Dealing With Radicalised Youth Offenders: The Development and Implementation of a Youth-Specific Framework

Background: In 2018 in the Australian State of New South Wales, a specialist Countering Violent Extremism Unit was established in the youth criminal justice system. This was in direct response to a number of youth below the age of 18 who have been charged for terrorism offences and identified as involved in violent extremist acts. This youth-specific framework was the first of its kind in Australia. It was designed to provide multidisciplinary practitioner-based approaches for the early-identification, diversion, and disengagement of at-risk and radicalised youth offenders.Aims: This paper will explore the experiences and lessons learned by the Youth Justice New South Wales Countering Violent Extremism Unit. It will discuss the relevance of youth radicalisation within Australia's evolving national security climate. This includes emerging trends in relation to youth radicalisation to varied violent extremist ideologies. This paper will explore the specialist approach adopted for preventing and countering violent extremism through the identification, assessment, and case management of at-risk and radicalised youth offenders.Implications: The Youth Justice New South Wales experience indicates that youth criminal justice settings can be designed to tackle the challenges posed by at-risk and radicalised youth. The practitioner experience canvassed in this paper highlights that a pluralistic and non-punitive approach to supervision, client-focused assessment and case management processes, and widespread resourcing of multidisciplinary practitioners and programs can be used to account for developmental and psychosocial vulnerabilities in addition to violent extremism risk factors amongst youth offenders. These approaches should be supplemented by youth-specific countering violent extremism practitioner expertise, and a range of violent extremism case management and risk assessment measures.

An age-old issue: Evaluating the applicability of adult criminal risk assessment tools for use with youth offenders

<p>Research has consistently recognized that youth and adults share risk factors for crime, although whether certain factors are of increased importance during adolescence is debated. The present research evaluated the extent to which two risk assessment tools could predict criminal and breach reconviction in a matched sample of youth (aged 17-19) and adult (aged 20-60) community- supervised offenders: The Dynamic Risk Assessment for Offender Re-entry (DRAOR) and the static Risk of re-Conviction X Risk of re-Imprisonment (RoC*RoI). Cox regression and AUC analyses revealed initial DRAOR scores had mixed predictive validity for both groups, while proximal risk scores showed comparably moderate to high accuracy for youth and adults. Protective scores were consistently poor predictors for adults. The proximal assessment predicted reconviction better than the initial assessment, and decreases in risk scores between assessments were associated with a reduction in the likelihood of reconviction, showing the value in monitoring risk and updating assessment. The RoC*RoI predicted criminal reconviction for adults but did not predict either reconviction outcome for youth. These findings support the use of the DRAOR for identifying which youth and adults are likely to reoffend, and suggest that dynamic factors might be more useful predictors than static for assessing and monitoring youth offenders.</p>

An age-old issue: Evaluating the applicability of adult criminal risk assessment tools for use with youth offenders

<p>Research has consistently recognized that youth and adults share risk factors for crime, although whether certain factors are of increased importance during adolescence is debated. The present research evaluated the extent to which two risk assessment tools could predict criminal and breach reconviction in a matched sample of youth (aged 17-19) and adult (aged 20-60) community- supervised offenders: The Dynamic Risk Assessment for Offender Re-entry (DRAOR) and the static Risk of re-Conviction X Risk of re-Imprisonment (RoC*RoI). Cox regression and AUC analyses revealed initial DRAOR scores had mixed predictive validity for both groups, while proximal risk scores showed comparably moderate to high accuracy for youth and adults. Protective scores were consistently poor predictors for adults. The proximal assessment predicted reconviction better than the initial assessment, and decreases in risk scores between assessments were associated with a reduction in the likelihood of reconviction, showing the value in monitoring risk and updating assessment. The RoC*RoI predicted criminal reconviction for adults but did not predict either reconviction outcome for youth. These findings support the use of the DRAOR for identifying which youth and adults are likely to reoffend, and suggest that dynamic factors might be more useful predictors than static for assessing and monitoring youth offenders.</p>

Caregivers’ Considerations of Remorse and Responsibility Among Youth Who Sexually Offend

When a youth sexually offends, most of the reactions and repercussions that follow are understandably negative. However, there is limited research about mixed reactions involving remorse and responsibility on the part of the adolescent who offended and their relatives. Based on qualitative interviews with 16 caregivers among 10 families in Canada, this article presents the parents’ perspectives on the various processes, benefits, challenges, and outcomes related to expressions of remorse and experiences of responsibility among youth who sexually offended, their victims, and their parents. This study sheds particular light on how adolescent perpetrators of sexual harm and especially their caregivers do feel deeply remorseful and responsible for the impacts of sexual offending behavior, which is contrary to public scrutiny that negatively projects responsibility onto youth offenders and their parents. Thus, our findings emphasize the constructive and considerate ways in which remorse is felt and responsibility is assumed; and by extension, they point to the importance of restorative practices in efforts toward reconciliation and accountability.