Risk & Protective Factors

What are Risk and Protective Factors?

• Risk factors are "personal traits, characteristics of the environment, or conditions in the family, school, or community that are linked to youth's likelihood of engaging in delinquency and other problem behaviors.¹
• Protective factors are "those characteristics of the child, family, and wider environment that reduce the likelihood of adversity leading to negative child outcomes and behaviors, such as delinquency and later adult offending .²

In the context of youth involved or at risk of involvement with the juvenile justice system, risk factors can be considered to be those conditions or variables associated with a higher likelihood of delinquency and/or juvenile justice system contact; protective factors are those conditions which lessen this likelihood.³

Types of Protective and Risk Factors

Risk and protective factors for child delinquency have been identified ⁴ across multiple domains:

• Individual
• Family
• Peers
• School, neighborhood, and community

Table 1: Examples of risk and protective factors by domain

It is important to note the following:

• No single risk factor leads a young person to delinquency.
• Risk factors do not operate in isolation and no single factor is responsible for explaining why an individual may experience negative outcomes like delinquency. "Violence results from a complex interplay of a variety of factors and requires nuanced, developmentally based responses tailored to the specific situation of each child.” ⁵
• When the risk factors a youth is exposed to cross multiple domains, the likelihood of delinquency increases at an even greater rate. ⁶
• Different risk factors may also be more likely to influence youth at different points in their development. For example, peer risk factors typically occur later in a youth’s development than individual and family factors.
• Because risk and protective factors are dynamic in nature, service providers and agencies should adopt ongoing assessments of these conditions. A thorough trauma-informed awareness of a person or group’s specific risk factors at the individual, familial, peer, and school/community levels will provide the most successful prevention and response intervention.

While youth may face a number of risk factors it is important to remember that everyone has strengths and is capable of being resilient: “All children and families have individual strengths that can be identified, built on, and employed” to prevent future delinquency and justice system involvement.⁷ In recent years, studies of juvenile delinquency and justice system involvement have increasingly examined the impact of these strengths (protective factors) on youth’s ability to overcome challenges and thrive.⁸

Resources

Child Abuse and Neglect Resources
This website shares resources, publications, and data sources on child abuse and neglect, including federal and non-federal resources for the public, interested community members, and practitioners.

Fact Sheet Template: Complex Trauma in Juvenile Justice-Involved Youth (PDF, 7 pages)
This fact sheet provides a detailed description of the path from complex trauma exposure to involvement in the juvenile justice system. The source also provides recommendations for judges and juvenile justice program administrators, parents and family members, and adults who supervise youth regarding how to best serve and understand justice-involved youth.

• Children's Advocacy Centers (CACs)
• Alaska and Tribal Children's Advocacy Centers Expansion
• Court Appointed Special Advocates/Guardian ad Litem (CASA/GAL)
• Child Abuse Training for Judicial and Court Personnel

Model Programs Guide: Arts-Based Programs and Therapies 
This guide presents evidence-based juvenile justice and youth prevention, intervention, and reentry programs. Each program is rated either effective, promising, or no effect. Users can search the database for programs and interventions based on the age range of the child or young adult or use other search filters to find arts-based programs and therapies.

Model Programs Guide: Community-Based
This guide presents evidence-based juvenile justice and youth prevention, intervention, and reentry programs. Each program is rated either effective, promising, or no effect. Users can search programs and interventions based on the age range of the child or young adult or can use other search filters to find community-based prevention programming.

Model Programs Guide: Mentoring
This guide presents evidence-based juvenile justice and youth prevention, intervention, and reentry programs. Each program is rated either effective, promising, or no effect. Users can search the database for programs and interventions based on the age range of the child or young adult or can use other search filters to find mentoring programs.

Model Programs Guide: Parents and Families 
This guide presents evidence-based juvenile justice and youth prevention, intervention, and reentry programs. Each program is rated either effective, promising, or no effect. Users can search the database for programs and interventions based on the age range of the child or young adult or can use other search filters to find parent and family-oriented programs.

Preventing Child Abuse & Neglect
This webpage features a list of resources related to child abuse prevention, protecting children from risk of abuse, and strengthening families.

Protective Factors Against Delinquency (PDF, 14 pages)
This literature review analyzes protective factors, or characteristics or conditions that may reduce the influence of risk factors causing delinquent and violent behavior, as a buffer against juvenile delinquency. Protective factors at the level of the individual, family, peer, school, and community are explored.

Tool Kit for Creating Your Own Truancy Reduction Program (PDF, 229 pages)
This toolkit provides a comprehensive analysis of the causes of truancy, the extent of the issue, evaluation measures for truancy reduction programs and barriers to accurate progress measurement, as well as best practices for managing truancy reduction among youth.

T. E. A. M., Teach, Empower, Affirm, Mentor, A Risk Reduction Mentoring Curriculum, Instructor’s Manual (PDF, 253 pages)
This curriculum manual is intended for implementation with middle school students and its aim is to address four central risk factors for delinquent behavior among this population. The curriculum takes a strengths-based approach that focuses on empowering youth and includes lessons on school engagement, peer relationships, and victimization.

References/Footnotes