Factors Protecting At-risk Children and Adolescents from Becoming Offenders

• In Event: Promotive Factors and Resiliency Over the Life Course

Abstract

Although many children and adolescents display risk factors for future criminal offending, few of them persist in crime as adults. It is therefore believed that the natural environment provides factors that protect the majority of these children / adolescents against becoming adult offenders. Based on Canadian data, the present study focuses on individuals who exhibited risk factors for adult criminality as children or adolescents, and aims to identify combinations of social, family, and individual characteristics that lower risks and protect them from becoming adult offenders. The data were collected prospectively from ages 6 to 24, for 4053 men and women. Analyses suggest that protective factors are the same for individuals belonging to youth risk group and those that do not. Results also highlight that, notwithstanding the presence of protective factors, risk group assignment is important for the prediction of criminal convictions in adolescence and adulthood. Knowledge of these protective factors can be used to develop and implement crime prevention strategies and programs.

Authors

• Frédéric Ouellet, Université de Montréal

• Sheilagh Hodgins, Université de Montréal