations between CU traits and perspective taking skills were moderated by anxiety. Specifically, CU traits were associated with poorer skills for second-order cognitive perspective taking amongst high-anxiety youth, whereas CU traits were associated with better cognitive and affective perspective taking skills amongst low-anxiety youth. More fine-grained assessment of such factors stands to enhance understanding of, and effective intervention for, antisocial youth.

Religious coping and delinquent behaviors: Moderated mediation roles of religion affiliation and prosocial moral reasoning.

Religion has been shown to have a positive impact for developing adolescents; however, the processes underlying this relation are not well known. In his almighty prosocial theory, Anazonwu (Conceptualizing and testing almighty prosociality theory for a more peaceful world, SCOA Heritage Nigeria, 2017) proposed that the activation of learnt prosocial moral reasoning through religion enabled performance of prosocial peace behavior that will benefit society. Thus, religion coping enhances the development of prosocial reasoning which in turn propagate prosocial acts while reducing delinquent behaviors. Similarly, developmental system theory (Lerner, Developmental science, developmental systems, and contemporary theories of human development, John Wiley & Sons, 2006) assumed that in every individual three mechanisms: plasticity (potential to change), context (environment), and developmental regulation (learnable principles) interact to describe the direction of the transactions between individuals and their various embedded sociocultural context of development which will also determine other developmental outcomes. Based on these two theoretical assumptions, the present study examined whether prosocial moral reasoning (developmental regulation) was the mechanism in the negative correlation between religious coping (plasticity) and delinquent behaviors (outcome), and if religious affiliation(context) (Christianity and Islam) moderated these paths. We hypothesized that the link from prosocial moral reasoning to lower delinquent behaviors would be stronger for Muslim compared with Christian youth. These questions were tested among Nigerian adolescence, an important sample because of high interreligious and interethnic tension among youth in the country. 298 adolescents (Mean age = 15.03 years, SD = 1.76; male = 176, female = 122; 46.3% Muslim, 53.7% Christian) were sampled using questionnaires in senior secondary schools in Nigeria. Moderated mediation result shows that greater religious coping was linked with higher prosocial moral reasoning, which in turn predicted fewer delinquent behaviors. Religious coping interacted with religion affiliation to influence delinquent behavior; there was a stronger link between these two constructs for Muslim compared to Christian youth. Thus, interventions aiming to reduce youth delinquent behaviors should consider promoting prosocial moral reasoning, particularly among the various religions (i.e., Christian/Muslim) communities.

Examining the causal effects of exposure to violence on crime among youth involved in the justice system: Experienced, witnessed, and experienced-witnessed violence.

Previous studies on exposure to violence lack a nuanced understanding of the causal effects of different exposure types on offending behaviors. This study, drawing on Pathways to Desistance Study (PDS) data tracking 1354 adjudicated youths aged 14-18 over 7 years, explores the contemporaneous (cross-sectional), acute (after 1 year), enduring (after 3 years), and long-term (after 6 years) causal effects of violence exposure on property and violent offending. The sample, predominantly male (86%), consisted of White (20%), Black (42%), and other (38%) individuals. The generalized propensity score is used to match unbalanced covariates across multiple exposure types, namely noninvolved (n = 392), witnessed (n = 577), experienced (n = 31), and experienced-witnessed violence (n = 305). Results demonstrate the contemporaneous, acute, enduring, and long-term effects of violence exposure on both violent and property offending, with varying durations and strengths across exposure types. The most pronounced risk effects are immediate, diminishing over time and potentially reversing in the long term as youth transition into adulthood. Among exposure types, experienced-witnessed violence exhibits the most potent effects on offending, followed by witnessed violence and then experienced violence-a pattern consistent across the observed time points. Noteworthy is the finding that the impact of violence exposure is more pronounced for violent offending, diminishing more rapidly compared to the effects on property offending.

Too sensitive or not sensitive enough? Sensitivity to context and justice-involved youths' response to violence exposure.

With high rates of violence exposure among justice-involved youth, it is critical to identify factors that might impact the likelihood of youth engaging in violence themselves. One such factor is sensitivity to context, which describes how sensitive youth are to experiences in their environment. Using an ethnically diverse sample of justice-involved male adolescents (47% Latino, 38% Black/African American, 15% White) aged 13-17 at the time of their first arrest, the results of this study indicate that exposure to violence was related to increased violent behavior six months later, and this effect was strongest among youth who were low in sensitivity to context. These findings may help practitioners identify which youth are at greatest risk for violence in a policy-relevant population.

Short-term mindsets show co-development with adolescent delinquency, but not with adolescent cannabis use.

Guided by General Theory of Crime and Psychosocial Maturity Hypothesis, we investigated co-development between short-term mindsets (impulsivity and future orientation) and risk behaviors (cannabis use and delinquency). Parallel process latent growth modeling on three-wave data from ethnically diverse Swiss adolescents (N = 1365; Mage 13.67 years, 48.6% female), showed baseline-level associations between short-term mindsets and risk behaviors, and between the two risk behaviors. Additionally, correlated change (co-development) existed between short-term mindsets-particularly impulsivity-and delinquency, but not between short-term mindsets and cannabis use. These results support the above-mentioned theories and emphasize the importance of investigating the correlates of change in delinquency and cannabis use separately, as divergent findings might emerge. These divergent findings could partially stem from Switzerland's liberal views on cannabis use.

Cooperative coparenting and the associations with adolescent behavioral problems and delinquency in unmarried families.

INTRODUCTION: Coparenting in unmarried families is a protective factor for positive adolescent adjustment. Although the relations between coparenting and adolescent outcomes have been investigated, it remains unclear whether the specific patterns of maternal and paternal coparenting are associated with adolescent behavioral outcomes. METHODS: The present study includs a longitudinal cohort of 1143 triads of unmarried parents and their adolescents to examine the associations between different patterns of coparenting and adolescent behavioral problems and delinquency. The data were drawn from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study in the United States. Our study used six waves of publicly available data at children's birth, ages 1, 3, 5, 9, and 15. RESULTS: The latent profile analyses identified four coparenting profiles of maternal and paternal coparenting perceived by the other unmarried parent. Comparing average levels of coparenting between mothers and fathers, the profiles were entitled Low Mom-Low Dad, High Mom-Medium Dad, Low Mom-Medium Dad, and High Mom-High Dad. Parents characteristics, such as cohabitation and marital status, predicted the likelihood of being in cooperative coparenting profiles. Furthermore, all the identified coparenting profiles predicted adolescent externalizing behavioral problems; only the high mom cooperative coparenting profiles predicted adolescent internalizing behavioral problems; none of the coparenting profiles predicted adolescent delinquency. CONCLUSIONS: Our study adds empirical evidence for coparenting research by revealing that coparenting patterns vary in unmarried families and that cooperative coparenting benefits child behavioral outcomes. The findings encourage introducing different coparenting training programs targeting unmarried parents' diverse needs, thus promoting positive adolescent adjustment.

Behavior problems, social relationships, and adolescents' future orientation. Links from middle to late adolescence.

INTRODUCTION: As adolescents leave high school, plans for the future are of great importance. Future orientation reflects positive thoughts regarding further education, employment, and family life. While future orientation has been found to affect behavior problems, the influence of behavior problems on future orientation is mainly unknown. Positive parent-child and peer relations may boost positive outlooks, but the interplay of behavior problems and social relations for future orientation remains to be studied. METHODS: Participants were 485 adolescents, 54% girls, living in Mid-Sweden. At age 15, parents and adolescents rated ADHD- and internalizing symptoms, parents rated ODD-symptoms, and adolescents rated their relationship with parents and peers. At age 18, adolescents rated future orientation regarding education, employment, and family, and reported on delinquent acts. RESULTS: Low levels of inattention symptoms and of delinquency were important for all higher future orientation aspects. In contrast, higher levels of hyperactive-impulsive symptoms were associated with more positive outlooks on work and family life. Relationships with parents and peers were stronger predictors of future outlooks, compared with behavior problems. There were few interaction effects of behavioral symptoms and social relationship quality. CONCLUSIONS: Behavior problems in middle adolescence may negatively affect future outlooks. However, positive social relations, especially relations with peers, seem more important for optimistic views than behavior problems and thus may have a compensatory effect. The clinical implications should be to address the young person's social world, in the case of misgivings about the future, also in the presence of problematic behaviors.

Juvenile Justice-Based Interdisciplinary Collective Care: An Innovative Approach.

Mental health concerns among juvenile-justice-involved youth (JJIY) continue to be a major health crisis in the United States (US). While scholarship has explored mental health concerns among JJIY, and the link to negative life outcomes, there are gaps in the existing research, particularly in effective interventions and models aimed at addressing both the mental health concerns and criminogenic risk contributing to recidivism and other negative life outcomes of this population. In this paper, we present Justice-Based Interdisciplinary Collective Care (JBICC), an innovative framework to address both the mental health needs and delinquent behavior of youth offenders. The model bridges community partners, with the purpose of informing future interventions, implementations, and research in this area. Increased justice-based interdisciplinary collective collaboration between the juvenile justice system and community programs/organizations would be a major benefit to youth offenders and their families. We also focus on the need for cultural responsiveness to be interwoven throughout all aspects of treatment. JBICC offers an opportunity to expanded services outside traditional settings and methods to ensure that youth offenders and their families receive validating and culturally responsive access to services.

A County-Level Case Study of Early Psychosis in the Context of a Hybrid Juvenile Competency Restoration and Mental Health Problem-Solving Court and Linkage to Coordinated Specialty Care Services.

An important and unresolved question in the context of the implementation of coordinated specialty care (CSC) for early psychosis in the United States is the extent to which youth and young adults from marginalized backgrounds are able to equitably access CSC services. In this brief report, we describe pathways between a county hybrid juvenile competency restoration and mental health problem-solving court ('Court'), serving youth with high rates of psychosis and multiple risk factors for poor long-term outcomes, and local CSC services. We found that the Court was overall successful in linking youth with psychosis to care, but in the majority of cases this was not CSC programming more specifically. Drawing on Court and CSC records as well as family interviews, we report on factors contributing to low linkage to CSC, including family-side barriers (lack of transportation, preference for lower intensity / lower demand services) and provider-side barriers, including eligibility criteria such as duration of psychosis, that ultimately exclude otherwise eligible Court-involved youth.

Rearrest is associated with heightened callous-unemotional traits: No moderating effect of maternal relationship quality.

OBJECTIVE: The presence of callous-unemotional (CU) traits in adolescence predisposes youth to negative behavioral and social outcomes and may be particularly damaging to youth involved in the justice system. Whereas research has shown that CU traits predict later arrest, it remains unknown whether rearrest predicts changes in CU traits and whether these associations may be modified by maternal relationship quality. The present study assessed whether being rearrested predicted changes in CU traits and whether these associations varied by maternal warmth and maternal hostility. HYPOTHESES: We hypothesized that self-reported CU traits would increase at data collection time points following rearrest. Further, we hypothesized that maternal warmth would buffer the negative effects of rearrest, whereas maternal hostility would not have a significant moderating effect on the associations. METHOD: Hypotheses were tested using a large, multisite longitudinal data set of 1,216 justice-involved male youth (Mage = 15.82 years at baseline; 47% Latino, 38% Black/African American, 15% White). Data from a series of nine interviews (across a 7-year period) were used to determine associations between rearrest at one-time point and CU traits at the subsequent time point. RESULTS: Rearrest is associated with a significant increase in CU traits. However, these associations are not moderated by either maternal warmth or maternal hostility. CONCLUSIONS: Rearrest predicts increases in a known risk factor for healthy socioemotional development among justice-involved youths (CU traits). Moreover, the way rearrest is associated with CU traits does not change depending on maternal warmth; rearrest is associated with increases in CU traits irrespective of the quality of a youth's relationship with their mother. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Investigating Trauma Symptomology as a Mediator of the Relationships Between Childhood Maltreatment and Sexual and Non-Sexual Delinquency.

Maltreatment is a risk factor for both sexual and non-sexual delinquency. Little is known about how specific forms of maltreatment relate to the distinct offending outcomes. Though trauma symptoms have been associated with maltreatment and delinquency, the intervening role of trauma symptoms in pathways from maltreatment to offending is not well understood. The goal of the current study was to test social learning and general strain theory explanations for sexual and non-sexual delinquency in adolescence, exploring trauma symptoms as a mediator between the four major types of maltreatment and offending outcomes. Data were collected via surveys of 136 incarcerated youth at seven residential treatment and community corrections facilities in a Midwestern state. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to establish a measurement model, and structural equation modeling was employed to test direct and indirect pathways from maltreatment to offending. Individual forms of maltreatment had differential relationships with offending outcomes, with neglect having a significant association with non-sexual delinquency, and sexual abuse having a significant direct relationship with sexual delinquency. Trauma symptomology did not mediate these relationships. Future research should explore developmentally appropriate proxies for measuring childhood trauma. Practice and policy should consider the role of maltreatment victimization history in the inception of delinquency behaviors, prioritizing therapeutic alternatives to detention and incarceration.

Exploring the needs of girls of color in the juvenile legal system: A latent class analysis.

Girls of color are overrepresented in the juvenile legal system and experience high levels of unmet needs. Assessing and meeting girls' needs may prevent system contact or deeper involvement by providing for these needs in community-based settings, rather than through juvenile legal systems. This study used a structured interview-based assessment adapted from an advocacy intervention to examine girls' self-identified needs and perceived effectiveness and difficulty of accessing resources for these needs. Descriptive analyses found that girls reported needing resources beyond those typically assessed and supported in existing programming, such as technology, extracurriculars, and employment. Latent class analysis revealed four subgroups of girls with distinct but overlapping areas of needs: (1) High Employment, Current School, and Logistical Needs, (2) Low Overall Needs, (3) High Employment Needs, and (4) High Employment, Current School, and Social/Emotional Needs. Girls also reported wide variation in their ability and difficulty accessing needed resources, with employment being most difficult to access and school and social/emotional resources being the easiest to access. These findings suggest that more comprehensive and individualized approaches to programming and community services for system-impacted girls of color are essential.

Social Bonding, Risky Lifestyle, and Polyvictimization Among a Sample of Chinese Adolescents.

Polyvictimization has received substantial scholarly attention globally since it has been put forward two decades ago. However, the current lack of understanding of the causes of polyvictimization hinders the design of intervention programs. This study aims to integrate social bonding theory and lifestyle-routine activity theory to understand the etiology of polyvictimization in the Chinese context. Our results suggest that social bonding exerted not only a direct effect on polyvictimization (ß = -.030, p < .001) but also an indirect effect through delinquency and association with delinquent peers. Surprisingly, we found that the pathways linking social bonding and polyvictimization do not differ across genders. Implications for practice and theories are discussed.

Neuropsychological profiles of adolescents sentenced to detention in Western Australia with and without prenatal alcohol exposure.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Youth with prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) are under-recognised in the justice system, warranting improved identification. This study aimed to compare neuropsychological profiles of adolescents, with and without PAE and identify neuropsychological tasks predictive of PAE-group membership. It was hypothesised that participants with PAE would score significantly lower on neuropsychological tests. METHODS: Participants included 85 young people sentenced to detention (mean 15.7 years, 78 males), 46 with PAE. A one-way-multivariate analysis of variance tested differences in neuropsychological functioning between PAE/No-PAE groups, while logistic regression determined tests predictive of PAE. RESULTS: No statistically significant difference in test scores emerged between groups, and regression was not indicative of any models predictive of PAE-group membership. Neuropsychological profiles were characterised by both strengths and weaknesses, with lower verbal and mathematical skills. CONCLUSION(S): While no statistically significant differences were found between the groups, the results provided a unique insight into the neurocognitive profile of Australian youth in detention. Routine screening assessments were recommended for young people sentenced to detention.