Improving the Effectiveness of Juvenile Justice Programs: A New

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• Programs aimed at deterrence through fear of the consequences of bad behavior (e.g., prison visitation programs such as Scared Straight) • Programs emphasizing surveillance to detect bad behavior (e.g., intensive probation or parole supervision) A contrasting philosophy involves attempts to bring about behavior change by facilitating personal development through improved skills, relationships, insight, and the like. This therapeutic philosophy included the following categories of programs: • Restorative (e.g., restitution, victim-offender mediation) • Skill building (e.g., cognitive-behavioral techniques, social skills, academic and vocational skill building) • Counseling (e.g., individual, group, family; mentoring) • Multiple coordinated services (e.g., case management and service brokering) When the mean effects on reoffense rates were compared for the programs associated with these two broad approaches, the programs with a therapeutic philosophy were notably more effective than those with a control philosophy. Figure 1 shows the effects for the program categories within each of these philosophies. The zero (0) point indicates no program effect while positive values represent reductions in recidivism and negative values represent increases in recidivism. As can be seen, the programs in two of the control categories on average had negative effects. 3 The third category, programs relying mainly on surveillance, showed positive effects, but smaller ones than for any of the therapeutic program categories. This category includes mainly intensive probation programs, which often have significant counseling components by probation officers. They may thus represent a mix of control and therapeutic strategies. 3 All estimates of the mean reoffense effect sizes have been adjusted for methodological differences between the studies. Figure 1. Mean recidivism effects for the program categories representing control and therapeutic philosophies Discipline Deterrence Surveillance Restorative Skill building Counseling Multiple services -10 -5 0 5 10 15 % Recidivism Reduction from .50 Baseline 24 Improving the Effectiveness of Juvenile Justice Programs: A New Perspective on Evidence-Based Practice
For purposes of guiding juvenile justice systems toward effective programs, the advice that follows from this portion of the meta-analysis is straightforward. To optimize the effects on recidivism and other outcomes, programs from the therapeutic categories should be favored and those from the control categories should be avoided as much as possible. 3. Generic Program Types and Embedded Model Programs Within each of the program categories identified above as representing the control and therapeutic philosophies, programs were classified into subcategories according to their generic program type. For example, in the subcategory of counseling programs within the therapeutic philosophy, different kinds of counseling can be distinguished that vary in their effects on reoffense rates. Figure 2 shows the mean effects for the major generic types of counseling. Though they all show positive effects, the largest effects appeared for group counseling and mentoring programs. Similar variation across the generic program types was seen in the other therapeutic program categories. Behind counseling, the next largest category was skill-building programs (figure 1). Figure 3 shows that all the program types in the skill-building category also had positive effects, but behavioral programs (e.g., behavior contracting) and cognitive-behavioral programs had the largest mean effects. Embedded within many of these generic program types are specific brand-name model programs that have been included in the evaluation research covered in the meta-analysis. These generally show positive effects on recidivism, as we would expect. However, they do not necessarily show notably better effects than the no-name programs of the same type. For example, Functional Family Therapy (FFT) and Multisystemic Therapy (MST) are both included in the generic program type labeled “family counseling.” Figure 4 shows the distribution of statistical effect sizes found in evaluation studies of 29 family counseling programs. The larger effect sizes on the righthand side of this distribution describe the most positive Figure 2. Mean recidivism effects for the generic program types within the counseling category Individual Mentoring Family Family crisis Group Peer Mixed Mixed w/referrals 0 5 10 15 20 25 % Recidivism Reduction from .50 Baseline Improving the Effectiveness of Juvenile Justice Programs: A New Perspective on Evidence-Based Practice 25
Page 1 and 2: Improving the Effectiveness of Juve
Page 5 and 6: Contents Preface...................
Page 7 and 8: Preface As a society we want our ch
Page 9 and 10: The SPEP approach can be used as an
Page 11 and 12: I. Introduction Juvenile justice sy
Page 13 and 14: II. The Cyclic History of Criminal
Page 15 and 16: • Some legislation aimed at impro
Page 17 and 18: III. Prevention and Intervention Pr
Page 19 and 20: Research that tells us what works t
Page 21 and 22: driven the evidence-based practice
Page 23 and 24: IV. Evidence-Based Practice: More T
Page 25 and 26: that are most available may be cost
Page 27 and 28: V. Meta-analysis of Research on the
Page 29: key question for this meta-analysis
Page 33 and 34: Figure 4. Effect sizes for family c
Page 35 and 36: VI. The SPEP: Evidence-Based Practi
Page 37 and 38: Youth risk level. Risk level is ass
Page 39 and 40: DJJDP already had excellent offende
Page 41 and 42: • Administrators may have myriad
Page 43 and 44: VII. Integrating Evidence-Based Pra
Page 45 and 46: 2. Intervention and Graduated Sanct
Page 47 and 48: offenders among second-time offende
Page 49 and 50: settings and are stepped down to lo
Page 51 and 52: Classification System (Office of St
Page 53 and 54: VIII. Practical and Policy Consider
Page 55 and 56: the federal level, the proposed You
Page 57 and 58: IX. Recommendations A. To Juvenile
Page 59 and 60: X. Conclusion This paper has presen
Page 61 and 62: References Adams, K. (2007). Abolis
Page 63 and 64: Grove, W. M., and Meehl, P. E. (199
Page 65 and 66: Paulson, R., Fixsen, D., and Friedm

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