Later Life Consequences of Justice Involvement — John Leverso, PhD

Later Life Consequences of Justice Involvement

I am principle investigator on a project titled Modeling Life Outcomes of Justice Involved Youth: How gang membership, gender, education, and health are influenced by patterns of offending and desistance across the life course. Using data from the Northwestern Juvenile Project, we are investigating the non-criminal, later-in-life consequences of justice involvement (e.g., mental health, disability, and employment). While including gangs as a sub-population, this project will also investigate the broader juvenile population and racial disparities of later-in-life outcomes. This represents a future research agenda that will continue my study of street gangs, but also expands outwards to investigate broader disparities in the collateral consequences of incarceration.

The first paper in this series looks at the relationship between mental health and offending in the life course of justice involved youth. Existing research has found trauma and socioeconomic conditions predict poor trajectories of mental health and an increased likelihood of offending. However, questions remain about the interactions among these factors and outcomes, especially for girls. Relatedly, the impact of participation in mental health services or treatment on the trajectories of mental health and offending has not been fully explored. In this project we explore complex outcomes for mental health and recidivism. We focus on gender and age differences in mental health and offending outcomes, as well as how these outcomes are affected by service provisions. Findings have significant implications for understanding life course patterns of justice-involved youth, especially females, and possible interventions to address mental health treatment and offending.

Published Work

Leverso, John, Rin Ferraro, April Fernandes and Jerald Herting (2023). “Life Course Trajectories of Offending and Mental Health Among Justice Involved Youth.” Journal of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology*.

Gang Membership in the Life Course