In this paper, the authors describe an intensive treatment program designed to treat serious and violent juvenile offenders that have proven unmanageable and treatment refractive in the traditional juvenile corrections settings and discuss the impact of the program on re-offense with particular attention given to serious violent crimes.
This study reports on the reduction in violent offending in a population of serious and violent juvenile offenders following an intensive institutional treatment program. Based in part on the Decompression model, the program attempts to be highly responsive to the issues that generate treatment resistance in these youth. The treatment group (N = 101) is compared to a similar group that was assessed but not treated (N = 147). All youth were sent to the program from a juvenile corrections institution where they had received the customary rehabilitation services. The results show a significant reduction in the prevalence of recidivism in the treated group after controlling for time at risk in the community and other covariates. The effects of non-random group assignment were reduced by including a propensity score analysis procedure in the outcome analysis. Untreated comparison youth appeared to be about twice as likely to commit violent offenses as were treated youth (44% vs. 23%). Similarly, treated youth had significantly lower hazard ratios for recidivism in the in the community than the comparison youth, even after accounting for the effects of non-random group assignment. Publisher Abstract Provided