Citation

Onifade E, Smith Nyandoro A, Davidson WS, Campbell C. Youth Violence Juv. Justice 2010; 8(1): 3-18.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/1541204009338251

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This study validated a widely used risk assessment measure, the youth level of service/case management inventory (YLS/CMI), as a predictor of both delinquent reoffense and repeat truancy offenses in a court-involved truant sample (n = 308). The YLS/CMI performed adequately well at predicting delinquent reoffense, yielding an area under the curve (AUC) of .617 (p < .05); however, the analysis did not indicate any significant relationship between the YLS/CMI risk score and the repeat truancy offense. This study also used cluster analysis to identify five combinations of risk factors that were prevalent in the truant sample. These findings have value to justice and education systems as it determined the potential of this instrument as a truancy prevention tool. It also provided a typology system for classifying offenders based on eight domains of criminogenic risk, paving the way for interventions focused on specific patterns of risk found in this subpopulation of juvenile offenders.