Chapter 5

Ineffective Tertiary Programs And Strategies

Several popular juvenile justice approaches to preventing further criminal behavior in delinquent youths have been shown to be consistently ineffective: specifically, boot camps, residential programs, milieu treatment, behavioral token programs, and waivers to adult court.

Boot Camps

Perhaps the most well known of these approaches, boot camps for delinquent youths are modeled after military basic training, with a primary focus on discipline. Compared to traditional forms of incarceration, boot camps produced no significant effects on recidivism in three out of four evaluations and trends toward increased recidivism in two. The fourth evaluation showed significant harmful effects on youths, with a significant increase in recidivism.

Boot camps typically focus very narrowly on physical discipline, a highly specific personal skill, rather than a broader range of skills and competencies, such as those addressed by effective programs. Boot camps are also a setting in which youths are exposed to other delinquent youths, who can act as models and positively reinforce delinquent behavior (Dishion et al., 1994).

Residential Programs

Residential programs, interventions that take place in psychiatric or correctional institutions, also show little promise of reducing subsequent crime and violence in delinquent youths. While some residential programs appear to have positive effects on youths as long as they remain in the institutional setting, research demonstrates consistently that these effects diminish once young people leave. Evaluations of two residential programs showed that participating youths were actually more likely to be rearrested and to report they had committed serious offenses during follow-up. In both studies, the comparison group consisted of youths assigned to regular training schools.

Two general approaches that are popular in residential settings are milieu treatment and behavioral token programs. Both strategies aim to change the organizational structures of residential programs. The milieu treatment approach is characterized by resident involvement in decision making and day-to-day interaction for psychotherapeutic discussion. While this approach shows some positive effects when individual responsibility is stressed, the more common strategy of group decision making has shown no positive effect on recidivism after release. Moreover, Lipsey and Wilson’s meta-analysis shows that milieu therapy is one of the least effective approaches to preventing recidivism in serious juvenile offenders (Table 5–1).

In behavioral token programs, youths are rewarded for conforming to rules, exhibiting prosocial behavior, and not exhibiting antisocial or violent behavior. Like some other residential approaches, behavioral token programs can have positive effects on targeted behaviors while youths are institutionalized. However, when this strategy is used alone, any such effects disappear when youths leave the program.

Waivers to Adult Court

Another popular justice system approach to deterring youth violence, waivers to adult court, can have particularly harmful effects on delinquent youths. The idea behind this approach, "adult time for adult crime," was widely accepted into practice in the 1990s, when youth violence escalated dramatically. Evaluations of these programs suggest that they increase future criminal behavior rather than deter it, as advocates of this approach had hoped. Moreover, placing youths in adult criminal institutions exposes them to harm. Results from a series of reports indicate that young people placed in adult correctional institutions, compared to those placed in institutions designed for youths, are eight times as likely to commit suicide, five times as likely to be sexually assaulted, twice as likely to be beaten by staff, and 50 percent as likely to be attacked with a weapon (Bishop, 2000; Bishop & Frazier, 2000; Fagan et al., 1989; Flaherty, 1980).

Counseling

Several counseling, therapy, and social work approaches to treating delinquent youths have also been shown to be ineffective in the review literature, a finding that is consistent with the results of Lipsey’s meta-analyses (Table 5–1). One "mainstay" (Tolan & Guerra, 1994, p. 15) of the juvenile justice system’s toolkit against youth violence, social casework, combines individual psychotherapy or counseling with close supervision of youths and coordination of social services. Even when implemented carefully and comprehensively, programs that use this approach have failed to demonstrate any positive effects on recidivism. In fact, one long-term follow-up of delinquent youths treated in this setting shows several significant negative effects, including increases in alcoholism, unemployment, marital difficulties, and premature death (McCord, 1978).

Meta-analyses also demonstrate that individual counseling can be one of the least effective prevention approaches for delinquent youths. However, the effects of this strategy appear to depend largely on the population. Though relatively ineffective for general delinquency and only marginally effective for institutionalized seriously delinquent youths, individual counseling emerged as one of the most effective intervention approaches for noninstitutionalized seriously delinquent youths in Lipsey’s studies (Table 5–1). The reason for this difference is unclear, but it illustrates the importance of program characteristics other than content, particularly the importance of matching the program to the appropriate target population. A meta-analysis by Andrews and colleagues (1990) confirms this finding, demonstrating that appropriate treatment can deter reoffending, whereas interventions that are poorly matched to the populations served can have no effect or a negative effect.

Shock Programs

One tertiary youth violence prevention intervention meets the scientific criteria established above for Does Not Work: Scared Straight. Scared Straight is an example of a shock probation or parole program in which brief encounters with inmates describing the brutality of prison life or short-term incarceration in prisons or jails is expected to shock, or deter, youths from committing crimes. Numerous studies of Scared Straight have demonstrated that the program does not deter future criminal activities. In some studies, rearrest rates were similar between controls and youths who participated in Scared Straight. In others, youths exposed to Scared Straight actually had higher rates of rearrest than youths not involved in this intervention. Studies of other shock probation programs have shown similar effects. (For more information on Scared Straight and similar shock probation interventions, see Boudouris & Turnbull, 1985; Buckner & Chesney-Lind, 1983; Finckenauer, 1982; Lewis, 1983; Sherman et al., 1997; Vito, 1984; Vito & Allen, 1981.)