Towards an evidence-based pretrial risk assessment in Mexican juvenile offenders: A systematic review of relevant instruments using COSMIN guidelines

Abstract

The Mexican Comprehensive Criminal Justice System for Adolescents (Sistema Integral de Justicia Penal para Adolescentes) is in urgent need of validated tools to help diminish the likelihood of pretrial failure, (that is, when juveniles interfere in one way or another with the course of the criminal process before the trial stage). To this end, this article aims to evaluate the measurement properties of relevant instruments to guide and support pretrial risk assessment in Mexican juvenile offenders. Firstly, a systematic review was conducted in PubMed, metasearch engines (DGB-UNAM and Google Scholar), and databases using the COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement Instruments (COSMIN) guidelines. As it was found that no validated pretrial risks assessment instruments had been published earlier in Mexico, we present a proposal based on a preliminary selection of five instruments suitable for pretrial risks assessment taking both analysis and theory into account. Since this is the first systematic review in the field, results provide evidence for developing pretrial risk tools to aid decision-making in the juvenile offenders sector in Mexico.