NCJ Number
139369
Date Published
1992
Length
247 pages
Annotation
This report of the findings of continuing research on over 300 youth remanded to 4, medium-security institutions addresses the effects of the encounter of individual personalities with various natural social environments on the behavior, values, and feelings of the youth involved.
Abstract
The study observed the boys from the time they arrived at the institution until 6 months after their release, as well as the staff responsible for them and the other boys in their residential groups. This research took advantage of the opportunity to conduct a field experiment in which individuals were randomly assigned to unfamiliar social environments that varied in important ways. The core source of data consisted of interviews with the subjects at intake, 4 months after admission, at release, and 6 months after release. Every 6 months, beginning the month after the admission of the first subject, questionnaires were administered to all the students in the 45 groups selected for observation. This was the source of data on group properties such as group norms and cohesiveness. Questionnaires were administered in October 1982, April 1983, and October 1983. Regarding peer influence, the study found that although the subjects had all been seriously delinquent, had associated almost exclusively with other seriously delinquent youth on the outside, and seemed motivated to perceive the others in their group as more committed to a delinquent subculture than they actually were, the subjects preferred to be in a group of peers who behaved according to prosocial norms. This could have been a direct consequence of the positive-peer-culture treatment modality, but the researchers believe it shows the natural tendency for adolescents admitted into any delinquency treatment program. Two of the personal characteristics of the subjects proved to be so stable over the time of their residency and proved so predictive of their adjustment then and later that these variables qualified as personality traits. They are besetment (anxiety and depression) and delinquent values. The overall effect of the delinquency treatment program was less positive for subjects who were more beset and more committed to delinquent values when they entered the program. The final chapter discusses the implications of these findings for theory and practice. 15 figures, 39 tables, 125 references, and author and subject indexes