By Colinda Serie

Some youngsters have to answer repeatedly to the juvenile court for crimes they are suspected of. Usually, they also face a number of other challenges and problems. For example, they are victims of family violence, exhibit anxiety and behavioral disorders, struggle with depression and/or addiction.

Professionals who work with these young people can experience a challenging tension: Do we protect society from the delinquent, or do we help the juvenile with their problems? An upcoming theoretical rehabilitation framework, the ‘Good Lives Model of offender rehabilitation’ (GLM), could potentially overcome this tension by doing both.

Traditionally, juvenile justice systems in a number of Western societies apply a rehabilitation model known as the ‘Risk Need Responsivity’ (RNR) model. Offender rehabilitation interventions based on the RNR model focus heavily on eliminating empirically derived dynamic risk factors that are directly linked to delinquency and recidivism, called criminogenic risk factors. Examples of these risk factors are having antisocial friends, problems at school or work, family problems, and antisocial attitudes. Partly as criticism on this main focus on risk, the GLM was developed by Tony Ward and colleagues.

The GLM suggests that effective rehabilitation interventions should adopt a dual focus: both reducing recidivism risk (factors) and enhancing the offender’s well-being, by prosocially meeting a universal set of human needs called ‘primary goods’. This model rests on the assumption that everyone wants to fulfill these primary goods that are deemed necessary for well-being, e.g.: feeling mentally and physically healthy, feeling connected to your family and friends, doing well at school, work, or hobbies, expressing creativity, having fun, finding inspiration in spirituality and finding a meaning in life. According to the GLM, all human behavior arises from the pursuit of those primary goods, including criminal behavior. Committing crimes is seen as an alternative, antisocial way to achieve human needs and well-being when a lack of skills, resources, or opportunities hamper a socially accepted way.

A focus on primary goods attainment and well-being in rehabilitation interventions is believed to reduce the risk of recidivism more sustainably by promising a happier and prosocial life, rather than merely a less risky one. Moreover, not only working on risk factors determined by professionals, but also on personally relevant needs and well-being, is thought to contribute to higher levels of treatment motivation and (subsequently) enhance recidivism (risk) reduction. Although these ideas are promising, clear evidence for the underlying assumptions of the GLM is still lacking, especially in adolescents.      

Therefore, I wanted to examine whether the underlying assumptions of the GLM about the explanation of criminal behavior are true and applicable to youth. In addition, I examined whether satisfaction with primary good attainment, and changes therein, in detained adolescent delinquents are related to their well-being, treatment motivation, and recidivism risk over time. To this end, I tested adolescents from the general population in Flanders, Belgium and detained adolescents from Belgium and The Netherlands with a variety of research methods.

More specifically, I examined the role of primary goods and well-being in explaining juvenile delinquency, using survey data of a large sample of adolescents residing in the community (N = 4,260) in Flanders, Belgium. Additionally, we conducted a quantitative (N = 170) and qualitative study (n = 31) with recently arrested and detained male adolescent offenders in two juvenile detention centers: one in Flanders, Belgium and one in the Netherlands. In these studies, we examined the associations between primary goods satisfaction, well-being, mental health problems, criminogenic risk (factors), and committed offense(s). In a third study, we examined the longitudinal associations between (changes in) primary goods satisfaction, overall well-being, mental health problems, treatment motivation, and recidivism risk, based on the follow-up data of detained adolescents (n = 62), who were followed during their residential stay in the juvenile detention centers.           

Taken together, our findings support the underlying assumptions of the GLM and the idea that adding a strengths-based approach such as the GLM to the RNR model could resolve the tension between reducing risk and promoting well-being. That is, the findings provide initial evidence that promoting well-being can increase treatment motivation and lower the recidivism risk of young offenders. Moreover, they suggest that working on ‘non-criminogenic’ factors, such as mental health problems and primary goods satisfaction, may improve juvenile offender rehabilitation.