NCJ Number
149437
Date Published
1991
Length
15 pages
Annotation
This paper examines the reasons for the loss of confidence in juvenile rehabilitation in the 1970's and presents the results of recent meta-analyses indicating that certain types of juvenile corrections programs are effective in rehabilitating delinquent youth.
Abstract
Juvenile delinquency is strongly linked to adult criminality, so intervention programs that could reduce juvenile recidivism would make major reductions in crime and criminal justice system costs. For more than 20 years, correctional reformers have expressed dissatisfaction with the programs and conditions found in traditional training schools, especially their rigid discipline, their failure to prepare youths to return to their communities, and the strongly antiauthority peer culture that dominates most such institutions. However, in recent years, the main obstacles to reforming these institutions have been the perceptions that no treatment programs work with hardcore delinquents and that traditional training schools can best serve the correctional goals of punishment and incapacitation. Although past program evaluations appeared to support this view, more recent meta-analyses have identified intervention methods that appear to have produced superior results across different settings. These interventions rely mainly on cognitive-behavioral and social learning theory that provide youths with various methods for acquiring and practicing more effective and acceptable social skills and behavior. These techniques seem to work better in small residential or community settings rather than the large training schools in which many youths are now placed. Discussion questions and 13 references