Evan C. McCuish

Indigenous Peoples remain disproportionately represented in juvenile and adult legal systems, yet risk assessment tools and desistance theories often overlook cultural context. This study uses data from the Incarcerated Serious and Violent Young Offender Study of 869 individuals (311 Indigenous, 558 White) first incarcerated as youth (ages 12–17). It examines whether informal social control measured in early adulthood (ages 18–23), using domains derived from the Community Risk-Needs Assessment (CRNA), predicts subsequent adult convictions. Poisson models indicated that higher scores on the informal social control scale were associated with lower subsequent adult conviction rates. This association did not significantly vary by ethnicity. Domain-specific associations emerged across family relationships, living arrangements, intimate partners, academic/vocational skills, and employment. Exploratory analyses identified interactions by Indigenous identity for living arrangements, employment, and academic/vocational skills. Overall, CRNA-derived measures of informal social control (a) did not significantly underperform among Indigenous participants and (b) helped identify that issues with employment and academic/vocational skills may be of particular concern for Indigenous Peoples. However, comparable predictive performance neither supports maintaining existing assessment practices unchanged nor establishes cultural comprehensiveness. Future research should examine whether culturally grounded sources of support are adequately represented within conventional assessment frameworks and whether they provide additional or differential information for understanding desistance among Indigenous Peoples.

The current study responds to calls to consider whether individual characteristics (e.g., psychopathy) interact with broader structural conditions (e.g., economic, social, and legal contexts) in ways that influence offending. We examined whether the psychopathy-violence relationship varies across birth cohorts. Data came from 535 male and female participants from the Incarcerated Serious and Violent Young Offender Study who were interviewed in adolescence and received a rating on the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV). Participants were born between 1979 and 1997 and were followed into adulthood to examine offending outcomes. Generalized estimating equations examined the relationship between psychopathy, birth cohort membership, and annual violent convictions between ages 18 and 40. PCL:YV scores were significantly associated with violent convictions across adulthood. Individuals from recent birth cohorts had higher probabilities of violence. Interaction analyses indicated that youth scoring high on the PCL:YV had similar probabilities of violent convictions regardless of birth cohort, whereas youth from recent cohorts who scored low on the PCL:YV had higher probabilities of violent convictions than low-scoring youth from earlier cohorts. These findings contrast with U.S. research showing that low-risk youth born in the 1980s had similar probabilities of arrest to high-risk youth born in the 1990s. This difference may reflect cross-national variation in the intensity of macro-level changes. People with elevated psychopathy traits may be more resistant to their social conditions. We discuss how changes in the composition of study populations may attenuate observed effect sizes through selection processes and recommend improving how effect sizes are contextualized.

Objectives: The current study examined whether risk factors associated with recidivism also influence likelihood of early mortality. The baseline model and shelf-life models assess whether the level and timing of risk factor measurement is associated with differential mortality risk. The dynamic change model assesses whether within-individual change provides explanatory information beyond that obtained from single timepoint measures. Methods: A cohort of 1,155 formerly incarcerated Canadian youth were followed into adulthood. Items from recidivism risk assessment tools (interpersonal support, antisocial attitudes, academic/vocational skills, substance use, and mental health instability) were used in a series of Cox proportional hazard models. Results: Earlier baseline measurements of risk factors did not predict mortality, while those assessed closer to the time of death were significantly associated with increased mortality risk. Greater substance use increased mortality risk, while mental health instability unexpectedly decreased mortality risk. The dynamic change model found that within-individual increases in antisocial attitudes were associated with elevated mortality risk. Conclusions: Timing and change in risk factors are more predictive of early mortality than static measures from adolescence. Future research should consider both community risk factors and correctional system monitoring to better understand the contribution of individual-level risk.

The offending trajectories of those who begin sexually offending in adulthood are poorly understood. The present study examines offending trajectories between the ages of 18 and 60 of 520 adult-onset men who were assessed at a sexual behavior clinic between 1995 and 2006. Using group-based trajectory modeling, a four-group trajectory model was retained to account for heterogeneity in the sample. The trajectories were compared on criminal career parameters (e.g., individual court contacts), victim number, and indicators of sexual interest in children (e.g., phallometric results). A trajectory with an escalating pattern of offending which onset in early adulthood was found to be associated with all three indicators of sexual interest in children and a high frequency of sexual offending. The findings of this study underscore the heterogeneity of adult-onset sexual offending, reinforcing the improbability that a one-size-fits-all approach for those who sexually offend against children would be effective.

Studies that focus on whether psychopathy statistically predicts reoffending are not informative of the process that connects the putative cause (psychopathy) to the expected outcome (offending). Understanding the causal mechanisms responsible for the relationship between psychopathy and offending has received minimal empirical attention even though fourth-generation risk assessment protocols and treatment strategies regularly require a specific focus on psychopathy. Theory can help guide an improved understanding of the causal mechanisms underlying the relationship between psychopathy and offending. Cumulative disadvantage theories anticipate that the relationship between psychopathy and reoffending is mediated by a person's social environment. Propensity theories anticipate that psychopathy is a common cause of both a person's negative social environment and reoffending. These two theoretical perspectives were compared using longitudinal data covering the transition from adolescence to adulthood among 490 male and female participants from the Incarcerated Serious and Violent Young Offender Study. Psychopathy was measured in adolescence using the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version. Social environment was measured in adulthood using an informal social control scale from the Community Risk Needs Assessment. Conviction frequency was measured over a 3-year period after the Community Risk Needs Assessment rating. Bias-corrected bootstrapped confidence intervals indicated that informal social control partially mediated the relationship between Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version scores and conviction frequency. The mediating effect was robust to unobserved confounders. Findings supported the philosophy of risk management and intervention strategies that target a person's social environment when aiming to reduce reoffending for persons with psychopathy traits. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Warr (1989) conceptualized offence severity as the intersection of the harmfulness and wrongfulness of an act, which overlaps with how Canada’s justice system makes decisions about sentencing. The current study used this logic to move beyond static indicators of crime severity (e.g., history of violent offending) to examine risk factors for longitudinal patterns of offending severity over the life course. Data on girls (n = 284) from the Incarcerated Serious and Violent Young Offender Study were used to examine the impact of self-reported risk factors on trajectories of offence severity between ages 12 and 23 (i.e., amount of time spent in custody at each year of age). Overall, 40% of incarcerated girls were associated with serious offending in emerging adulthood; however, it was rare for offending severity to escalate during emerging adulthood (ages 18–23; n = 25, 8.8%). Early-onset illicit substance use and frequent involvement in physical altercations during adolescence predicted serious offending that escalated between adolescence and emerging adulthood. A much wider range of risk factors in adolescence distinguished between participants who demonstrated frequent offending of a less serious nature, which slowly declined in adulthood, and those who were rarely, if ever, involved in frequent or serious offences in adulthood. Substance abuse treatment strategies may be especially important for disrupting incarcerated girls’ pathway to escalation of the severity of offending during emerging adulthood.

Purpose: The anger/sadistic model is one of several typologies proposed for sexual homicide events. This paper aims to empirically test this model by examining sexual homicide cases. Empirically validating these typologies provides greater validity and reliability toward the sexual homicide classification systems that are useful in police investigations. Design/methodology/approach: Secondary data analysis was conducted using police data on 249 solved sexual homicide cases in Canada from 1948 to 2010. Through a robust classifying method, latent class analysis was used to examine variables from the anger/sadistic typology. Additionally, variables from the pre-crime, crime and post-crime phases were examined in relation to the classes’ external validity. Findings: Three classes emerged, namely, expressive, methodical and instrumental. Expressive and methodical were similar to the anger/sadistic model in terms of the presence of premeditation, victim-offender relationship and body disposal location. Instrumental was characterized by the absence of mutilation on the victim’s body, targeted acquaintances and the use of physical restraints. The three-class typology resembled evidence found in a previous systematic review and also reinforced the notion of heterogeneity in sexual homicide offenses. Originality/value: This is the first study to empirically test the anger/sadistic typology. Such validation is important given that sexual homicide classification systems can aid in police investigations (e.g. narrowing down the list of potential suspects). Replication of studies is needed to lend credibility to research processes, which, in turn, allows practitioners and policymakers to integrate the results into policies effectively.