Common and specific psychological risk factors for general and drug offending in young offenders

Abstract

In recent years there is a growing concern on drug offences in local young offenders. Despite its over-representation among young offenders and recidivists worldwide and in Hong Kong, drug offending has never been studied systematically in risk factor research on delinquents and other specific types of offenders. The issue as to whether the investigated variables constitute common risk factors to general offending, or in fact drug offending has specific risk factors, remains largely unaddressed. The present study aimed to identify psychological risk factors for drug offending within the context of adolescent offending and reoffending. The research applied a longitudinal design to identify psychological predictors for recidivism and later drug offending through differentiation of recidivists from desistors; and prospective drug offenders from non-drug offenders with psychological risk factors presented in a young offender sample. Risk factors predicting crime-severity were also studied as reducing future crime-severity was equally important in rehabilitation services for young offenders. The dataset was previously collected in 2004 in local correctional institutions for young offenders as part of a large scale risk factor research of the Correctional Services Department of Hong Kong. Six psychological measures which had been administered to 201 participants aged from 14 to 21 were used in the analysis in prediction of criminal outcomes retrieved from the Correctional Services Department in 2015. All the measures showed excellent to good internal consistency and test-retest reliability. Results of ANCOVA with planned orthogonal contrasts showed that after controlling for age, educational level and social desirability, the recidivists had lower mean scores in the measures on Future Time Perspective and Empathy than the desistors. Mean scores of Assertiveness also tended to be higher among the recidivists. The linear combination of the six risk factors in a significant discriminant function showed that Future Time Perspective was the most important psychological predictor for recidivism. The drug offenders had higher mean score on Impulsiveness and lower mean score on Problem Solving than the non-drug offenders. These two psychological factors were also significant predictors for crime-severity in the drug offenders. Discriminant Function Analysis with linear combination of psychological variables revealed that Impulsiveness was the most important predictor for later drug offending. According to regression analysis, Problem Solving was the strongest predictor for crime-severity among the drug offenders both in terms of number of reconvictions and total resentence length. Impulsiveness was also predictive of future crime-severity in the drug offenders but only on total resentence length. This research shows that it is possible to study drug offenders as a group akin to other specific types of offenders, such as sexual and violent offenders. In addition there are specific psychological risk factors which can distinguish them from other offenders. It is hoped that there will be more similar research attempts in the future, such that evidence-informed risk assessment tools can be developed and applied for early identification of individuals at risk and their treatment needs, for the ultimate goal to reduce future drug offences in young offenders.