Primary Goods, Well-Being and Offending Behaviour in Adolescents: Examining the Assumptions of the Good Lives Model

• In Event: Recent Progress in the Development and Evaluation of Biosocial Interventions

Abstract

Current correctional and rehabilitation interventions for adolescent offenders tend to be problem- and risk-focused. Partly as a critique to this risk-focus, ‘the Good Lives Model (GLM) of offender rehabilitation’ was developed. The GLM argues that in order to successfully and sustainably prevent recidivism, interventions should not only aim to reduce, avoid or eliminate offender’s (criminogenic) risks, problems, and deficits, but also focus on their (non-criminogenic) human needs, values, strengths, and capabilities to improve their well-being. This idea is based on two main assumptions. The first assumptions holds that all human beings strive to obtain a universal set of life goals/human needs in order to achieve well-being, called ‘primary goods’. The second assumption states that a failure in pro-socially obtaining these primary goods (due to personal limitations and/or environmental disadvantages) can result in offending behaviour, as an alternative, anti-social attempt to pursue the valued goods. Although promising in theory, empirical evidence for the GLM and its assumptions is still in its infancy, especially for young offenders. This study therefore examined the two main GLM assumptions on the relationships between primary goods, well-being and offending behaviour in adolescents, based on the results of a large-scale school survey in Flanders, Belgium.

Authors

• Colinda Serie, KU Leuven

• Johan Put, KU Leuven

• Stefaan Pleysier, KU Leuven