MY WORLD, MY CHOICES, AND MY IDENTITY: A PRELIMINARY DESCRIPTIVE MODEL FOR YOUTH OFFENDING IN AOTEAROA, NEW ZEALAND.

<p><strong>Youth offending remains a significant concern for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers due to its profound social, psychological, and impacts on communities. Having robust aetiological theories of youth offending is essential for developing effective intervention and prevention strategies. To guide this research, I employed the Meta-Theoretical Framework developed by Ward and Hudson (1998) to structure prominent theories relevant to youth offending. In this, I identified a gap in Level 3 micro theories, which provides a descriptive conceptual map of the offence process grounded in the narratives of individuals to describe the ‘how’ of offending behaviour.</strong></p><p>This exploratory study developed a Descriptive Model of the offence process for 20 young males aged 14 to 18 in New Zealand. I recruited participants from the North Island who were actively involved with organisations or participating in community hubs because of their offending. I conducted semi-structured interviews to capture participants’ retrospective accounts of their experiences, thoughts, emotions, and behaviours before, during, and after an offence.</p><p>To develop the model, I employed Grounded Theory to analyse and develop three smaller distinct models that represented different aspects of the overall Descriptive Model. These models included the Contextual Model, which incorporated environmental, social, and personal factors influencing offending, such as parental experiences, family dynamics, and values; the Offence Process Model, which incorporated psychological and behavioural mechanisms, including goal-directed actions and decision-making; and the Offence Evaluation Model, which focuses on reflections, identity shifts, and defensive strategies following their offending. From these models, I extracted and linked categories to form the overarching Descriptive Model. The categories included in the model were: young person, psychological goals, psychological functioning, social groups, socialisation, offending strategies, identity construction, and defensive strategies.</p><p>The findings from this study demonstrate the interplay between individual and contextual factors, offering a nuanced three-stage framework for understanding youth offending. The model aligns with aspects of developmental life-course theories and provides avenues for refining and expanding existing theoretical frameworks. Additionally, this study highlights the importance of capturing young people’s lived experiences to inform theoretical, clinical, and practical advancements. Future research should validate the model with diverse samples, integrate cultural perspectives, and assess its applicability as an initial youth-oriented practice framework for designing intervention and prevention strategies.</p>