NCJ Number
173679
Journal
Journal of Offender Rehabilitation Volume: 27 Issue: 1/2 Dated: 1998 Pages: 199-208
Date Published
1998
Length
10 pages
Annotation
This article describes the application to juvenile offenders of a cognitive approach to anger management.
Abstract
The model, STOP, described in this article is a six-session group intervention used with juvenile offenders with histories of violent criminal referrals to the juvenile court. The article assesses STOP's effectiveness in reducing referrals in general, and violent referrals to the court system. A comparison group from the same population was matched in age and gender and approximated in number of violent referrals. The results were evaluated using a student T-test and the effect of the treatment model STOP was not statistically significant. The article concludes that the offenders in the group were from a sample of the most severe cases involved in the court. Given the limited sample size of 15 per group, further use of this model with other samples may provide more meaningful data for determining effect size. Additional research is needed to determine whether there is preventative benefit in providing anger management programs for all juvenile offenders, and whether the focus should be on the few who are committing the worst crimes, or on the many who are involved in less destructive behaviors, yet challenge societal limits. Table, references