Risk assessment and clinical risk management for young antisocialchildren: The Forgotten Group

Abstract

Centre for Children Committing Offences (CCCO), at Child Development Institute (CDI) in Toronto, Canada, developed Early Assessment Risk Lists (EARL-20B for boys; EARL-21G for girls), for young children at-risk for future criminality. In this first EARL prospective longitudinal study, 573 boys and 294 girls who participated in SNAP®, a gender-specific evidencebased model for at-risk children (6-11 years), 8.2% of boys and 3.1% of girls had registered criminal offences at follow up (mean age 14.9 and 14.6 respectively). EARL Total, Family, Child, and Responsivity domain scores, including two gender-specific risk items and Overall Clinical Judgment predicted early onset of criminal activity. Findings suggest that gender-sensitive clinical risk assessment and management tools are important for effectively identifying and potentially reducing criminal outcomes.