Psychological assessment in juvenile offenders: reliability and validity of Inventário de Jesness – revisado brasileiro

Abstract

The Inventário de Jesness – revisado brasileiro (IJ-R-Br) assess psychological aspects of adolescent offenders. The objective of this study was to obtain evidence of reliability and criterion validity of two IJ-R-Br’s subscales. The responses of 928 male adolescents to the IJ-R-Br and the Questionário de Comportamento Juvenis (QCJ) were analyzed. Reliability was calculated by Cronbach’s alpha and Spearman- Brown coefficient. The criterion validity, through the Student’s t-test, of chi-squared and relative risk analysis, was used to verify the association between high scores on measures and high indicators of infractional engagement (measured by QCJ). The accuracy scores were unsatisfactory only for three of 12 Inventory scales. Regarding the criterion validity, there are more adolescents with high indicators of infractional engagement in the group with high scores. It is opportune to conduct research with a population of teenage offenders.

Social Maladjustment and Criminal Behavior Pattern Changes in Adolescents in Conflict with the Law

“…The change in SM in young people from HSMC (from a high to a moderate score) was accompanied by a change in the pattern of criminal conduct, in terms of the frequency of crimes committed, which brought them closer, in average terms, to the young individuals in NSMC, regarding the frequency of crimes in the last year. This would explain why these adolescents present a different frequency at W1 and similar at W2, since it is expected, according to data in the literature, that the decrease in SM is accompanied by a decrease in the severity of the conduct pattern (Costa et al, 2019;Semel, 2016), which resulted in greater similarity between the groups.…”

“…Social Maladjustment (SM; α = 0.86), Value Orientation (VO; α = 0.82) Immaturity (Im; α = 0.72), Autism (Au; α = 0.75) Alienation (Al; α = 0.70), Manifest Aggression (MA; α = 0.81), Withdrawal/Depression (Wd; α = 0.70) Social Anxiety (SA; α = 0.54), Repression (Rep; α = 0.42) Denial (Den; α = 0.65), Conduct Disorder (CD; α = 0.73), and Oppositional Defiant Disorder (COD; α = 0.70). The IJ-R also generates a score on the Associability Index (AI), a measure associated with the risk of reincidence, calculated from a combination of the scores of SM, OV, Au, Al, MA, Wd, SA, and Rep (Costa et al, 2019).…”

Análisis de las propiedades psicométricas de la versión reducida del Inventario Jesness – Revisado

“…Versión adaptada del Jesness Inventory -Revised (JI-R; Jesness, 2003), de Andrés-Pueyo y Antequera (2006). Los participantes respondieron a la versión completa (160 ítems), sin embargo, para los análisis fueron seleccionados en la base de datos solamente las respuestas a los 86 ítems que componen la versión reducida (Costa et al, 2020). El formato de respuesta es de verdadero o falso, igual que en la versión original y completa.…”

“…En una etapa inicial y exploratoria, se excluyeron ítems con índice discriminativo (α) inaceptable; en una etapa siguiente y confirmatoria, se mantuvieron sólo ítems con índice discriminativo (α) moderado o alto. Los análisis de contenido de los ítems sugieren que las escalas mantuvieron sus sentidos interpretativos (Costa et al, 2020).…”

“…En Brasil, se ha desarrollado una versión reducida del inventario, la cual lleva la mitad del tiempo en ser contestada y, por esto, se cree es más pertinente para la aplicación en los jóvenes. Además, en este proceso, hubo avances que aportan a la comprensión del contenido de las escalas del Inventario, a partir del análisis de las dimensiones con un número más pequeño de ítems (Costa et al, 2020).…”