Maladaptive coping, victimization, and recidivism among Japanese adolescents and emerging adults.

Background: Substance use and victimization are known to be related to juvenile recidivism. Self-harm, a factor that commonly accompanies substance use and victimization, is not known to be related to said recidivism but may be so in a welfare-oriented juvenile justice system as found in Japan.

Objective: We examine the extent to which maladaptive coping, comprising substance use and self-harm, increases the rate of persistence in correctional institutions in light of other well-replicated factors of youth recidivism.

The East Asian crime drop?

The 'crime drop' refers to the substantial reductions in crime reported in many industrialised countries over at least the past quarter century. Asian countries are underrepresented in the crime drop literature. Little is therefore known about whether the same type and levels of crime reductions have been observed, and if prevailing explanations hold.

Can unstructured clinical risk judgment have incremental validity in the prediction of recidivism in a non-Western juvenile context?

Research has consistently shown that actuarial measures are superior to unstructured clinical judgments in predicting recidivism of offenders. However, in a non-Western context, clinical judgment may capture contextually relevant risk-related factors. The purpose of the current research is to investigate the incremental value of clinical risk judgment in a sample of Japanese youths.

[Conditions of effective correctional treatment for reducing recidivism: Focusing on risk principle].

Research on correctional treatment based on the risk principle (Andrews & Bonta, 2010) has found that the intensity of intervention matched with the risk level of offenders’ recidivism is successful to reduce recidivism. However, there is no research dealing with this issue in a non-Western context. The purpose of this study was to examine the validity of the risk principle in rehabilitation for Japanese juvenile delinquents.

[Motivation for change and recidivism among prison inmates for drug-related offences].

Programs for improving motivation to recover drug dependence were conducted in penal institutes in Japan. This study examined the effects of these programs, in order to increase their efficacy. Furthermore, relationship between increased motivation and prevention of recidivism was examined.

A cross-validation of the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (YLS/CMI) among Japanese juvenile offenders.

The main purpose of the current research is to examine the applicability of the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (YLS/CMI) in a Japanese juvenile offender population. Three hundred eighty-nine youths who were released from the five Juvenile Classification Homes were followed for approximately one and half years. Results show that the YLS/CMI total score significantly predict recidivism.