Risico- en beschermende factoren voor het niet afronden van een leerstraf bij jonge delinquenten
Summary
In the current existing literature several risk and
protective factors have already been identified to be
associated with the criminal behavior of youngsters. A
study into the risk and protective factors that are
associated with whether or not a community service
intervention is completed among Dutch youngsters has
not yet been conducted. As there are signs that the
target group for this intervention changes, additional
research into these factors is required. Accordingly, the
current study examines the associations between
several risk and protective factors in the various
domains of the national juvenile justice instrument (in
Dutch: Landelijk Instrumentarium Jeugdstrafrechtketen
or LIJ) and the (un)successful completion of a
community service intervention among a sample (N =
48) of youngsters between the ages of 12 and 17 years
who had been given a community service intervention in
the second half of 2023. The results of a logistic
regression analysis indicated that protective factors in
the domain 'Relationships' and risk factors in the
domain 'Mental health' are significantly related to
whether or not a youngster successfully completes a
community service intervention. Although the ‘Family’
domain was not significantly related to the completion
of a community service intervention, the result of an
independent chi-square test suggested that the
association between the subdomain ‘high parental
problems’ and the unsuccessful completion of an
educational sentence was significant. Through this
research benchmarks have been provided to make the
community service interventions more person- and
system-oriented and effective, so that they continue to
meet the target group.