The Juvenile Emotion Management Scale (JEMS): An Instrument Designed To Assess Emotion Self-Management Skills in Serious and Violent Juvenile Offenders.

N

17

Adolescent Behavior; Adolescents; Delinquency; Emotional Response; Empathy; Juvenile Justice; Middle School Students; Middle Schools; Self Management; Skill Development

Individuals differ in the level of skill with which they can identify their feelings and the feelings of others, manage these feelings, and use the information provided by their feelings to motivate adaptive behavior in themselves. Identifying the skill of a serious and violent juvenile offender (SVJ) to manage his emotional state is important for intervention and rehabilitation, especially when the offender uses crime as a strategy in coping with a negative emotional state. This study designed a paper and pencil instrument to assess the ability of an SVJ to manage emotions in various social contexts. Reliability and validity measures were constructed to determine the extent to which responses to scale statements provided evidence that the instrument assessed the emotion management construct. An initial pool of 50 items was generated from researchers observations, interactions, and interviews with male juveniles who had been involved with the juvenile justice system. The initial pool was administered to 28 male middle school students who had been grouped by teachers into a group with high positive feelings about self and school and a history of positive behaviors and negative feelings about self and school with a history of negative behaviors. The instrument was revised on the basis of these responses and administered to 41 students from the negative feelings/actions group. After factor analysis and revision, the instrument was administered to six male juvenile offenders at a residential facility. The instrument was correlated with a measure of balanced emotional empathy, and discriminant validity was also studied. Findings suggest that the developed scale, the Juvenile Emotion Management Scale, is capable of assessing an SVJ offenders skill in responding to emotional arousal. (SLD)

2003

ED471546