The Relationship Between Self-Esteem, Gender, Criminal Attitudes, and Recidivism in a Youth Justice Sample

The Risk-Need-Responsivity (RNR) model deems criminal attitudes a high-priority criminogenic target for both genders while self-esteem is considered noncriminogenic, hence low priority. In contrast, self-esteem is afforded greater priority among gender-responsive researchers, while the construct of...

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VerfasserInnen: Thapa, Shreena (Verfasst von) ; Brown, Shelley L. (Verfasst von) ; Skilling, Tracey A. (Verfasst von)
Medienart: Elektronisch Aufsatz
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: 2021
In: Criminal justice and behavior
Jahr: 2021, Band: 48, Heft: 4, Seiten: 539-555
Online-Zugang: Volltext (Resolving-System)
Verfügbarkeit prüfen: HBZ Gateway
Schlagwörter:
Criminal Behavior
Youth
Attitudes
Gender differences
Self-esteem
Recidivism
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:The Risk-Need-Responsivity (RNR) model deems criminal attitudes a high-priority criminogenic target for both genders while self-esteem is considered noncriminogenic, hence low priority. In contrast, self-esteem is afforded greater priority among gender-responsive researchers, while the construct of criminal attitudes is afforded lesser priority. We examined whether self-esteem and gender moderated the relationship between criminal attitudes and recidivism among 300 justice-involved youth (200 males, 100 females). Contrary to the hypothesis, high self-esteem (≥72.15th percentile) magnified the relationship between criminal attitudes (Pride in Delinquency Scale) and recidivism in females only; self-esteem levels evidenced no impact on the relationship between criminal attitudes and recidivism among males. Results suggest that prioritizing self-esteem as a treatment target among justice-involved female youth without simultaneously considering whether or not pride in criminal conduct is also present may inadvertently increase reoffending. Implications for exploring whether high self-esteem may in reality represent falsely inflated self-esteem are discussed.
ISSN:1552-3594
DOI:10.1177/0093854820977577