Joni Reef

Predicting adult violent delinquency: Gender differences regarding the role of childhood behaviour

Adult violent delinquency harms individuals, their families and society at large. Knowledge about childhood predictors of adult delinquency could be helpful in defining at-risk children who will develop into violent adults. This topic is rarely investigated in females. We investigated which behavioural problems in childhood predicted long-term disruptive development in a sample of both males and females. In 1983, behaviour problems were assessed in a community sample of 2076 children; 24 years later, 1335 of these children, who are now adults, reported on their violent delinquency. Girls with conduct problems were at risk of long-term disruptive development. We recommend that health professionals be alert regarding girls with conduct problems, because early identification and treatment of high-risk girls might reduce delinquency in adult life.

The Influence of Detailed Offender Characteristics on Consecutive Criminal Processing Decisions in the Netherlands

Recent scholarship on sentencing disparity emphasizes the need to consider multiple decision-making points, to incorporate more detailed information on offender background characteristics, and to examine disparity in broader international contexts. This study investigates both pretrial and final sentencing decisions, incorporating a broad array of theoretically relevant offender characteristics. It combines rich survey data with official sentencing data. This data collection is part of a larger project, the Prison Project, in which 1,904 Dutch pretrial detainees were interviewed. Results indicate that several different offender characteristics exert important independent effects over criminal processing decisions and that pretrial release exerts a powerful influence over final sentencing decisions. These findings contribute to ongoing scholarly debates over the key determinants of criminal punishment in international context.

Prison-Based Rehabilitation Predictors of Offender Treatment Participation and Treatment Completion

The purpose of the current study was to examine to what extent risk factors and treatment readiness were related to engagement (i.e., participation and completion) in prison-based rehabilitation programs. The sample consisted of the total 6-month inflow of male detainees in the Netherlands who were assigned a candidate for a prison-based rehabilitation program (N = 638). Logistic regression models showed that treatment readiness partially explained treatment program completion. Offenders who were ready for treatment were more than two times as likely to complete treatment programs, compared with offenders who were not. Risk factors (such as drug or alcohol misuse) did, with a few exceptions, not correlate with treatment participation or treatment completion. Outcomes pointed to the importance of treatment readiness and showed the significance of enhancing treatment readiness among offenders who are eligible for correctional treatment programs. Results were discussed in light of study limitations and suggestions for future research.