Suppressing the Harmful Effects of Key Risk Factors: Results from the Children at Risk Experimental Intervention

• NCJ Number: 241704
• Journal: Criminal Justice and Behavior Volume: 39 Issue: 8 Dated: August 2012 Pages: 1088-1106
• Author(s): Carter Hay; Brian Stults; Emily Restivo
• Date Published: August 2012
• Length: 19 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study examines an alternative way in which such programs may reduce delinquency.

Abstract

Many programs try to reduce adolescent offending with a risk factor approach in which services target the key causes of crime pertaining to families, peer groups, and schools. These programs often reduce crime, presumably through either prevention (in which exposure to a risk factor is prevented from ever occurring) or reversal (in which an individual possessing a risk factor advances to a state of no longer having it). This study examines an alternative way in which such programs may reduce delinquency: They may achieve the goal of risk factor suppression, whereby a risk factor that is neither prevented nor reversed is rendered inconsequential by program treatment. Thus, the risk factor continues to be present, but by virtue of program treatment, it no longer elevates individual involvement in crime. The authors consider this possibility with evaluation data from the experimental Children at Risk program, a 2-year case management intervention that served high-risk early adolescents. Abstract published by arrangement with Sage Journals.