The Relationship Between Self-Esteem, Gender, Criminal Attitudes, and Recidivism in a Youth Justice Sample

The Risk-Need-Responsivity (RNR) model deems criminal attitudes a high-priority criminogenic target for both genders while self-esteem is considered noncriminogenic, hence low priority. In contrast, self-esteem is afforded greater priority among gender-responsive researchers, while the construct of criminal attitudes is afforded lesser priority. We examined whether self-esteem and gender moderated the relationship between criminal attitudes and recidivism among 300 justice-involved youth (200 males, 100 females). Contrary to the hypothesis, high self-esteem (≥72.15th percentile) magnified the relationship between criminal attitudes (Pride in Delinquency Scale) and recidivism in females only; self-esteem levels evidenced no impact on the relationship between criminal attitudes and recidivism among males. Results suggest that prioritizing self-esteem as a treatment target among justice-involved female youth without simultaneously considering whether or not pride in criminal conduct is also present may inadvertently increase reoffending. Implications for exploring whether high self-esteem may in reality represent falsely inflated self-esteem are discussed.