Improving the Effectiveness of Juvenile Justice Programs: A New

Research that tells us what works to address a particular
behavior problem, however, is only a beginning point.
Implementing those programs in an existing service
system, while retaining their effectiveness, is yet another
matter. At present, we know relatively little about the
effects of taking evidence-based programs to scale
in public health and related areas of mental health,
education, welfare, and criminal justice. Nor do we know
a great deal about how to do so in a way that attains the
same positive outcomes observed in the research studies.
Efforts to implement programs proven in research on a
larger scale in other domains have, at best, produced
uneven results.
For example, there have been major shortcomings in
achieving high fidelity with evidence-based substance
abuse and violence prevention programs in community
settings (Fagan et al., 2008). “Delivering interventions in a
manner congruent with the theory, content, and methods
of delivery specified by program developers is important,
yet communities often fail to achieve implementation
fidelity outside of efficacy trials” (p. 257). In schools, two
national assessments found poor implementation for many
delinquency and violence prevention programs that the
schools attempted to adopt (Gottfredson and Gottfredson,
2002; Hallfors and Godette, 2002).
The mental health field has also been challenged to
deliver effective, evidence-based programs dating back to
Knitzer’s (1982) call for a system of care (SOC). Knitzer and
Cooper (2006) recently assessed progress in developing
systems of care at the 20-year mark. Their assessment is
that although system-level effects with SOCs have been
good, individual outcomes have not. Notable systemlevel
effects include reduced reliance on residential
placements and hospitalizations and increased use of
intensive community-based services. Yet “a recent study
demonstrated consistent adherence to SOC principles in
initiative sites but no improvements in children’s outcomes
and no advantage in improved outcomes compared with
non-SOC sites using services that embodied similar
principles” (Knitzer and Cooper, 2006, p. 671). These
observers also note that evidence-based care implemented
in community-based settings has produced less promising
effects than were found in the supporting research studies.
“Early data show that evidence-based treatments are being
applied in the field with varying degrees of consistency and
fidelity. Familiarity with empirically supported practices
varies, but even where practitioners received on-the-job
training, systematic implementation was not assured” (pp.
673–74).
C. Doubts about Whether Many
Programs Used in Practice Are
Actually Effective
A number of widely recognized prevention
or intervention programs intended to reduce
antisocial or illegal behavior have proven to be
ineffective in well-designed studies.
A number of widely recognized prevention or intervention
programs intended to reduce antisocial or illegal behavior
have proven to be ineffective in well-designed studies.
Although it is perhaps the most widely recognized of
all delinquency prevention programs, the Drug Abuse
Resistance Education program (D.A.R.E.) is not effective
(Rosenbaum, 2007). D.A.R.E. is one of the most poignant
examples of a program initially presumed to be effective
that continued to be used despite strong empirical
evidence to the contrary. More than 30 evaluations were
made of D.A.R.E., yet it operated for 25 years before its
negative results were accepted.
Prison visitation programs are another example of an
initially attractive program that was later found to be
ineffective. This approach was invented during the
moral panic over juvenile delinquency in the late 1970s
(Finckenauer and Gavin, 1999) when a group of inmates
at New Jersey’s Rahway State Prison, known as the
Lifers’ Group, created what later became known around
the world as the Scared Straight program. Also known as
“juvenile awareness,” the program brought young minor
offenders into the prison and subjected them to shock
therapy consisting of threats, intimidation, and aggressive
persuasion techniques. The idea was to literally scare
them away from delinquency, to scare them straight.
Many writers and producers for the print and broadcast
media were enamored of it because of its simplicity and
intuitive appeal. As many as 12,500 youth visited the
Lifers each year. However, as Finckenauer and Gavin
Improving the Effectiveness of Juvenile Justice Programs: A New Perspective on Evidence-Based Practice
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