What's Good for the Goose? Examining the Impact of Gender-neutral and Gender-specific Factors in the Assessment and Treatment of Female and Male Justice-involved Youth

In response to female youths’ increased visibility in the legal system, more attention has been paid to understanding girls’ pathways to justice system involvement, risk for re-offending, and rehabilitative needs. Widely-used risk assessment and case management tools based on the Risk Need Responsivity (RNR) framework are largely gender neutral. Gender-responsive scholars have long advocated for the importance of additional gender-specific factors in guiding the assessment and treatment of female justice-involved youth. The dissertation is comprised of two papers which examine the contribution of proposed gender-specific factors alongside well established RNR factors in the prediction of recidivism, and how service provision aimed at intervening with these factors impacts recidivism for both male and female justice-involved youth. Paper 1 explores the relationship between trauma, criminogenic needs and recidivism. I first sought to define the distinct constructs often referred to under the umbrella term ‘trauma’: PTSD symptomology, maltreatment, and childhood adversity. The relationships between these factors, well-established criminogenic needs, and recidivism were examined and compared in a matched sample of 50 female and 50 male justice-involved youth. Females were significantly more likely than males to have experienced multiple forms of maltreatment. Several maltreatment and childhood adversity factors were significantly and positively related to criminogenic needs. PTSD symptomology and childhood adversity were not significant predictors of recidivism; however, maltreatment was the strongest predictor of recidivism for both males and females in a model that included well established risk factors. Gender was not found to be moderating the relationship between maltreatment and recidivism. Implications of the findings for theory and practice are discussed. Paper 2 examines the contribution of both criminogenic needs and several additional proposed ‘female’ gender-specific factors to risk assessment and rehabilitative treatment. Female youth were more likely than male youth to have proposed ‘female’ gender-specific needs but these needs alone did not predict recidivism. Successfully matching services to youths’ criminogenic needs predicted reduced recidivism for both male and female youth. For youth who had ‘female’ gender-specific needs, successful matching of services to these needs also predicted reduced recidivism for both genders. Theoretical and practice implications of these results are discussed.Ph.D