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CHAPTER 4: RISK FACTORS PERTAINING TO YOUTH OFFENDERS:
DEFINITION OF KEY CONCEPTS:
1. Risk Factors:
-A variable that predicts a high probability of offending.
-They can therefore be regarded as the conditions that increase the likelihood that a child or
young person will develop one or more behavioural problems in adolescence.
-Criminogenic risk factors: Factors specifically associated with criminal activities.
-Dynamic risk factors: Factors that can be changed, for example one can replace criminal
role models with positive role models or mentors.
Different Levels / Categories of Risk:
o Minimal Risk:
-Youth generally at minimal risk for future trouble are those who attend good schools, have
loving and caring relationships, and whose families are of higher socioeconomic status.
-The term “no risk” cannot be used due to the complex ecology of stressors that young
people face.
-All young people have to cope with death, family tension, failure or unpredictable family
factors such as bankruptcy, divorce, or loss of a home.
o Remote Risk:
-Seems increasingly possible when markers of future problems appear.
-For example, demographic variables of low socioeconomic status, limited economic
opportunity, lack of access to good education, and gang membership.
-Also associated with a greater dropout rate.
o High Risk:
-Dysfunctional families, poor schools, negative social interactions, and numerous
psychological stressors nudge young people towards higher levels of risk.
-The final push is supplied by the persons own negative attitudes, emotions and behaviour.
-Characteristics of high-risk children are;
-Aggression and conduct problems
-Impulsivity
-Anxiety
-Affective problems (depression/bipolar disorder)
-Hopelessness
-Deficits in social skills and coping behaviour.
-These characteristics both emerge from as well as enhance the negativity of the
environment around the child.
-In other words, the causal pathway is dynamic.
, o Imminent Risk:
-Individual high-risk characteristics often find expression in participation in gateway
behaviours.
-For example, a child’s aggression toward other children and adults is a gateway to youth
offending.
-The smoking of cigarettes is a gateway to alcohol and marijuana use
-Which can be a gateway to harder drugs.
o At Risk:
-The young person has passed beyond risk because he/she is already engaged in the
problems of criminal activities discussed in the previous categories.
-For example, the young person who uses drugs can begin to abuse them and become
addicted.
-This person can continue with violent crime during adult years.
2. Static Risk Factors:
-These represent variables or factors that are not amendable to change or change only in 1
direction.
-For example; age, a history of conduct disorders, large family size, ethnicity.
-The most robust static predictors of criminal recidivism are youthfulness, being male, the
number of previous offences, age at first arrest, criminal versatility, poor parental
supervision, early onset behavioural problems (lying, cheating, stealing)
-These factors are not open to treatment.
3. Protective Factors:
-Protective and promotive factors represent characteristics of the individual or his/her
circumstances that mediate or buffer the effects of risk factors.
-These factors are associated with the concepts of resilience and desistance.
-They are important from the point of view of developing prevention and treatment
programmes.
-These factors include;
-Being female
-An appositive social orientation
-Warm supportive relationship with parents and other adults
-Parents positive evaluation of child’s peers
-Commitment to school
-Friends who engage in conventional behaviour
-Stable, organised neighbourhood.
-A protective is not just simply the absence of a risk factor.
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