IRT-Based Differential Item Functioning Analysis of the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory Across Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Youth
| Date | 01 April 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0093854820968877 |
| Published date | 01 April 2021 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
research-article2020
IRT-Based dIffeRenTIal ITem funcTIonIng
analysIs of The youTh level of seRvIce/
case managemenT InvenToRy acRoss
IndIgenous and non-IndIgenous youTh
SHIMINg HUANg
MICHELE PETERSON-BADALI
EUNICE EUNHEE JANg
TRACEy A. SkILLINg
University of Toronto
Even though risk assessments are routinely conducted in the criminal justice system to inform sentencing and case manage-
ment, their cross-cultural applicability remains contested. This study investigated the generalizability of the youth Level of
Service/Case Management Inventory (yLS/CMI), a widely implemented youth forensic risk assessment instrument, using an
Item Response Theory framework, in a sample of Indigenous (n = 205) and non-Indigenous (n = 193) youth. Differential
item functioning analyses demonstrated similar discrimination across groups. However, despite similar latent risk levels,
non-Indigenous youth were more likely to have items from the Education domain endorsed, while Indigenous youth were
more likely to have items from the Substance Abuse domain endorsed. Predictive accuracy analyses indicated that total yLS/
CMI scores significantly predicted general recidivism (without administration of justice convictions) for non-Indigenous
youth, but not for Indigenous youth. There is an urgent need for more research investigating the applicability of the yLS/CMI
to diverse groups of Indigenous youth.
Keywords: risk-need-responsivity; risk assessment; youth justice; measurement; predictive validity
InTRoducTIon
Indigenous people are overrepresented in criminal justice systems around the world,
including Australia (krieg, 2006), Canada (La Prairie, 2002), and the United States (United
States Sentencing Commission, 2013). This pattern of overrepresentation is mirrored in the
auThoRs’ noTe: The authors would like to express their deep appreciation to Lauren Freedman, Team
Lead, Effective Programming and Evaluation Unit, Ontario Ministry of Children, Community and Social
Services; Mike Kirk, Ontario Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services; the Honorable Mr.
Justice Brian Weagant, Ontario Court of Justice; and Ilana Lockwood for their contributions to this study. This
article is based on Shiming Huang’s PhD dissertation. The research was conducted at the Ontario Institute for
Studies in Education, University of Toronto. This research was supported by grant 435-2016-0152 from the
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council to the second and fourth authors. Correspondence concern-
ing this article should be addressed to Michele Peterson-Badali, Department of Applied Psychology & Human
Development, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, 252 Bloor Street West, 12th
floor, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1V6; e-mail: m.petersonbadali@utoronto.ca.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND BEHAVIOR, 2021, Vol. 48, No. 4, April 2021, 502 –517.
DOI: 10.1177/0093854820968877
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© 2020 International Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology
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Huang et al. / IRT-BASED ANALySIS OF THE yLS/CMI 503
youth justice system in Canada (Malakieh, 2018). Some of the causal factors have been
identified as a history of colonization and its resulting fragmentation of the Indigenous fam-
ily, community, economic, and political structures (Scrim, 2010). In Canada, the overrepre-
sentation of Indigenous youth in the justice system is tied to the legacy of residential schools
and the ensuing disconnect between generations of youth and their communities. Many
Indigenous youth struggle with addiction, family violence, mental illness, and parental
involvement in the justice system, which place them at a greater risk for criminal justice
involvement (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015).
The overrepresentation of Indigenous people in the criminal justice system and their asso-
ciated complex risk factors rooted in a history of colonialism raise important questions about
the cross-cultural applicability of forensic practices, such as the use of forensic risk assess-
ment tools (Wormith et al., 2015). For example, are the risk assessment instruments capable
of identifying the unique risk and needs of Indigenous individuals? Over the past few
decades, structured risk assessments have been increasingly used to predict justice-involved
individuals’ risk of recidivism over unstructured clinical judgments (grove & Meehl, 1996;
Hanson, 2005). Risk assessment results are used to inform individuals’ progression through-
out the criminal justice system, from sentencing, to case management in community supervi-
sion, to treatment planning (gutierrez et al., 2016). given the repercussions of the risk
assessment results, it is imperative that risk assessment instruments be empirically validated,
including establishing their degree of measurement invariance (Wormith et al., 2015). In an
instrument where measurement invariance across particular groups (e.g., gender) has been
established, group differences in scores can be attributed to differences in the construct the
instrument was designed to measure, rather than measurement bias (Osterlind & Everson,
2009). The importance of empirical validation is highlighted in the Ewert v. Canada (2015)
decision, in which a Canadian court cautioned against the use of five risk assessment instru-
ments (e.g., the Violence Risk Appraisal guide) with Indigenous justice-involved individu-
als on the grounds that the research supporting the psychometric properties of these five
instruments on Indigenous individuals was inadequate.
The Ewert v. Canada decision highlighted a pressing need to assess the cross-cultural
applicability of risk assessment instruments. A widely implemented youth forensic risk
assessment instrument in North America and beyond is the youth Level of Service/Case
Management Inventory (yLS/CMI; Hoge & Andrews, 2002, 2011) derived from the Risk–
Need–Responsivity (RNR) framework (Andrews et al., 1990). The RNR framework out-
lines a systematic and empirically based approach for evaluating an individual’s risk of
recidivism. Central to the framework are the risk principle which states that the intensity of
intervention should increase with risk of recidivism, the need principle which states that
interventions should target an individual’s criminogenic needs (i.e., risk factors that are
strongly and directly related to criminal behavior), and the responsivity principle which
states that services should be delivered using evidence-based programming (general respon-
sivity) and tailored to individuals’ personal characteristics and circumstances (specific
responsivity; Andrews & Bonta, 2010; Andrews et al., 1990). Considerable research sup-
ports the utility of targeting criminogenic needs in reducing reoffending (Andrews & Bonta,
2010). However, the research on the generalizability of the RNR-based risk assessment
tools to Indigenous youth is limited.
Existing research on the yLS/CMI reveals that the total risk score significantly predicts
recidivism for Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth (Jung & Rawana, 1999; Luong &
504 CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND BEHAVIOR
Wormith, 2011; Olver et al., 2012; Shepherd et al., 2015; Thompson & Mcgrath, 2012).
However, some studies have demonstrated lower AUC (area under the curve) values for
Indigenous youth compared with non-Indigenous youth (Luong & Wormith, 2011;
Thompson & Mcgrath, 2012), suggesting that total scores may be differentially predictive
across groups. group differences also exist on the yLS/CMI; compared with non-Indige-
nous youth, Indigenous youth are consistently rated at higher risk in terms of total scores
(Jung & Rawana, 1999; Luong & Wormith, 2011; Olver et al., 2012; Shepherd et al., 2015;
Thompson & Mcgrath, 2012), as well as in the domains of Criminal History, Education/
Employment (Olver et al., 2012; Thompson & Mcgrath, 2012), Peer Relations, Leisure/
Recreation (Lockwood et al., 2018; Olver et al., 2012), and Substance Abuse (Jung &
Rawana, 1999; Shepherd et al., 2015). Although differences in risk scores do not preclude
measurement invariance across groups, it remains unclear whether the heightened total
and domain scores in Indigenous individuals represent an increased prevalence of certain
risk factors or entirely different relationships between the risk factors and recidivism com-
pared with non-Indigenous individuals. Some have argued that the heightened risk scores
for Indigenous individuals reflect the justice system’s tendency to “responsibilize” indi-
viduals for systemic social disadvantages, instead of true differences in risk (Hannah-
Moffat, 2016). Furthermore, given that the yLS/CMI was normed mainly on Caucasian
youth (Hoge & Andrews, 2011), its use with Indigenous individuals needs to be thoroughly
investigated.
The current body of literature on this issue is small and has focused mainly on examining
the yLS total risk scores’ relationships to recidivism. However, individual items provide
important information about an individual’s profile and potential treatment targets, so
examining the functioning of a test at the item level is a vital part of validation. Furthermore,
understanding whether items function similarly across subgroups of a population is espe-
cially important in establishing an instrument’s degree of measurement invariance. To this
...
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