NCJ Number
152016
Date Published
1994
Length
134 pages
Annotation
This book describes the components and evaluation findings for a gang-intervention program called Aggression Replacement Training (ART), which was selected for the National Model Program Award by the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
Abstract
ART is an intervention that aims to influence juveniles simultaneously along three different but complementary channels: cognitive (moral education), affective (anger control), and behavioral (skillstreaming). Skillstreaming identifies psychological skill deficiencies in social interactions and teaches new and positive skills through modeling, role-playing, performance feedback, and transfer of training. A reduction in arrest rates, as well as other evaluation results, support the success of a multiyear project that is using the ART intervention approach with aggressive juvenile gangs in New York City. Working with gangs as a unit, the ART project not only taught gang members anger control and other skills, but also had a measure of success in turning the gang into a prosocial rather than an antisocial group. In addition to describing ART and its results, this book also provides an introduction to the history of gangs, current gang demographics, gang aggression and its etiology, and a review and critique of the various types of gang interventions that have been and are being tried. 216 references, tables, and subject and author indexes