Issue Brief: Using Risk Assessment and Risk-Needs-Responsivity Principles in Juvenile Justice (2016)

There is an emerging consensus in the juvenile justice field that punitive sanctions alone do not have a significant effect on reducing juvenile reoffending (Gatti et al., 2009). In fact, research has found that with some youths, any exposure to the juvenile justice system (e.g. community service or probation) can actually increase their chances of offending again (Models for Change Research Initiative, 2011). It has also been found that the severity of the first offense is not a significant indicator of future patterns of offending (Mulvey et al., 2010), and that the majority of low-risk youth are unlikely to reoffend even with little to no intervention (Lipsey, 2009). Given the high cost of confinement of juvenile offenders, it would benefit both juveniles and juvenile justice agencies to sort juvenile offenders by risk, to divert low risk offenders away from the juvenile justice system as often as possible, and to focus on services to high risk offenders.