Improving the Effectiveness of Juvenile Justice Programs: A New

program, and thus had a direct role in ensuring that it
was delivered appropriately, the effects were larger. We
conclude, therefore, that fidelity—that is, delivery of the
program as intended to all recipients—is one of the keys
to program success, as indeed we might expect.
C. Effective Juvenile Justice
Programs: Implications for
Practice
The meta-analysis found no factors other than those
described above that were significantly associated with the
intervention effects on reoffense rates. Furthermore, those
factors, taken together, had a large enough relationship
with the program outcomes to account for a substantial
portion of the differences across programs in the
magnitude of their effects on recidivism. No doubt there are
many other features that relate to the success of particular
programs implemented in particular circumstances that
were not captured in this analysis. This small set of
rather broad factors, however, goes a long way toward
distinguishing the programs shown in the research studies
to produce large enough effects on recidivism to have
practical value in juvenile justice applications from those
with negligible or even negative effects.
It is a fortunate finding that so much of the effectiveness
of these programs can be accounted for by such a small
number of quite straightforward factors. This means
that close attention to these factors in the selection and
implementation of programs for juvenile offenders can
provide reasonable assurance that those programs will be
effective for reducing recidivism. Moreover, the extensive
research represented in the 548 controlled studies in the
meta-analysis makes these factors evidence based. Thus
one of the several defensible definitions of evidencebased
programs is that they match the profile on this
set of factors that the meta-analysis has shown to be
characteristic of the most effective programs. That profile,
to summarize, prescribes the following:
• Target high-risk cases. In particular, provide the most
effective programs possible to the highest risk cases.
Effective programs applied to low-risk cases will have
small effects so it is not cost-effective to provide more
than minimal, low-cost services to such cases.
• Use programs that take a therapeutic approach to
changing behavior by focusing on constructive personal
development. Minimize programs based on a control or
deterrence philosophy.
• Favor those program types that have shown the largest
effects in research studies when matching programs to
the needs and problem areas of the juveniles served.
• Implement the selected programs well. Monitor each
program to ensure that it is delivered as intended and
that all the juveniles assigned to it receive at least an
amount of service that corresponds to the average
reported in the evaluation research on that type of
program.
What the meta-analysis results tell us is that
programs that more closely match this profile
should be more effective.
What the meta-analysis results tell us is that programs
that more closely match this profile should be more
effective. This profile thus constitutes a simple set of best
practice guidelines for juvenile justice programs. It also
provides a basis for evaluating existing programs. Those
programs that most closely match this profile are better
programs in the sense that, on the basis of the available
research, we expect them to have better effects. Those
that fall short are not expected to be as effective, but the
parts of the profile on which they fall short can be used to
guide their improvement.
One approach to making the guidance for selecting,
implementing, and improving juvenile justice programs
more useful at a practical level is to incorporate it in an
instrument that allows each local program to be rated
according to how closely it matches the best practice
profile derived from the meta-analysis. Such an instrument
has been developed, field tested, and validated. It is
described in the next section.
28 Improving the Effectiveness of Juvenile Justice Programs: A New Perspective on Evidence-Based Practice