Youth Protective Factors Study: A Strategy for Promoting Success Based on Risks, Strengths, and Development, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin, 2014-2024 (ICPSR 39391)
Version Date: Feb 3, 2026 View help for published
Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s)
Gina Vincent, University of Massachusetts Medical School
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR39391.v1
Version V1
Summary View help for Summary
The Youth Protective Factors Study was a multistate examination of risk-need-responsivity and positive youth justice approaches and whether or not the effectiveness of these strategies varied by youths aged ten to 23 years old. In collaboration with the research labs at UMass Chan Medical and UC-Berkeley, the Council of State Governments Justice Center, and juvenile justice agencies in the three project states, the project examined violent recidivism after youths' juvenile justice involvement via two studies. One, a retrospective study involving over 30,000 juveniles to lengthen follow-up periods. Two, a prospective study of 3,380 youths referred to juvenile justice systems to obtain measures of protective factors and service participation. Variables included educational history, criminal background, behavioral measures, recidivism, family, and substance use. Additionally, age, gender, race, and ethnicity demographics were collected.
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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.
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Study Purpose View help for Study Purpose
The study's purpose was to help agencies optimize their supervision practices through understanding the youth characteristics and corresponding interventions that would minimize reoffending and maximize youths' success. To that end, three goals were stated:
- To improve juvenile justice agencies' capacity to accurately measure reoffending, which is essential to understanding both their population's needs and their own effectiveness in addressing them.
- To advance understanding of how rates of reoffending differ naturally across youth's age, risk factors, and protective factors, independent of observation, to inform supervision practices.
- To assess whether and how strengths-based services add value to risk-reduction services in predicting lower rates of reoffending.
In addressing these goals, the researchers hoped to answer the following questions:
- Are there different rates of reoffending by specific risk factor and protective factor domains, and are the rates moderated by age?
- Is there value added to reducing reoffending by using one type of service strategy (i.e., strengths-based services) over another (i.e., risk-reduction services) and is the value of services moderated by age?
Study Design View help for Study Design
Partnerships were formed with three state juvenile justice agencies responsible for youth under community supervision: Pennsylvania's Juvenile Court Judge's Commission, Virginia's Department of Youth Justice, and Wisconsin's Department of Child and Family Services. States had to meet the following criteria: they conduct validated risk-needs assessments with all youth before disposition, have centralized, electronic case management systems, invested in adopting positive youth development approaches, and can supervise youth past age 20 and/or receive a relatively high percentage of referrals for younger youth (age 14 and under).
Retrospective analyses used state-wide samples of all youth referred to the juvenile justice system who received a risk-needs assessment from probation. For prospective analyses, the researchers worked with state agency leadership to select five counties within each state that had 1) an exceptional track record of implementation of new practices, 2) a high volume of youth referrals and/or adjudications (for states that conducted the risk-needs assessment post-adjudication), and 3) more younger (age 14 and under) or older (age 18 and older) youth cases.
Time Method View help for Time Method
Universe View help for Universe
Individuals within the Pennsylvania, Virginia, or Wisconsin juvenile justice system from 2014 to 2024.
Unit(s) of Observation View help for Unit(s) of Observation
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Mode of Data Collection View help for Mode of Data Collection
Presence of Common Scales View help for Presence of Common Scales
Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory Version 2.0 (YLS/CMI) (Hoge and Andrews, 2011)
Youth Assessment and Screening Inventory (YASI) (Orbis Partners, 2000)
HideOriginal Release Date View help for Original Release Date
2026-02-03
Version History View help for Version History
2026-02-03 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:
- Created variable labels and/or value labels.
- Standardized missing values.
- Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.
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