TY - JOUR
T1 - Delinquency Best Treatments
T2 - How to Divert Youths from Violence While Saving Lives and Detention Costs
AU - Zagar, Robert John
AU - Grove, William M.
AU - Busch, Kenneth G.
PY - 2013
Y1 - 2013
N2 - Youth development and violence prevention are two sides of the same public policy. The focus of much theoretical and empirical effort is identifying delinquency risks and intervening. Given the great costs of homicide and the historically high nationwide prison population, new policies must address increasing violence and rising expenses. Treatments of prenatal care, home visitation, bullying prevention, alcohol-substance abuse education, alternative thinking promotion, mentoring, life skills training, rewards for graduation and employment, functional family and multi-systemic therapy, and multi-dimensional foster care are effective, because they ameliorate age-specific risks for delinquency. At present, these interventions only yield a 10-40% diversion from crime however. Returns on investment (ROIs) vary from $1 to $98. Targeting empirical treatments to those determined to be most at risk, based on statistical models or actuarial testing, and using electronic surveillance for non-violent prisoners significantly diverted youth from violence, improving ROI, while simultaneously saving costs.
AB - Youth development and violence prevention are two sides of the same public policy. The focus of much theoretical and empirical effort is identifying delinquency risks and intervening. Given the great costs of homicide and the historically high nationwide prison population, new policies must address increasing violence and rising expenses. Treatments of prenatal care, home visitation, bullying prevention, alcohol-substance abuse education, alternative thinking promotion, mentoring, life skills training, rewards for graduation and employment, functional family and multi-systemic therapy, and multi-dimensional foster care are effective, because they ameliorate age-specific risks for delinquency. At present, these interventions only yield a 10-40% diversion from crime however. Returns on investment (ROIs) vary from $1 to $98. Targeting empirical treatments to those determined to be most at risk, based on statistical models or actuarial testing, and using electronic surveillance for non-violent prisoners significantly diverted youth from violence, improving ROI, while simultaneously saving costs.
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U2 - 10.1002/bsl.2062
DO - 10.1002/bsl.2062
M3 - Article
C2 - 23733324
AN - SCOPUS:84878731506
SN - 0735-3936
VL - 31
SP - 381
EP - 396
JO - Behavioral Sciences and the Law
JF - Behavioral Sciences and the Law
IS - 3
ER -