Delincuentes_violentos

1. The violent juvenile offenders are the most active subgroup in terms of frequency and seriousness of the offenses committed.

In 1995, Thornberry, Huizinga and Loeber reported results from the Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency, which consists of three well co-ordinated longitudinal research projects: the Denver Youth Survey, the Pittsburgh Youth Study and the Rochester Youth Development Study. In total these three projects involved 4,500 inner-city youths, ranging in age, at the beginning of data collection, from 7 to 15 years old.

Results of Denver and Rochester studies show that chronic violent offenders constituted only a little part of the adolescent sample, however, they committed the most part of all the violent offenses reported (table 1).

	Denver Youth Survey	Rochester Youth Development Study
Violents and chronics	14 % of offenders They committed 82 % of all the violent offenses reported in Denver	15 % of offenders They committed 75% of all the violent offenses reported in Rochester
Violenta no chronics	36 % of offenders They committed 18 % of all the violent offenses reported in Denver.	43 % of offenders They committed 25 % of all the violent offenses reported in Rochester.
No violents	49 % of offenders	42 % of offenders

Data from the Rochester and Denver studies indicated the criminal versatility of these violent offenders i.e. they commit a wide array of other offenses including property crimes, public disorder, status offenses and drug sales. In conclusion the authors stated “If we do not successfully reach this small group, we will leave the vast majority of the violence problem untouched” (p. 220).

Similar conclusions can be drawn from many other studies i.e. that those juveniles responsible for violent offenses are at high risk of becoming chronic offenders, committing many types of offense and to receive an institutional sentence. For example, in the classic Cambridge (UK) study, 55 of the 65 males with a conviction for violence also received a conviction for a non-violent crime. To a large extent, the frequent offenders were versatile and sooner or later committed a violent offense. The probability of committing a violent offense increased steadily with the number of offenses committed, from 18% of one-time offenders to 82% of those with 12 or more convictions (Farrington in press, a).

Farrington stressed the importance of targeting chronic offenders for crime prevention and treatment; given that many violent juvenile offenders are also chronic/versatile offenders that receive institutionalised sentences, the effectiveness of the interventions becomes a critical issue.

2. The institutionalization is a common response made by the juvenile justice system, and due to the fact that this trend is far from decrease, it is very necessary to analyze the ‘state of the art’ of the intervention in this setting.

3. Results of Meta-analysis about effectiveness of treatment of delinquents had shown that treatment is better option than non – treatment. Although the comparison between control and treatment groups concerning their outcomes of recidivism is small, it is positive.

Authors such as Lipsey and Wilson ( 1998) have highlighted the paucity of systematic reviews of interventions with different types of offenders, especially those most serious offenders who might be presumed among the most resistant to treatment.

An underlying problem is the dearth of primary intervention research conducted specifically with serious juvenile offenders, most of the samples are mixed including less serious offenders and not separately identified and analyzed. In an attempt to clarify the situation in serious and violent juvenile offenders, Lipsey and Wilson (1998) conducted a meta-analysis (not in the context of a systematic review) focusing on two basic questions:

Does the evidence indicate that intervention programs generally are capable of reducing the reoffending rates for serious delinquents? And if so, what types of programs are most effective?

Lipsey and Wilson included 200 experimental or quasi-experimental studies (published between 1950 and 1995) that involved serious juvenile offenders to some degree (more stringent inclusion criteria produced a very small number of studies). The juveniles finally selected were those “reported to be adjudicated delinquents. In addition, most, or all, of the juveniles had a record of prior offenses and those offenses involved person or property crimes, or an aggregate of all offenses, but not primarily substance abuse, status offenses or traffic offenses” (p. 315). The juvenile samples were largely male and with an average age of 14 to 17 years old. Lipsey y Wilson cateogorized the studies into non-institutionalized (N=117), and institutionalized (N=83).

With non-institutionalized juveniles, the most effective interventions were a group composed of interpersonal skills training, individual counselling and behavioural programs. While the less effective interventions were wilderness/challenge programs, early release from probation or parole, deterrence programs (shock incarceration), and vocational programs.

With institutionalized juveniles again the most successful intervention was interpersonal skills training, followed by the teaching family home program (Achievement Place project). The least effective interventions were wilderness/challenge programs, drug abstinence; employment related programs and milieu therapy.

Although Lipsey and Wilson categorized interventions as either institutional or non-institutional, they included in the institutionalized category many programs that were, in fact, residential community-based interventions, such as Achievement Place.

In spite of these results, it remains to be demonstrated what specific strategies are really promising in rehabilitating incarcerated juvenile offenders, and, as a subgroup, the serious incarcerated juvenile offender. Presently, we have some preliminary results which suggest that the efforts directed at juveniles are more promising that the ones directed at adults, in addition community treatment is more effective than treatment in prison or residential facilities (see Leschied, Bernfeld & Farrington, 2001; McGuire, 2001). The effectiveness of secure corrections treatment, remains to be demonstrated, and this includes traditional juvenile prison, borstal and training schools as well as modern small units for some kinds of offenders (with individualised treatment as a philosophy in the program intervention).

Finally, preliminary data suggest that some violent offenders are more amenable to treatment than chronic property offenders (Redondo, Sánchez-Meca and Garrido, 1999). These data, however, are far from conclusive, especially in Europe, in part as a result of the paucity of programmes that can be averaged to extract different conclusions in terms of the moderator variables.

Redondo et al. (1997), in the first European meta-analysis study reported that in terms of crime typology, the most effective interventions (criterion: general improvement) were obtained with offenders against persons (r = .419), and the least with sexual offenders (r = .085), and that juvenile centres (r = .257) and juvenile prisons (r = .193), were more effective than adult prisons (r = .119). Behavioural (r = .279) and cognitive-behavioural programmes (r = .273) were most effective and retribution programmes (r = .039) the least. Concerning just the outcome of recidivism, the mean effect size (ES) was r = .12.

In a second systematic review, Redondo, Sánchez-Meca and Garrido (1999) analysed the specific influence of 32 European treatment programmes (applied during the eighties) on recidivism. As before, important findings included 1) behavioural and cognitive-behavioural programmes were the most effective, 2) treatments were more successful with juvenile offenders. The reason for this probably reflected the use of most successful techniques (behavioural and cognitive-behavioural) with juveniles; and 3) the greatest effectiveness was achieved with violent offenders (not sex offenders), which seems to confirm the risk principle (Andrews et al., 1990).

In an update of the European meta-analysis, Redondo, Sánchez-Meca and Garrido (2002), found that the largest effect sizes were obtained with adolescents (r₊ = 0.35), although all of the age categories achieved significant positive results.

Why is important to review the treatment of violent juvenile offenders that are in secure corrections?