Incarcerated Youths' Perspectives on Protective Factors and Risk Factors for Juvenile Offending: A Qualitative Analysis

Abstract

Objectives: We sought to understand incarcerated youths' perspectives on the role of protective factors and risk factors for juvenile offending.

Methods: We performed an in-depth qualitative analysis of interviews (conducted October-December 2013) with 20 incarcerated youths detained in the largest juvenile hall in Los Angeles.

Results: The adolescent participants described their homes, schools, and neighborhoods as chaotic and unsafe. They expressed a need for love and attention, discipline and control, and role models and perspective. Youths perceived that when home or school failed to meet these needs, they spent more time on the streets, leading to incarceration. They contrasted the path through school with the path to jail, reporting that the path to jail felt easier. All of them expressed the insight that they had made bad decisions and that the more difficult path was not only better but also still potentially achievable.

Conclusions: Breaking cycles of juvenile incarceration will require that the public health community partner with legislators, educators, community leaders, and youths to determine how to make success, rather than incarceration, the easier path for disadvantaged adolescents.

FIGURE 1—

A conceptual map showing youths’ perceptions of pathways to jail: Los Angeles County, California, 2013. Note. Youths’ perceptions of pathways to juvenile detention were ascertained through qualitative analysis of one-on-one interviews conducted with 20 incarcerated adolescents (12 males and 8 females). Of the 20 participants, 13 were Latinos and 7 were African Americans. Participants’ ages ranged from 12 to 17 years. Participants explained that youths regularly move between home and school (inner arrows). When home or school environments are dysfunctional, youths spend more time on the streets of their neighborhoods (bottom 2 arrows). The neighborhoods are rampant with negative influences, which then lead the youths on a seemingly inevitable pathway to incarceration (large arrow at right). Eventually, the youths are released from juvenile hall back to their home environments (upper arrow).