Mentoring Motivation: The Impact of Mentorship on Recidivism for High-Risk Juvenile Offenders

• In Event: Poster Session

Abstract

Research indicates that a high-quality romantic relationship or good job can promote desistance for high-rate offenders (Sampson and Laub, 1993). Thus, it is important to determine if other types of relationships can have the same effect, and which characteristics of relationships and employment make them “high-quality.” It has been found that both dating and parent-child relationships can also have a desistance effect (see Giordano, 2002); I explore whether a mentoring relationship can have similar impact. My research examines the influence that college student mentors have on juveniles at the Youth Development Center (YDC), a program for high-risk adolescent offenders in Bannock County, Idaho. This project extends the desistance research by broadening the possible “hooks for change,” and will evaluate the possibility of implementing these in a rehabilitative setting.

Author

• Teresa Casey, Idaho State University