The purpose of this master thesis is to examine which factors are associated with recidivism among young people under the age of 18 after participating in a worry conversation with the Police. The motivation behind this thesis is driven by existing research showing that juvenile delinquency is a serious problem that has a negative effect on the juvenile self, families and the society. In addition to this recidivism is especially prevalent among juveniles, due to the fact that approximately half of juveniles who commits a delinquent act recidivize into further delinquent behavior and thereby continues the negative spiral of juvenile delinquency. The ambition is to provide further knowledge as well as contribute to existing research about recidivism in juvenile delinquency and which factors among the young people to be aware of to successfully prevent recidivism. Furthermore, the project aims to contribute with knowledge for the use of the Police to target and improve the worry conversation better in practice.

The project is based on a cross-sectional design and the results of the survey is based on a sample of 274 young people under the age of 18 who in 2019 participated in a worry conversation at Sydsjællands- and Lolland-Falsters Police Department. The sample is gathered from the Polices case management system POLSAS, which is made possible due to a cooperation with the same Police Department. These findings have been analyzed by the use of a quantitative research method including a logistic regression model. From here we observe that there is an association between recidivism and the older a juvenile becomes committing their first delinquent act. Also respectively being a boy, having participated in a follow up- conversation after the worry conversation and having committed non-personal criminal behavior prior to the worry conversation, are associated with recidivism.