Cognitive skills in juvenile offenders, protection normalized youngsters: A contrastive study

Abstract

A field study was designed with the aim of knowing if deficits in cognitive skills are a common characteristic of the juvenile offenders and protection youngsters i.e., children under social services protection (in risk of deviation), and a differential from normalized population. As for this 450 Colombian youngsters (150 juvenile offenders, 150 protection youngsters, and 150 from the normal population), aged from 14 to 19 years, were assessed in emotional intelligence, coping, responsivity attribution, and self-concept. The results showed that juvenile offenders and youngsters under protection had deficit in attention to the emotions (emotional intelligence), used more maladaptive strategies for problems solving, and shared a negative definition of their selves, were less satisfied with their sleeves and with their behaviour. Nonetheless, the expected bias to external responsivity attribution was not observed. Finally, the magnitude of the damages in cognitive skills was quantified. The implications of the results for the intervention with juvenile offenders and the design and implementation of prevention programs with protection youngsters are discussed.