NCJ Number
127630
Date Published
1990
Length
27 pages
Annotation
Extensive research has examined the potential and limitations of the school as a means of juvenile delinquency prevention in Sweden.
Abstract
The two main approaches that schools can use to prevent delinquency are individual interventions for students with academic or behavioral problems and general intervention through organizational, social, and educational innovation. Both forms of intervention have both advantages and disadvantages. Individual interventions have been shown to reduce later delinquency, but present the problems of labeling and of producing effects opposite from those intended in some cases. Group interventions have the advantage of strengthening informal social controls by developing networks of positive social relationships, although some forms of deviant behavior are almost normative during adolescence. Thus, the most effective form of delinquency prevention may be a combination of individual and group interventions. Figures, tables, appended methodological information, and 88 references