Screening for Poly-Victimization in Predicting a Range of Behavioral and Justice-Related Outcomes in Justice-Referred Youths Screened at Intake, Connecticut, 2014-2015 (ICPSR 36777)
Version Date: Feb 27, 2020 View help for published
Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s)
Julian D. Ford, University of Connecticut. Health Center
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR36777.v1
Version V1
Summary View help for Summary
Research over the past decade has identified a sub-group of traumatized youths who have had extensive exposure to multiple types of victimization, interpersonal violence, and loss. These poly-victims are at risk for involvement in delinquency, and if they become involved in juvenile justice they have more severe emotional, behavioral, interpersonal, and school problems than other justice-involved youth (Ford, Grasso, Hawke, and Chapman, 2013). However, there is no validated tool or procedure to screen for poly-victimization with justice-involved youth. This project therefore was designed to test the feasibility of and validate a poly-victimization screen with youth in juvenile detention facilities. The project's specific aims were as follows: Aim 1: To conduct a quasi-experimental study of the effectiveness of poly-victimization enhanced screening (PVES) in increasing the identification of traumatized juvenile justice-involved youth. Aim 2: To test the effectiveness of PVES in reducing subsequent adverse legal outcomes: (a) number and severity of juvenile offenses, (b) extent of justice involvement. Aim 3: To determine if implementation of the PVE results in consistent (replicable) outcomes across two Juvenile Detention Centers.
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Funding View help for Funding
Subject Terms View help for Subject Terms
Geographic Coverage View help for Geographic Coverage
Smallest Geographic Unit View help for Smallest Geographic Unit
Connecticut Juvenile Courts (2 represented in this sample)
Restrictions View help for Restrictions
Access to these data is restricted. Users interested in obtaining these data must complete a Restricted Data Use Agreement, specify the reason for the request, and obtain IRB approval or notice of exemption for their research.
Distributor(s) View help for Distributor(s)
Time Period(s) View help for Time Period(s)
Date of Collection View help for Date of Collection
Study Purpose View help for Study Purpose
The overall purpose of this study is to test the utility of mental health screening procedures used by clinical coordinators in every juvenile court in the State of Connecticut to identify youths with poly-victimization histories at probation intake. The goal is to determine if poly-victimization enhanced screening (PVES) improves the (1) identification of, and (3) reduces recidivism by, traumatized youths.
Study Design View help for Study Design
The current project builds on the widespread use of the MAYSI-2 screener (described below) in juvenile justice by adding a brief but comprehensive screener for lifetime exposure to victimization and other potentially traumatic events (PTEs) and PTSD symptoms that has been developed for, and validated with, maltreated youth, the STRESS (Grasso, Felton, and Reid-Quinones, 2015). A quasi-experimental design comparing the screening of youth adjudicated in the juvenile justice system with the MAYSI-2 (screening as usual, SAU) with a poly-victimization enhanced screening (PVE) adding the STRESS, was designed to utilize both retrospective and prospective archival juvenile justice system data as outcomes. STRESS data routinely collected at admission to the two juvenile detention centers in the State of Connecticut were used to identify a poly-victim sub-group in the PVE cohort and sub-groups from two SAU cohorts matched with this poly-victim sub-group on demographics and MAYSI-2 profiles. The PVE cohort data were based on screenings conducted for 4 months immediately after addition of the STRESS to the MAYSI-2 as a standard screening protocol. The SAU cohorts were selected to represent a temporally proximate control group (i.e., the prior 4 month period immediately prior to the PVE time-period) and a seasonal control group (i.e., from the 4-month calendar period exactly one year earlier than the PVE time-frame).
Sample View help for Sample
All youth involved with the Juvenile Court System in Connecticut (Court Support Services Division) are screened as part of the intake process- the enhanced screening took place at 2 Connecticut Juvenile Courts (selected by Court Support Services Division) from June 1-September 30, 2015 and were then compared with youth screened as usual, from June 1 to September, 30 2014 and February 1-May 31, 2015, (this screening had already taken place).
Universe View help for Universe
Youth involved with 2 Juvenile Courts through the Court Support Services Division (CSSD) in the state of Connecticut
Unit(s) of Observation View help for Unit(s) of Observation
Data Type(s) View help for Data Type(s)
Mode of Data Collection View help for Mode of Data Collection
Description of Variables View help for Description of Variables
Data were extracted from State juvenile justice records to construct outcome variables representing legal involvement and service referrals in the 12-months before (retrospective) and after (prospective) the detention screening. All personal identifiers were removed by the State agency before data were provided to the project investigators following a protocol approved by the State agency's Internal Research Review Committee and the National Institute of Justice IRB, and that was determined by the project investigator's academic institution (the University of Connecticut Health Center's IRB) to not constitute human subjects research.
Response Rates View help for Response Rates
100% as all youth are screened as part of the intake process.
Presence of Common Scales View help for Presence of Common Scales
STRESS- Child Version for DSM-V, MAYSI-2
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This dataset is maintained and distributed by the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD), the criminal justice archive within ICPSR. NACJD is primarily sponsored by three agencies within the U.S. Department of Justice: the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.