Evaluation of the Psychometric Properties of the French Versions of the YLS/CMI

• In Event: Poster Session 1

Abstract

Assessing recidivism risk among justice-involved youths in Quebec (Canada) represents a challenge due to its cultural aspect and its French language. The Risk-Need-Responsitivity (RNR; Bonta & Andrews, 2017) model proposes an instrument, the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (YLS/CMI; Hoge & Andrews, 2006; 2011), whose psychometric properties of the French-language version have received very little validation. With a sample of 696 justice-involved youths (14.4% female), we evaluate and compare the internal consistency and predictive validity with 1 year recidivism of the two French-language versions of the YLS/CMI, according to gender and recidivism type (general, violent and nonviolent). An improvement in internal consistency was observed for all domains, except for Criminal History and Family Situation. Overall, predictive validity improved (AUC between 0.58 and 0.68), and six domains predicted general recidivism. The introduction of standardized training and the presence of a user manual seem to have improved the instrument's completion quality and predictive validity. Our results are comparable to those of studies carried out with the English version of the instrument and support the use of the YLS/CMI with French-speaking justice-involved youths in Quebec. However, a larger sample of girls will be needed to confirm the results with this population.

Authors

• Mireille Bilodeau, University of Quebec in Outaouais (UQO)

• Geneviève Parent, University of Quebec in Outaouais (UQO)