Effective Use of the Large Body of Research on the Effectiveness of Programs for Juvenile Offenders and the Failure of the Model Programs Approach

• Date: 01 February 2018
• Published date: 01 February 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12345

POLICY ESSAY

TREATMENT QUALITY AND JUVENILE

RECIDIVISM

Effective Use of the Large Body of Research

on the Effectiveness of Programs for Juvenile

Offenders and the Failure of the Model

Programs Approach

Mark W.Lipsey

Vanderbilt University

Michael Baglivio, Kevin Wolff, Katherine Jackowski, Gabrielle Chapman, Mark

Greenwald, and Katherine Gomez (2018, this issue) report the relationship

of ratings of the quality of service delivery for 56 residential programs for

juvenile offenders in Florida to the subsequent recidivism of the youth who participated in

those programs. Quality of service delivery is one of the four components of the Standard-

ized Program Evaluation Protocol (SPEPTM), a scheme for assessing the expected effects

of therapeutic juvenile justice programs on recidivism. The other SPEPTM components

include the generic program type (cognitive-behavioral therapy, family therapy, individ-

ual counseling, etc.), the amount of service provided (duration and contact hours), and

the recidivism risk of the youth served. The focus on these factors, how each is defined,

and the associated rating and weighting scheme are based on the program features found

to be associated most strongly with recidivism reductions in a meta-analysis of 548 con-

trolled studies of interventions with juvenile offenders (Howell and Lipsey, 2012; Lipsey,

2009).

The SPEPTM allows for a certain amount of flexibility and local tailoring of the data

sources that provide input for the ratings and the data elements incorporated into those

ratings. The recidivism risk rating, for instance, is based on scores from a validated risk

assessment instrument, but no particular instrument is specified and this rating is adapted

to whatever eligible assessment is in use by a juvenile justice system. Similarly,even though

the SPEPTM specifications for the quality of service delivery rating address the treatment

Direct correspondence to Mark Lipsey, Peabody Research Institute, Vanderbilt University, 230 Appleton Place,

PMB 181, Nashville, TN 37203-5721 (e-mail: mark.lipsey@vanderbilt.edu).

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12345 C2018 American Society of Criminology 189

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 17 rIssue 1