Ms Apiapivao Linda Fatialofa1, Dr Clare-Ann Fortune1, Dr Tony Ward1
1Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand
Biography:
Linda is of Samoan descent with strong connections to her villages—Lepā, Gagaifo, Malie, and Nofoali’i—and she holds the matai title Apiapivao from Lepā. Linda is in the final stages of her PhD which utilises narratives from predominately Māori and Pacific justice-involved male youth to develop a descriptive model of youth offending. Linda is the Pacific principal researcher at Health NZ and previously worked as a senior advisor at the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in State Care. As a current clinical psychology student, long-term Linda aims to better integrate Pacific indigenous worldviews into clinical and forensic practice.
Abstract:
Understanding the complex causes of offending is essential for effective intervention and prevention strategies. According to Ward and Hudson (1998) organising theories based on their explanatory focus can help develop robust etiological and theoretical explanations of sexual offending behaviour. Drawing on this insight, we applied the metatheoretical framework developed by Ward and Hudson (1998) to the youth forensic domain where we revealed an absence of descriptive models within the youth offending literature.
In this presentation, I will focus on the contextual model developed that was based on 20 semi-structured interviews with predominately Māori and Pacific justice-involved male youth, aged 14 to 18, from the North Island of Aotearoa, New Zealand. Through grounded theory analysis, we identified six core categories relating to a young person’s context.
Our findings illustrate how contextual factors and their associated causal factors converge to shape a young person's values, beliefs, attitudes, and interpersonal strategies. This contextual model provides a frame of reference for youth offending and serves as a foundation for two subsequent models that will focus on the offence and post-offence processes to form a comprehensive descriptive model for youth offending.
This presentation will share insights into the nuanced dynamics of youth offending and the potential pathways for intervention and prevention. Our research contributes to filling a critical gap in the literature and offers practical implications for policymakers, practitioners, and researchers working in the field of youth forensics.