Bonding with Non-parental Adults in Juvenile Justice Facilities: Communication Skills, Bondability, and Recidivism

• In Event: Navigating Adolescence: Exploring the Influence of Social Ties on Behavior

Abstract

The goals of this study were to examine bonding with prosocial others in the life context of juvenile incarceration. Going beyond the parent-child relationships, the study estimated youths’ social bonds with mentors, teachers, facility staff, and peers in juvenile justice residential facilities. Rather than focusing on the link between prosocial bonds and recidivism, the analyses focused on the mechanism via which social bonds were fostered in the life context of confined youth. Based on four waves of data of confined youth, the author used structural equation modeling and bootstrapping to examine the capacity to build social bonds, social bonds, and recidivism. Communication skills were used as one proxy of the capacity to bond. Findings revealed that communication skills youth demonstrated during incarceration were a significant predictor of recidivism. Furthermore, this crime-inhibitory effect was completely mediated by the prosocial bonds youths developed during incarceration. This study added to the literature by going beyond social bonds to examine the attributes that explained one’s capacity to forge social bonds. Implications for intervention programming were also discussed.

Author

• Lin Liu, University of Florida