The Risk Factors Prevention Paradigm and the Causes of Youth Crime: A Deceptively Useful Analysis?

Abstract

The risk factors prevention paradigm (RFPP) is currently the dominant discourse in juvenile justice, exerting a powerful influence over policy and practice in the UK, Ireland and other countries. This article argues that the predominance of the RFPP is in many ways an obstacle to a fuller understanding of, and more effective response to, youth crime. Part of the problem is the often over-simplified assumptions and exaggerated claims of the RFPP literature, which translates the findings of risk-focused research for policy makers and for popular consumption, but largely ignores the caveats of the scientific researchers themselves. Moreover, the RFPP has intrinsic, but generally neglected, methodological and theoretical shortcomings, which mean that it fails to account properly for key facets of youth justice, such as personal agency, socio-cultural context, psychological motivation and the human rights dimension.

Towards a positive youth justice

“…RFPP has come under sustained academic criticism (Case, 2007;Pitts, 2007;O'Mahony, 2009;Case and Haines, 2010) but has survived largely intact because of its utility for politicians, policy-makers and managers. It finds its expression in youth justice practice most explicitly in the Asset assessment tools and in the application of the 'Scaled Approach' (Bateman 2011, Haines andCase, 2012).…”

The Indeterminacy of the Risk Factor Prevention Paradigm: A Case Study of Community Partnerships Implementing Youth and Gang Violence Prevention Policy

“…Brown, 2007;Goddard, 2012;Gray, 2009;Haines and Case, 2008;Hughes, 2011;Marutto and Hannah-Moffat, 2006;O'Mahony, 2009;O'Malley, 2004O'Malley, , 2010. Principally, scholars frame their arguments such that − under the guise of empirical factors associated with certain populations − 'risk' evokes a containment strategy related to the 'othering' of at-risk young people.…”

Rational Choice and Responsibilisation in Youth Justice in Scotland: Whose Evidence Matters in Evidence‐Based Policy?

“…Several recent commentators (for example, Case ; Gray ; Mahony ) have argued that the government's ‘tough on crime’ policies and legislation in the UK in recent years are overly influenced by the risk discourse epitomised by the Risk Factor Prevention Paradigm (RFPP) (Farrington ), which was developed in the early 1990s to identify the risks associated with offending and to put in place interventions or treatments which are likely to prevent or counteract those risks. In an increasingly risk‐averse and evidence‐based policy climate, RFPP has been assumed to be a mainstay of the youth justice system in the UK, even though the early intervention required by such a risk‐focused paradigm is ‘extremely difficult to justify … [and] potentially stigmatising and exclusionary’ (Case , p.96).…”

“…In an increasingly risk‐averse and evidence‐based policy climate, RFPP has been assumed to be a mainstay of the youth justice system in the UK, even though the early intervention required by such a risk‐focused paradigm is ‘extremely difficult to justify … [and] potentially stigmatising and exclusionary’ (Case , p.96). The main concerns regarding RFPP is that it confuses correlates with causes of youth offending, it ignores the evidence from the age‐crime curve that offending tends to decrease with age irrespective of risk factors, and it focuses on individual deficits: ‘[to] hold the socially deficient accountable’ (Mahony , p.112). Webster, MacDonald and Simpson () also point out that risk factors are as prevalent in the non‐offending population as they are in the offending population, and that what both offenders and non‐offenders have in common is the possibility of poverty and disadvantage, factors which arguably predate and pre‐empt the usual list of risk factors such as single parenthood, low educational achievement, truancy, anti‐social tendencies, etc.…”