Delinquency Referrals; Predictive and Protective Factors for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Offenders; and Juvenile Justice Interventions

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12077
• Published date: 01 February 2014
• Date: 01 February 2014
• Author: Kenneth C. Land

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION

SERIOUS, VIOLENT, AND CHRONIC

JUVENILE OFFENDERS

Delinquency Referrals; Predictive and

Protective Factors for Serious, Violent, and

Chronic Offenders; and Juvenile Justice

Interventions

Kenneth C. Land

Duke University

Criminologists have been studying the development of delinquent/criminal behav-

ior in longitudinal cohort studies for more than four decades—dating back to the

first Philadelphia Birth Cohort Study (Wolfgang, Figlio, and Sellin, 1972). The-

ories and statistical models for the detection and study of different trajectories of offending

began to be developed more than two decades ago (Moffitt, 1993; Nagin and Land, 1993).

Within this tradition, the study of risk factors and successful interventions for serious and

violent juvenile offenders has received concerted attention for more than 15 years (Loeber

and Farrington, 1998).

With Baglivio, Jackowski, Greenwald, and Howell (2014, this issue), this tradition

of research comes to fruition in the sense of providing a strong evidence base for policy

changes and changes in resource allocation in the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice

(FDJJ). Among some 222,640 individual juveniles referred to the FDJJ from July 1, 2007

to June 30, 2011, Baglivio et al. examine the prevalence of serious, violent, and chronic

(SVC) offenders and assess similarities and differences between those youth and other youth.

Differences in prevalence by gender and race/ethnicity and age at first referral are compared

for the serious, violent, and chronic offenders versus other juveniles referred. Baglivio et al.

then examine whether subsequent (to FDJJ referral) official reoffending of these juveniles is

predicted by similar risk and protective factors as other youth. This is the key innovative

contribution of the study, as these analyses are essential to guide both resource allocation

Direct correspondence to Kenneth C. Land, Department of Sociology, Duke University, 347 Soc-Psych,

Campus Box 90088, Durham, NC 27708-0088 (e-mail: kland@soc.duke.edu).

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12077 C2014 American Society of Criminology 79

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 13 rIssue 1