NCJ Number
137472
Date Published
1991
Length
307 pages
Annotation
These detailed interviews with 20 incarcerated youths ages 14-17 focus on their families, attitudes, and involvement in delinquency and drug abuse and are used as the basis for proposals for preventing crime in cost-effective, politically feasible ways that focus on strengthening families, developing neighborhoods, and employing youth.
Abstract
The delinquent youths include drug dealers, gang members, drug users, thieves, and others and include a mixture of white, black, and Hispanic youth. Some are from urban ghettos; others, from lower-middle-class or middle-class families. Their experiences demonstrate the need for comprehensive family support programs for families with multiple problems; for community health centers and other outreach services for adolescents; and for alternative residential and nonresidential programs that use the opportunity model to help youth grow toward increasing competence, responsibility, autonomy, and capacity to care. The opportunity model should also be used for the small number of youths who require detention.