1. Risk & Protective factors of Juvenile Delinquency: Possibilities for effective preventive interventions
Jaap de Waard
Presentation for the Ministry of Justice of Georgia, November 2014
10 November 2014

2. Understanding factors related to juvenile delinquency: Crucial for effective interventions
Intervention methods to prevent juvenile delinquency must address a range of risk and protective factors
Preventing juvenile delinquency in a child’s life can pay significant dividends by reducing crime rates and crime related expenditures
More important it can help children avoid the consequences of delinquent behaviour by increasing their chances of leading law-abiding and productive lives

3. Identifying risk and protective factors of juvenile delinquency
The identification of multiple risk and protective factors is a difficult task
No magic solutions exist for preventing juvenile delinquency
Identifying risk and protective factors is essential to developing interventions to prevent juvenile delinquency

4. Childhood risk factors of juvenile delinquency: Individual factors
Early antisocial behaviour
Emotional factors, high behavioural activation and low behaviour inhibition
Poor cognitive development
Low intelligence
Hyperactivity

5. Childhood risk factors of juvenile delinquency: Family factors
Parenting
Maltreatment
Family violence
Divorce
Parental psychopathology
Familial antisocial behaviours
Teenage parenthood
Family structure
Large family size

6. Childhood risk factors of juvenile delinquency: Peer factors
Association with deviant peers
Peer rejection
Bullying
Concentration of delinquent peer groups

7. Poor academic performance Low academic aspirations
Childhood risk factors of juvenile delinquency: School and community factors
Failure to bond to school
Poor academic performance
Low academic aspirations
Living in a poor family
Neighbourhood disadvantage
Disorganized neighbourhoods
Access to weapons

8. Protective factors of juvenile delinquency
The presence of a parent or parent figure
Involvement with the adolescent and concerned with his or her successful development
Inclusion in a peer group that values and models pro-social behaviour and academic success
Activities that contribute to autonomous decision making and critical thinking
Provide opportunities for adolescents to learn to think for themselves

9. Effective interventions focussing on risk and protective factors: I
Impulse control in the pre-school years
Nurses and home visits
Focused family-based approaches
Peer relation training
Promoting pro-social skills
Social competence curriculums
Mentoring programs
Bullying prevention programs
Conflict resolution
After school recreation programs

10. Effective interventions focussing on risk and protective factors: II
Social development programs
Provide incentives to complete secondary schooling
Family therapy
Preschool enrichment programs
Improving school settings
Vocational training for underprivileged youths

11. Some cautionary remarks
No single risk factor is sufficient to explain juvenile delinquency
Intervention methods must account for the wide range of individual, family, peer, school and community risk factors
Still many gaps exist in our knowledge base about development and prevention of juvenile delinquency
Use confinement sparingly and only to respond to serious offending
Use restitution and community service more often
Avoid collateral consequences of adjudication, such as public release of juvenile records that reduce opportunities to a prosocial life