Improving the Effectiveness of Juvenile Justice Programs: A New

p. 33). Furthermore, only very small increases were
seen in victimization and self-report measures of crime,
mostly in nonserious offenses (Howell, 2003b).
Crime control policies had already changed, however.
Martinson’s (1974) negative assessment of the
effectiveness of rehabilitation continued to provide one
impetus. In addition, the mass media, politicians, and law
enforcement characterized youth crime as an epidemic of
gun violence and crack cocaine, a claim that further fueled
support for more punitive sentencing policies (Brownstein,
1996; Reeves and Campbell, 1994). Racial conflict during
this period may also have contributed to the “get-tough”
policies in both the juvenile and criminal justice systems,
as some scholars have argued (Feld, 1999; Tonry, 2009;
Tonry and Melewski, 2008).
B. Popularity of Deterrence
Philosophies
The get-tough movement included increased
emphasis on deterrence and a decline in rehabilitative
approaches. Juveniles believed to have fulfilled DiIulio’s
characterization as super predators were thought to be
beyond redemption; jailing and imprisonment was the
presumed answer. “Just deserts” advocates promoted the
use of punitive laws, policies, and practices in the juvenile
justice system, including “three strikes” laws, determinate
sentences, longer sentences, electronic monitoring, drug
testing, shock incarceration, and other such measures
(Howell, 2003b). Rehabilitation programs often were
abandoned, whereas boot camps, Scared Straight
programs, detention centers, and juvenile correctional
Juvenile courts designated larger proportions of
juveniles as serious and violent offenders and
incarcerated more juveniles.
facilities increasingly populated the nation’s landscape
(Howell, 2003b; Males, 1996; Roush and McMillen, 2000).
Juvenile courts designated larger proportions of juveniles
as serious and violent offenders and incarcerated more
juveniles (Snyder and Sickmund, 2006).
Such policies and practices, which deemphasize
prevention of juvenile crime and rehabilitation of juvenile
offenders, became common in the juvenile justice system
through new state legislation. By the end of the 1990s, all
the states had enacted laws to make their juvenile justice
systems more punitive or to transfer more juveniles to the
criminal justice system and confine them in adult prisons
(Howell, 2009, pp. 288–90).
C. Return to Rehabilitation
Although many state legislatures rewrote their juvenile
codes to endorse punitive objectives in the 1990s (Torbet
and Szymanski, 1998), nearly all of them maintained
wording that upheld the juvenile justice system’s traditional
rehabilitative mission (Bishop, 2006; Tanenhaus, 2002,
2004). Moreover, there continued to be public support for
a rehabilitative approach to dealing with juvenile offenders
despite assumptions to the contrary by some observers.
As Cullen (2006) noted, “the notion that the American
public is opposed to the treatment of juvenile offenders
is a myth” (p. 665). A 2001 national survey, for instance,
found that 80 percent of the sample of adults thought that
rehabilitation should be the goal of juvenile correctional
facilities and that more than 9 in 10 favored a variety of
early intervention programs, including parent training,
Head Start, and after-school programs. “The legitimacy of
the rehabilitative ideal—especially as applied to youthful
offenders—appears to be deeply woven into the fabric of
American culture” (Cullen, 2006, p. 666).
It is not surprising, therefore, that against the punitive
trend in juvenile justice there was a countervailing trend
toward embracing options that include both punishment
and rehabilitation as central guiding tenets (Butts and
Mears, 2001; Mears, 2002). Specialized courts—including
drug, gun, domestic violence, and mental health courts—
illustrate this contrary trend and can be found in both
the juvenile and criminal justice systems. Bishop (2006)
observed in her review of the three years of legislative
actions from 2003 to 2005 that “efforts are underway to
mitigate or even abandon punitive features [of juvenile
laws enacted in the past decade and] to address the
treatment needs of most juvenile offenders” (p. 660; see
also Butts and Mears, 2001). For example:
8 Improving the Effectiveness of Juvenile Justice Programs: A New Perspective on Evidence-Based Practice