Moral Engagement: A Protective Factor for Violence Among Youth with Antisocial Behavior

Background: Compared to risk factors, little information is known about the protective factors that can be increased to mitigate a child’s risk of violence (Lodewijks et al., 2010). While risk factors for youth violence have been identified protective factors on the other hand have not been studied to the same extent. Protective factors such as moral engagement, social support, and emotional control offer avenues for alleviating and better controlling violent behavior among juvenile offenders. It should be noted that the influence of these protective factors may vary by gender emphasizing the complexity of addressing youth violence and the potential role of moral engagement in reducing such behavior. Taken together, understanding the interactions between these multidimensional factors among youth exposed to the juvenile justice system is crucial for creating evidence-informed delinquency prevention and treatment interventions.

Methods: The study used data from a non-probability sample of 13 to 19-year-old youths in two Western Pennsylvania long-term residential treatment facilities for juvenile offenders (males = 151, females = 101). Youth were committed to the facilities for various property, person, drug, and status violations. Most youths had years of delinquent behavior and involvement in juvenile court. Violent Behavior (dependent variable, M = 14.04, SD = 12.11) was assessed from a scale asking youth about their rule and law violating behaviors, ranging from a score between 0 and 80. Moral reasoning (independent variable, M = 55.49, SD = 6.74) was measured by a standardized scale including 15 items ranging from 15 to 75. Neighborhood Disorder (M = 15.92, SD = 4.22) was measured by indexing 8 statements relating to the youth’s neighborhood. School Commitment (M = 67.81, SD = 9.91 ) measured how much control the youth perceive they have over their educational outcomes. Scores range from 11 to 77. Emotional Control (M = 12.61, SD = 8.25) was calculated from questions of the Youth Questionnaire Scale. Scores on this scale potentially range from 0 to 30. Multivariate regression was done as a whole and by gender to test whether moral engagement will be significantly associated with lower levels of violent behavior as a whole and among both males and females.

Conclusion: Moral engagement was statistically and negatively associated with violent behavior in both males (b=-.47, p < .01) and females (b= -.43, p < .05). Furthermore, among males, emotional control had a significant positive relationship (b = .412, p = .001), while neighborhood disorder, age, and school commitment were not statistically significant. The R-squared for males was 0.252, indicating 25.2% of the variance in violent behavior among males could be explained by the tested model. Among females, emotional control had a significant positive association (b = .474, p = .001). Whereas like males, age, school commitment, and neighborhood disorder did not significantly predict violent behavior. The R-squared for females was 0.226, indicating the model explains 22.6% of the variance in violent behavior among females. Results were supportive of the hypotheses. The findings suggest that moral engagement and emotional control are crucial in understanding violent behavior.