Needs and achievements of the juvenile justice system: insights from two empirical studies with portuguese young adults

Over the last decade, studies have evaluated the effectiveness of interventions for juvenile offenders; nonetheless, those studies were more focused on recidivism than on the mechanisms associated with criminal perpetration. The current study explores the role of juvenile justice involvement and detention measures in a set of psychological, social, and criminal behavior characteristics in early adulthood. Seventy-five young adults with official records of juvenile delinquency in 2010-2011 and 240 young adults from the community filled out our protocol in 2014-2015. Young adults with juvenile justice involvement showed worse psychological, social, and criminal outcomes than those from community. Detention appears to be related to the number of deviant friends, delinquency, and school achievement in early adulthood. Our findings are in line with the labeling and deviant peer contagion theories and establish the main areas of interventions that affect the identified needs. A set of policy implications is provided.The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The first author was supported by a doctoral grant from the Foundation of Science and Technology (FCT), Portugal (Reference: SFRH/BD/95190/2013). This study was conducted at Psychology Research Centre, University of Minho, and supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Education and Science through national funds and when applicable cofinanced by FEDER under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement (UID/PSI/01662/2013).