Risk and Criminogenic Needs of Youth Who Sexually Offended in Singapore

Abstract

An increasing amount of research has been carried out to understand the characteristics of subgroups of adult sex offenders, but there is limited research into the risk factors and criminogenic needs of subgroups of youth who sexually offended. The current study investigated if there were differences in the risk and criminogenic needs of 167 Singaporean youth who sexually offended based on two typologies - youth who offended both sexually and nonsexually versus youth who offended only sexually, and youth who offended against child victims versus youth who offended against nonchild victims. Results show that youth who offended both sexually and nonsexually were found to have higher risk and criminogenic needs as compared to youth who only sexually offended. In addition, youth who offended against child victims were found to have higher numbers of previous sexual assaults as compared to youth who offended against nonchild victims. These differences have implications for the management and intervention of youth who sexually offended.

The Predictive Validity of Savry Ratings for Assessing Youth Offenders in Singapore

“…In Singapore, the YLS/CMI ( Hoge & Andrews, 2002 , 2011 ) was chosen by the relevant youth justice agencies as the primary risk assessment measure to assess the risk and needs of youth offenders in early to mid-2000s (see Chua, Chu, Yim, Chong, & Teoh, 2014 ). The utility of the YLS/CMI and its screening version for assessing the risk of recidivism and identifying criminogenic needs in youth offenders was investigated in several studies (e.g., Chu et al, 2015 ; Chu, Ng, Fong, & Teoh, 2012 ; Chu, Yu, Lee, & Zeng, 2014 ; Zeng, Chu, Koh, & Teoh, 2015 ), and the YLS measures were found to have adequate predictive validity for assessing the risk of violent (AUC YLS/CMI-SV_Male = .62) and general recidivistic outcomes (AUC YLS/CMI_Male = .65; AUC YLS/CMI_Female = .67; AUC YLS/CMI-SV_Male = .65; AUC YLS/CMI-SV_Female = .59) but not sexual recidivism (AUC YLS/CMI_Male = .29). In addition, there was a local study that used the SAVRY to identify criminogenic needs in gang-affiliated and nongang-affiliated youth offenders, and group differences were only found for one risk factor (i.e., peer delinquency) after adjusting for multiple comparisons ( Chu, Daffern, Thomas, & Lim, 2011 ).…”

Violent and Nonviolent Youth Offenders

“…One practical framework which can be used to examine violent offender typology is the risk, need, and responsivity (RNR) framework ( Andrews, Bonta, & Hoge, 1990 ) considering its utility in offender rehabilitation (see meta-analyses by Andrews et al, 1990 ; Hanson, Bourgon, Helmus, & Hodgson, 2009 ). The RNR framework and its actuarial risk assessment tool, Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (YLS/CMI), have previously been used in studies examining heterogeneity in other offender types, such as youth sex offenders ( Zeng, Chu, Koh, & Teoh, 2015 ) and gang and nongang affiliated youth offenders ( Chu, Daffern, Thomas, & Lim, 2012 ).…”

Characteristics of adolescent boys who have displayed harmful sexual behaviour (HSB) against children of younger or equal age

“…Hypothesis 4). Based on the literature and previous research [12,13,15,18], we would have expected that the HSB-P group members would report more criminal and norm-breaking behaviour. Our study does not support this, but as previously mentioned, this could be due to our sample size.…”

“…A majority in both groups had non-sexual behaviour problems in addition to HSB. This could be a result of the Norwegian outpatient sample being less selective and including more adolescents with both sexual and nonsexual harmful behaviour (i.e., "generalists"; 4, 13,18,22).…”

“…The offender-victim age distinction has proven to be meaningful for adult offenders ("rapists" versus "child sexual abusers" [12,13]), but has produced results that are more variable in studies of HSB adolescents [7,11]. However, the categorizations for adolescents based on the victim's age and/or offender-victim age distinction has produced some promising consistent findings across studies [7,9,12,[14][15][16][17][18].…”