Abnormal Child Psychology: Juvenile Offenders

Flashcards covering key vocabulary and concepts related to juvenile offenders from a psychology lecture.

Juvenile Violent Offenses

Less than 10% of juvenile offenders are responsible for over 50% of all juvenile violent offenses.

Adolescent vs. Adult Offenders

Adolescents differ from adults in cognitive ability, emotion regulation, behavioral control, inhibitory control, and consequential thinking.

Reference Group

A group of people with whom one compares oneself, presenting a set of norms or standards against which adolescents judge their social success.

Peer Influence on Delinquency

Affiliation with delinquent peers is one of the strongest predictors of delinquent behavior in adolescence.

Gardner and Steinberg (2005)

Early adolescents scored twice as high on an index of risky driving when tested with their peers in the room than when alone. Late adolescents were less than early but significantly riskier when peers were present. Adults showed no significant difference in risky driving related to social context.

Reward Sensitivity in Adolescent Risk-Taking

Higher levels of risk-taking in the presence of peers are mediated by increased activation in brain regions associated with reward processing.

Ventral Striatum

A brain region involved in the reward system, showing heightened activity in adolescents, making them more sensitive to rewards and prone to risk-taking.

Risk Assessment Instruments

Instruments that identify statistically valid risk factors, but cannot definitively predict juvenile recidivism accurately.

Static Risk Factors

Factors in a person’s history or situation that don’t change or change in one direction (such as age) and predict recidivism.

Dynamic Risk Factors

Factors that are potentially changeable and predict recidivism, such as substance abuse and negative peer affiliation.

ACEs

Adverse Childhood Experiences: On average, the SVC offenders had twice the number of ACEs as O&D offenders.

Risk and Protective Factors

Same factors apply to m/f and white/POC. Structured Assessments that align with the referral question.

Culpability

The degree of responsibility or blameworthiness assigned to a person for committing a wrongful act.

Roper v. Simmons (2005)

The U.S. Supreme Court ended the execution of juvenile offenders, holding that it violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

Miller v. Alabama (2012)

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that mandatory life without parole for juveniles was unconstitutional, requiring judges to consider the juvenile's age, circumstances, and potential for rehabilitation.

Miller Factors

Age and immaturity, family and home environment, circumstances of the offense, disadvantages in the justice system, changeability.