EARLY INTERVENTION TO PREVENT JUVENILE CRIME

Early Intervention-The Most Effective Way to Prevent Juvenile Crime

Early Intervention-The Most Effective Way to Prevent Juvenile Crime

Introduction

If a program prevents the first delinquent act, the social harm associated with subsequent delinquency can be avoided. To deliver on this promise, however, prevention programs must be effective and targeted to those most likely to offend. Evaluation research has challenged the effectiveness of prevention efforts, prompting one careful reviewer to conclude: "Prevention projects don't work and they waste money, violate the rights of juveniles and their families, inspire bizarre suggestions and programs, and fail to affect the known correlates of urban delinquency . . . (Phillips, 1995) it is time to get out of the business of attempting to prevent delinquency". In contrast to this appraisal, another careful examination concludes that such efforts "show promise in their potential for helping participants and having positive spillover effects for other members of society" (Phillips, 1995).

Discussion

The differences in these assessments reflect the different programs, outcomes, and evaluation procedures examined. This entry critically examines prevention efforts and their evaluation, and identifies the most promising new approaches. Early attempts, such as the 1825 opening of the New York House of Refuge and sixteenth-century British Poor Laws, aimed to prevent delinquency by housing a population one would today characterize as "at-risk youth" (Phillips, 1995). Since this time alternative approaches have emerged, including individualized treatment, early childhood intervention, and programs targeting adolescents, low-income communities, and youths in the juvenile justice system.

In the early 1900s delinquency prevention was based on individualized case-by-case treatment. Progressive Era reformers launched well meaning but vague efforts that were ultimately undercut by administrators. Individualized treatment was predicated on early identification, using instruments such as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, the Glueck Social Prediction Table, and reports of teachers, police officers, and playground workers to identify future delinquents. These scales tended to "overpredict" delinquency, misclassifying many youths (Barry, 2001). This is especially problematic since empirical evidence suggests that intervention treatment for high-risk youths may result in harmful consequences. Although predictive accuracy has improved over the years, the high "false positive" rate of the assessment tools and the heterogeneous nature of delinquency continue to impede individualized prevention efforts.

Since the 1980s, Multisystemic Therapy (MST) has revived individualized approaches, using treatment teams to address problems in each of the key settings in which the youth is embedded (Barry, 2001). MST interventions include family treatment to help parents monitor and discipline their children, peer interventions to remove them from deviant peers, and school and vocational interventions to advance their future potential. Some evaluations show reduced arrest rates among MST participants relative to those receiving other services or no treatment.

In the 1960s, the Perry Preschool program combined weekly home visits by teachers with early education for disadvantaged African American children. Evaluations showed that program benefits (such as increased tax revenues and reduced social service and criminal justice expenditures) significantly outweighed program costs. Students enrolled in the program were 12 percent less likely to be arrested than the control ...