|
Abstract
|
VioLit summary:
OBJECTIVE:
The goal of this study by Mulvey et al. was to review the literature on effectiveness of juvenile delinquency prevention and treatment programs to discover what most consistently works.
METHODOLOGY:
A non-experimental review of the literature in delinquency prevention and treatment programs was conducted for this study.
FINDINGS/DISCUSSION:
The authors first stated that it was important for research on juvenile delinquency prevention and treatment programs to carefully define delinquency and to specify the theoretical bases or mediating processes that tie specific strategies to decreases in delinquent behavior.
The authors discussed program outcomes in terms of primary prevention, secondary prevention, and treatment. Primary prevention referred to identifying individuals or environments at risk for delinquent activity before the behavior has occurred. The goal of such a program would be to remove risk factors or strengthen resistance to risk factors. The success of such a program was seen to be the accurate identification of risk factors and appropriate choices of where and when to do intervention. Overall, there was some research that was encouraging in the area of primary prevention, though the demonstration of the links between the programs and actual reduction in delinquent behavior was found to be tenuous. There was some evidence that parent training programs can reduce the emergence of child behavior problems up to eight years following intervention. Structural family therapy was also found to prevent delinquency. These familial interventions were found to be less successful with high risk, multiproblem families and families of older children due to recruitment and maintained use of the parenting skills taught. For lower SES and minority families, some family support and structured preschool interventions were able to reduce the risk of delinquency many years following intervention. School programs that changed teacher behavior and/or school organization were found to be able to improve the school behavior and performance of low achievers, as did social skills and cognitive problem-solving interventions, but there was no research to establish the long-term impact of these programs. Some programs showed promise in terms of cost effectiveness.
Secondary prevention referred to programs that attempted to rehabilitate youth who had shown early indications of behavior problems but had not been formally classified as delinquent or who had not exhibited a longstanding pattern of antisocial behavior. The youth in these programs were often those who had contact with the police but had not been adjudicated by the juvenile court. The emphasis in these programs was to modify the existing behavior problems before they lead to more serious criminal behavior. Some diversion programs with clearly defined and well-implemented interventions that incorporated behavioral and family-based change strategies were found to produce reductions in subsequent arrest rates but not in self-reported delinquency. Inclusion of many status and first-time offenders was argued to obscure the effectiveness of diversion programs. Some vocationally-oriented programs were found to clearly reduce delinquency though most vocational and alternative education programs had only assessed more immediate outcomes such as increased school attendance and reduced dropout rates. Clear success was found in a program that carefully integrated identified youths with normal peers. More success was found from evaluations of behavioral, structural, and multisystematic family therapy. These strategies often suffered from high dropout rates and had not had long-term evaluation of their impact on delinquency. Preteen adolescent males responded better than older antisocial adolescents to these strategies.
Treatment referred to those strategies that were used on adjudicated youths through judicial disposition. In general, the authors found a massive amount of data but a limited amount of solid information concerning treatment. Within the institutional setting, it was found that behavioral, cognitive problem-solving and skill development, and family therapy were more effective than peer group interventions. Teaching family group homes were found to reduce behavior problems during treatment but not after the adolescent left the group home. Wilderness programs were found to be generally ineffective and irrelevant to the lives of the youths. Restitution programs were found to be successful for some youths in some circumstances, but it was unclear what conditions were needed for restitution to work. Community aftercare services and juvenile intensive probation programs were found to be possibly at least as effective as institutional care at a proportion of the cost. Evidence for the effectiveness of both institutional and community treatment programs was flawed and unconvincing. Longer or more intensive community-based interventions that improve family functioning, incorporate some form of behavioral intervention, and modify delinquents' social networks were found to be the most promising, provided that they are appropriate to the juveniles' needs and strengths.
AUTHORS' RECOMMENDATIONS:
The authors reached three general conclusions. First, they concluded that interventions cannot be expected to have a long-lasting effect against future antisocial behavior by adolescents, and a reorientation of what should be expected from services is needed. They argued that this should involve interventions which are conceptualized as a series of possible treatments that are adaptable to new situations and issues. Key approaches include management, regular support, and routine care directed toward youths identified in middle childhood. Second, it was concluded that successful prevention and treatment programs appear to take a broadly based approach, addressing behavior in its social context. Early intervention programs that provide comprehensive care to families, cognitive behavioral curricula that are coupled with changes in the school environment, and individual interventions that work with the adolescents' home, school, and peer environment were recommended. The third conclusion was that services are not delivered uniformly and that it is counterproductive to continue to evaluate them as if this were true. Better measures of particular program dimensions that are independent of theoretical justification or basic program type as well as operational measures of program operation were suggested.
EVALUATION:
This article does an excellent job reviewing the great volume of literature on juvenile delinquency prevention and treatment programs. The authors' findings that programs which incorporate a more broad-based and socially-located approach are supported by the empirical and theoretical research in delinquency. The call for better evaluation research and orientation of efforts toward what works is an excellent agenda for the area of juvenile delinquency practice.
(CSPV Abstract - Copyright © 1992-2007 by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, Regents of the University of Colorado)
KW - Literature Review
KW - Program Evaluation
KW - Prevention Program
KW - Juvenile Delinquency
KW - Delinquency Prevention
KW - Juvenile Offender
KW - Offender Treatment
KW - Delinquency Treatment
KW - Treatment Program
KW - Program Effectiveness
KW - Community Based
Language: en |