The Effect of Sexual Victimization on Juvenile Probation Officers’ Perceptions of Justice-Involved Girls’ Personality

Abstract

There is growing evidence that sexual victimization is a robust predictor of delinquency among girls. Histories of trauma and victimization are closely tied to emotional and behavioral dysregulation, which may lead juvenile justice personnel to perceive affected girls as aggressive or antisocial. These perceptions can, in turn, influence processing decisions and outcomes within the juvenile justice system. Despite this, limited attention has been paid to how probation officers’ gender might shape their assessments of girls with sexual victimization histories. In particular, prior research suggests that male juvenile justice professionals may be hesitant to work with justice-involved girls due to concerns about potential allegations of misconduct. However, it remains unclear whether such concerns result in biased assessments of risk—especially when girls have previously disclosed sexual victimization. This study addresses this gap by examining whether the gender of juvenile probation officers moderates the relationship between girls’ sexual victimization histories and their scores on the personality subdomain of the Youth Level of Service (YLS) risk assessment. Using administrative data from all girls entering a Midwestern juvenile court between January 2015 and October 2023 (N = 252), we find no statistically significant main effect of sexual victimization on YLS personality scores. However, a non-significant, yet consistent pattern emerged: male probation officers rated girls who reported sexual victimization as having more severe personality-related concerns compared to their non-victimized counterparts. These findings underscore the importance of considering officer gender in juvenile justice assessments and raise critical questions about how victimization is interpreted in risk evaluations.