The Dynamic Impact of Needs: Changes in Youth Assessment Scores Over Time

• In Event: NIJ-Supported Research on Understanding and Measuring Juvenile Reoffending

Abstract

This study aims to measure needs score changes more accurately and evaluate their impact on recidivism, ultimately increasing the knowledge surrounding the role of RNAs in understanding and measuring juvenile reoffending. Risk Need Assessment (RNA) instruments are routinely used to aid the classification and supervision of offenders (i.e., risk), as well as guide treatment and programming efforts (i.e., needs). Given the current emphasis on programming within the juvenile justice system, agencies are increasingly relying on needs assessments to guide case management and planning, with the goal of reducing recidivism. As a core characteristic of these needs assessment, their dynamic nature allows for re-assessments to identify intermediate changes, assessing how interventions influence reductions in recidivism over time. Despite a consensus that needs items improve the accuracy and functionality of RNAs, few studies have assessed the dynamic impact of needs scores on recidivism. Beyond this, no study to date has examined how changes in needs scores influence time to recidivism since last assessment. Using a large (N=169,888), 10-state sample of justice-involved youth assessed using Modified Positive Achievement Change Tool (M-PACT), we assessed needs as influences on time to recidivism. A Latent Profile Analyses (LPA) was used to create MPACT needs levels. Frailty models were then used to examine how increases/decreases in needs, impacted subject’s propensity for reoffending over time. LPA revealed distinct categories of youth needs. Frailty model findings indicated that changes in need scores impact youth propensity for reoffending over time.

Authors

• Zachary Hamilton, University of Nebraska at Omaha

• Amber E. Krushas, University of Nebraska at Omaha

• Alex Kigerl, University of Nebraska at Omaha

• Xiaohan Mei, California State University, Los Angeles