NCJ Number
170908
Journal
American Psychologist Volume: 50 Issue: 9 Dated: (September 1995) Pages: 777-781
Date Published
1995
Length
5 pages
Annotation
This article reviews relevant research to address the policy issue of how to invest in the treatment of violent juvenile offenders.
Abstract
The empirical literature on interventions with seriously violent adolescents is rather limited. Moreover, it offers little resolution for those looking for a simplistic answer to the question of whether intervention with violent juveniles is justified by scientific evidence. Clearly, no single, proven effective approach to working with these adolescents exists. There is, however, initial evidence that certain comprehensive interventions show promise of success. Particular approaches have been developed to an impressive level of sophistication and applied systematically enough by numerous researchers to produce measurable change in violent adolescents. Specifically, interventions that address the documented social-cognitive skill deficits among violent youths have been shown to produce change with these youths while incarcerated. There is no evidence, however, that these changes endure. The fact that treated adolescents committed additional offenses once released suggests that intervention should continue after release into the community. Comprehensive, individualized, community-based, family-oriented interventions apparently hold promise and have impressive initial findings of success. Taken together, these findings have two clear policy implications. First, social- cognitive interventions should be encouraged as a critical component of institutional and community-based programs. Second, service provision should be reconceptualized as an ongoing care model that emphasizes intervention in multiple spheres of an adolescent's life. 42 references