Prevention of Youth Offending and Recidivism

This chapter explains, demonstrates and justifies the relevance to focus on the prevention of delinquency and later recidivism from an early age. Early intervention to prevent recidivism is crucial, considering the strong relationship between crime and age along with the predictors that explain criminal offending. For instance, communication skills, assertiveness, empathy and resolution conflicts, among other skills, are valuable competencies that provide resources in the face of adversities and most significant risk factors for recidivism. This chapter reviews the most valuable and significant meta-analyses that targeted risk-protective factors prevention at the international level. At the national level, we describe the monitoring process established by the Argentine National Justice system for young offenders aimed at the resocialization of juvenile offenders, which is one of the most novel and successful interventions aimed to encourage desistance from crime. Considering the lack of longitudinal studies in Argentina regarding early risk factors for recidivism and protective factors for desistance, taking into account the future consequences and applications of this research, this chapter provide valuable and novel knowledge to implement interventions aimed at the prevention of delinquency and later recidivism in the near and long term for juvenile offenders in Argentina and internationally.