Relatively little is known about young people who engage in targeted acts of violence. In this study, we explored a sample of young people referred to a youth forensic mental health service for a risk assessment of general violence risk, targeted violence risk, or both general and targeted violence risk. Exploratory comparisons were made across mental health issues and criminogenic risk factors, and results indicated that young people referred for a threat-only assessment were around 20 times more likely to have a depressive mood disorder than young people referred for a violence-only assessment. Furthermore, young people referred for a threat assessment had lower rates of physical abuse, family mental health issues, and prior offending. These results indicate that young people referred for an assessment of targeted violence risk may be distinguished from young people referred for general violence risk, which has important implications for their assessment and treatment.

对于从事针对性暴力行为的年轻人知之甚少。在这项研究中，我们探索了一个被称为青年法医心理健康服务的年轻人样本，以评估一般暴力风险，针对性暴力风险或一般性和针对性暴力风险。对精神健康问题和犯罪风险因素进行了探索性比较，结果表明，仅接受威胁评估的年轻人患抑郁症的情绪障碍比仅接受暴力评估的年轻人的抑郁症可能性高约20倍。此外，被转送进行威胁评估的年轻人的身体虐待，家庭心理健康问题和先前犯罪的发生率更低。