Risk and protective factors among an ethnically diverse sample of youth offenders in Calgary

In response to the CCJR’s call for research to examine risk and protective factors for offending among immigrant and Aboriginal communities, the Canadian Research Institute for Law and the Family (CRILF) conducted an exploratory study of risk and protective factors for crime among Aboriginal youth, 1st and 2nd generation immigrant/refugee youth, and other ethnic groups using existing youth crime d [...] The objectives were as follows: (1) To examine the existing Canadian literature to determine what is known about ethnic differences in risk and protective factors among youth offenders in Canada; (2) To conduct exploratory analyses of the Calgary youth offending data collected by CRILF in 2006/2007 to determine whether similarities and/or differences in established risk and protective factors for [...] With the absence of positive familial socialization and influence, Native/Métis youth experience a breakdown in socialization in other areas of life (e.g., school) and are less likely to be susceptible to the external constraints of social rules and norms. [...] The authors would like to acknowledge City of Calgary Community & Neighbourhood Services and the Calgary Police Service for their support of the Canadian Research Institute for Law and the Family’s 2006 Study of Youth Offending, Serious Habitual Offenders, and System Response in Calgary, from which the data for the current project were obtained. [...] To fulfill this goal, the project included a number of components, including: an examination of the impact of the Youth Criminal Justice Act on case flow and service provision in Alberta; a thorough review of the risk factors identified in the literature for chronic youth offending as well as best practices with chronic and persistent youth offenders; an aggregate examination of youth offending in