“Recidivism” is used ubiquitously in juvenile justice research and typically describes repeat legal contact; however, researchers, policymakers, and clinicians operationalize it in various ways. Despite assuming each measure is a proxy for continued delinquent behavior leading to further legal contact, few have examined the association between youth delinquent behavior and self-reported and official records of legal contact. Furthermore, systemic bias against ethnoracial and gender minoritized youth often results in more harsh treatment by the legal system, which could influence recidivism measurement. Latent variable modeling of legal contact is understudied; thus, it is important to examine the feasibility of measuring this construct as a latent variable, including measurement invariance by gender.
Among 401 youth ages 12–18 years at first ever court contact, we examined three metrics of legal contact over a 2-year follow-up period: youth-report of arrest, caregiver-report of their adolescent’s arrest, and official records of the number of new court charges. We examined between-group differences on each metric based on gender and ethnoracial identity. We then measured: (1) the association between youths’ self-reported delinquency and each metric, (2) gender-specific associations between self-reported delinquency and each metric, and (3) gender-based measurement invariance for a latent recidivism variable using confirmatory factor analysis.
Youth were consistent reporters of their own delinquent behavior and prospective legal contact measured by arrests. There were no between-group differences based on gender or ethnoracial identity for any legal contact measures. Delinquency and all legal contact variables were positively intercorrelated for the overall sample and the male subsample. For females, delinquency was not associated with caregiver-reported youth arrest or number of new charges. The latent legal contact variable had unique factor structures for male and female subsamples, suggesting no measurement invariance.
Youth-reported delinquency at first ever legal contact was most strongly associated with youth-reported arrest during a 2-year follow-up period, followed by caregiver-reported arrest, and the number of new charges. Unique latent variable factor structures for male and female subsamples suggests the inter-relation between legal contact variables is gender-specific. Stakeholders should consider prioritizing youth-reported delinquency since it is most strongly related to prospective youth-reported arrest.