Since the mid-1980s, California's juvenile justice system has been struggling to address two phenomena: crossover youth and the policy of dual jurisdiction. Crossover youth are children who are simultaneously involved in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems; in conjunction, the policy of dual jurisdiction is a policy that permits juvenile courts to assume collaborative jurisdiction over crossover youth's child welfare and juvenile justice cases. Between 1989 and 2004, the system's actors adhered to California Welfare & Institutions Code (WIC) § 241.1, which prohibited the policy of dual jurisdiction. As a result, the system's actors assigned crossover youth to either the child welfare or juvenile justice system, and these children did not receive proper treatment. However, in January 2005, the California state legislature amended WIC § 241.1 to incorporate Section (e), which is also known as the policy of dual jurisdiction. Subsequently, the system's actors now have the option to assign crossover youth to both the child welfare and juvenile justice systems, and these children can receive holistic services from both systems. Currently, approximately two southern Californian counties implement the policy of dual jurisdiction. This thesis argues that the implementation of dual jurisdiction is necessary as it serves in the best interests of crossover youth by addressing the issue of disproportionate minority contact, decreasing the rates of juvenile recidivism, and increasing the availability of rehabilitative services. This thesis also uses preliminary field research to demonstrate the policy of dual jurisdiction's benefits and to encourage more counties to adopt this policy.

Child maltreatment has been linked consistently to the development of aggressive behavior. However, not all maltreated youth later demonstrate increased aggression. The present study examined two avenues of inquiry to explain this observed heterogeneity in a sample of 470 serious juvenile offenders enrolled in a prospective longitudinal study. Official reports of maltreatment history were obtained from the Department of Human Services (DHS) in Philadelphia providing information about the nature and incidence of abuse and neglect in childhood of the study participants. The first line of inquiry explored if particular maltreatment subtypes, including physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, and emotional maltreatment, as well as the severity and frequency of these maltreatment types, was related to increased aggression in adolescence. The second line of inquiry used structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine the impact of three mediational factors, namely, emotion regulation, moral disengagement, and emotional callousness, on the maltreatment-aggression relation. I expected that not only would maltreatment in childhood be related to increased aggression in adolescence, but that this relation would be mediated by disruptions in emotional and cognitive development. In addition, I expected that these underlying mechanisms would be specific to particular subtypes of maltreatment. As expected, child maltreatment was related to increased aggression among youth. Physical abuse and emotional maltreatment emerged as the two maltreatment subtypes that best predicted aggression, whereas neglect and sexual abuse were not related to increased aggression. The study findings also suggested that higher severity and frequency of maltreatment contributes to increased aggression. Additionally, physical abuse and emotional maltreatment appeared to have a multiplicative effect, in that the combination of these two maltreatment subtypes resulted in the highest levels of aggression among youth in this study. Finally, as hypothesized, poor self-regulation mediated the relation between physical abuse and aggression, while heightened moral disengagement mediated the relation between emotional maltreatment and aggression. / Psychology

Objectif. Les jeunes crossover sont définis comme des adolescents qui sont à la fois victimes de maltraitance et délinquants juvéniles. L'objectif de ce mémoire est d’examiner les relations entre les paramètres de la maltraitance (ex., récurrence, sous-types et variété) et les paramètres de la délinquance juvénile (ex., précocité, volume, variété, gravité moyenne et présence de sous-types) vécus par les jeunes crossover. Méthodes. La source des données est constituée de rapports officiels pour tous les adolescents et adolescentes québécois qui ont plaidé coupables ou ont été reconnus coupables d'un crime entre le 1e janvier 2005 et le 31 décembre 2010. D'abord, un portrait des jeunes crossover québécois est dressé à l’aide de statistiques descriptives. Ensuite, des analyses multivariées sont utilisées pour déterminer si les paramètres de la maltraitance prédisent les différentes dimensions de la délinquance et pour examiner les différences selon le sexe. Résultats. La délinquance des jeunes crossover est plus importante que celle des délinquants non-maltraités. Les expériences différentielles de la maltraitance sont liées à des paramètres hétérogènes de la délinquance juvénile. La récurrence de la maltraitance est un prédicteur important des paramètres de la délinquance ultérieure. De plus, la maltraitance est particulièrement influente sur la délinquance des garçons. Implications. Les interventions au sein des systèmes de la protection de la jeunesse et de la justice juvénile doivent être adaptées afin d'identifier les jeunes à risque de délinquance grave, de cibler les dimensions spécifiques de la maltraitance et d’entraver leurs liens à la délinquance ultérieure. L'intervention doit être privilégiée pour les victimes de multiples incidents de maltraitance et pour les garçons victimes de maltraitance. / Objective. Crossover youth are defined as youth who are both victims of maltreatment and juvenile offenders. The objective of this thesis to shed light on the associations between the parameters of maltreatment (i.e., recurrence, subtypes and variety) and the parameters of juvenile delinquency (i.e., precocity, volume, variety, average severity and presence of subtypes) experienced by crossover youth. Methods. The data source is comprised of official records for the population of Quebec male and female adolescents that pled guilty or were convicted of a crime between January 1st 2005 and December 31st 2010. First, descriptive statistics are utilized to draw a portrait of crossover youth in Quebec. Second, multivariable analyses are used to determine whether the parameters of maltreatment predict different dimensions of delinquency and to examine possible sex differences. Findings. Crossover youth demonstrate more serious delinquency than non-maltreated offenders and differential exposure to maltreatment is linked to heterogeneous parameters of juvenile delinquency. The recurrence of maltreatment emerges as an important predictor of the parameters of subsequent offending. Moreover, maltreated boys demonstrated more problematic indicators of juvenile delinquency than maltreated girls. Implications. Interventions within the youth protection and juvenile justice systems should be tailored in order to identify youth at-risk for serious delinquency, to target specific dimensions of maltreatment and to potentially hamper their link to subsequent offending. Intervention should be privileged for victims of multiple incidents of maltreatment and for maltreated boys.