(PS5-77) Prospective Relationships Among Depression and Perceived Opportunity in Juvenile Offenders

Rehabilitation of children and adolescents previously engaged in unlawful behavior is a primary goal of the United States juvenile justice system. Many justice-involved youth develop depression, though their experience and treatment options may be vastly different compared to the general population. In addition, juvenile offenders often experience low self-efficacy, defined as pessimistic beliefs about their ability to achieve desired life outcomes, which has been shown to be related to depression. Perceived opportunity is a facet of self-efficacy that refers to the extent to which a person believes he or she can succeed in their current environment. This is highly relevant to justice-involved youth, who often face barriers to educational and occupational success both in their neighborhoods prior to adjudication and following justice system involvement. It has also been shown to be a protective factor against reoffending. However, perceived opportunity and depression have yet to be examined bidirectionally in youth offenders. With a large sample of justice-involved youth (n = 1,354), we utilized random intercept cross-lagged panel modeling to bidirectionally measure the relationship between depression and perceived opportunity assessed every 6 months over a 3-year period following adjudication. The covariance between random intercepts of depression and perceived opportunity was negative and significant (d = -0.43, p < .001), indicating that a higher average level of depression was associated with a lower average level of perceived opportunity. Lower average levels of perceived opportunity were also observed among Hispanic (d = -0.56, p = .002), Black (d = -0.24, p < .001), and youth of other racial/ethnic minorities (d = -0.16, p = .004) relative to White juveniles. Cross-lagged analyses showed a significant and negative within-person effect of depression on subsequent perceived opportunity (d = -0.22, p < .001), suggesting that those with elevated depression at one time point had significantly lower perceived opportunity at the next time point. However, higher perceived opportunity did not predict subsequent depression (d = -.07, p < .208). The results illustrate a strictly unidirectional relationship which may have clinical implications for a population faced with unique barriers. While cognitive-behavioral interventions cannot change the likely reality of limited opportunity for many youth in this population, they may be able to teach healthy methods of coping for depressed juveniles, with the intent of treating their depression symptoms while facilitating prosocial, goal-driven behaviors. Our findings have introduced a novel mechanism of depression which may be critical for the rehabilitation of justice-involved youth.