Editor’s Note: More information about the manual, including details on purchasing it from the publisher, is available at www.parinc.com.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- Court authorities often struggle to balance protecting society with appropriate treatment for youth who commit crimes, says a University of Alabama professor who authored a newly published psychological test that measures key juvenile concepts and assists professionals in achieving that balance.

“There are some hard choices that have to be made in both the juvenile and adult courts,” said Dr. Randall Salekin, an associate professor of psychology in UA’s College of Arts and Sciences, whose manual, interview and rating scale were recently published by Psychological Assessment Resources Inc.

One of those hard choices can involve deciding whether to detain youth or, in more severe cases, whether a juvenile should be transferred to adult court in order to further protect society. Approximately 2.3 million juveniles are arrested each year, and juvenile court judges often turn to clinical psychologists to gain further insight into critical issues like the risk the youth poses to society, their maturity level, and the likelihood of them responding to treatment, Salekin said.

“The problem has been that quite often mental health professionals have not dealt squarely with the courts’ questions,” said the UA psychologist. In part this is because research leading to assessing juvenile offenders has developed at a much slower pace than what is available for adults convicted of crimes, said Salekin. “There was really nothing available for assessing youth when we started looking for factors that would distinguish between chronic and less serious juvenile offenders,” he said.

Salekin’s publication, entitled “Risk-Sophistication-Treatment Inventory” includes a 100-page professional manual, a 32-page semi-structured interview booklet, and a rating form. It draws from data obtained from 591 juvenile offenders from detention centers, court evaluation units and treatment facilities in Madison, Wis; Dade County, Fla., and Tuscaloosa. The offenders ranged from first-time offenders to repeat offenders and were ages 9 to 18.

During the approximate five years Salekin spent developing the publication, input was gathered from 240 child/adolescent clinicians, 75 psychologists and 430 juvenile judges. Inquiries on obtaining Salekin’s manual have already come from professionals in Sweden, Australia, South Africa and the United Kingdom, in addition to requests from across the United States.

The manual includes detailed information, including case studies, on how the measurement was developed, while the interview book gives guidelines to obtaining the information needed to complete the rating form.

The rating form contains 45 items -- 15 from each of the three major evaluation areas: risk for dangerousness, sophistication/maturity, and treatment amenability. For each of the 45 items, which includes things like unprovoked violent behavior, remorse levels, violence toward animals, motivation, parental involvement, conflict resolution and interpersonal skills, the professional clinician awards a rating of 0, 1 or 2. The scores are tallied and provided charts are used in comparison with the sample data to gauge whether the score falls into the “low” “middle” or “high offender” range.

“Some delinquency can be viewed as an extreme form of normal adolescent behavior or, alternately, a stepping-stone to a more serious and chronic offending,” according to information in a chapter co-authored by Salekin and scheduled for publication later this year in the “Handbook of Mental Health Screening and Assessment for Juvenile Justice.” Salekin's “Risk-Sophistication-Treatment Inventory” helps to distinguish between these groups.

Maturity is also important to assess, and maturity can cut both ways, says Salekin. “On the one hand, youth with higher levels of maturity, including a better ability to control their emotions and high cognitive skills, are likely to benefit from psychotherapy. On the other hand, higher maturity might be indicative of more sophisticated criminal conduct that may, or may not, be particularly malleable or amenable to treatment.”

An important question for decision makers is whether youth are able to use their higher levels of maturity to change their antisocial beliefs and conduct, Salekin said. “Using the assessment’s amenability to treatment scale for evaluations may help shed light on whether a youth high in maturity has the capability to make substantive changes.”

Salekin stressed the measurement is not intended to be the sole guideline used in making decisions regarding juvenile offenders, but he said it does provide a standardized tool that assists professionals in gathering and analyzing information.

The UA psychologist said he believes some juveniles pose such a high risk to society they should be processed in adult court, but he says that should be reserved for extreme cases and these newly developed guidelines do not suggest accelerating that method.

“The net result of the implementation of this scale would be that fewer people would be transferred to adult court,” Salekin said. “We want to have the ‘parens patriae’ method where we protect children,” he said, referring to the Latin term indicating the state should serve as the child's parent. “We really do believe we should be treating kids, not punishing them.”

Nevertheless, the best answers are often not clear-cut, Salekin said, and the rating scale should be relevant to psychologists, judges, therapists, parole officers and others.

“The important thing is to present juvenile court judges with all the information, and this assessment allows them to look at the case through the assessment’s three-factor lens and ultimately helps them in dealing with very difficult legal decisions.”