Practice Profile: Juvenile Reentry Programs

Evidence Rating for Outcomes

Crime & Delinquency | Multiple crime/offense types

Date: This profile was posted on January 04, 2016

This practice consists of reintegrative programs and services designed to prepare juveniles, who were placed out of their homes, for reentry into the community. The overall goal is to reduce the recidivism rate of juveniles released from out-of-home placements. The practice is rated Promising. There was a statistically significant decrease in the recidivism rates of juveniles who participated in the reentry programs, compared with juveniles in the comparison groups.

Practice Goals

Juvenile reentry (previously referred to as juvenile aftercare) consists of reintegrative services designed to prepare juveniles who have been convicted of an offense, who were placed out of their homes, to enter back into the community. The overall goal of reentry programs is to reduce the recidivism rates of juveniles who have been convicted of an offense.

Practice Activities

Reentry programs are for juveniles who serve time in out-of-home placements following adjudication. Out-of-home placements include detention, secure confinement, wilderness or boot camps, group homes, and residential treatment. The programs generally start while the youth are detained, continue through their transition into the community, and are maintained during the supervision period in the community (Weaver and Campbell 2015). Reentry requires collaboration between the out-of-home placement facility and the community to ensure delivery of services and supervision. It may also involve partnerships between public and private organizations to expand the overall capacity of youth services.

There are a variety of reentry programs with different components. Generally, reentry intervention strategies concentrate on changing individual behavior, thereby preventing further delinquency. For example, a reentry program may be curriculum-based with sessions that cover various coping skills, or a program that focuses on individual therapy while the juvenile is in placement and then transitions to family-based therapy after release.

Reentry programs differ from the traditional juvenile justice model. For instance, youths in reentry programs receive services and supervision as they transition into the community and while they are under supervision in the community. Conversely, in the traditional juvenile justice system, juveniles are supervised for a certain amount of time and are not guaranteed services (Development Services Group, Inc. 2017; Weaver and Campbell 2015).

Practice Theory

Out-of-home placements disrupt a juvenile’s life; the youth is physically removed from family, school, and the wider community. As a result, he or she may lose the support that family and friends can provide. Moreover, this transition is even more difficult for juveniles who are already experiencing the transition from adolescence to adulthood. Overall, juvenile reentry programs aim to overcome these challenges by offering reintegrative services in the hope of reducing recidivism (James et al. 2013; Development Services Group, Inc. 2017).

Meta-Analysis Snapshot
	Literature Coverage Dates	Number of Studies	Number of Study Participants
Meta Analysis 1	1993-2012	10	0

Meta Analysis 1

Bouchard and Wong (2018) conducted a meta-analysis to determine the effect of aftercare or reentry programs on juvenile recidivism. Studies that were included in the review had to primarily target juveniles between the ages of 12 and 18 years. Studies had to have been published in English between January 1, 1990, and April 21, 2015. Studies also had to be rigorous or moderately rigorous control group designs (i.e., randomized controlled trials and quasi-experimental designs) in which participants were matched on at least some variables with a minimum sample of 20 participants in both the treatment and control groups. In addition, each study had to have included at least one individual-level outcome measure of crime, and the reported outcomes had to have also provided sufficient data to permit that computation of an effect size. Finally, the program had to be delivered, at least partially, in a non-closed setting in the community (i.e., school, youth custody, hospital) in Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, or a Western European country.

Conversely, studies were excluded if 1) the primary intervention was “traditional” supervision (i.e., standard probation); 2) the program studied targeted specific persons such as those who commit domestic violence, those with serious mental health problems, substance users, people convicted of sex offenses, and known gang members; 3) the outcomes exclusively focused on measures of substance use (tobacco, alcohol, illicit substances); or 4) there were no outcome measures for the youth who participated in the program.

There were two outcomes of interest: alleged offenses (arrests, charges, referrals, court/police contacts) and convicted offenses (convictions, sustained petitions, adjudications, incarceration). The distinction between the outcomes was meant to differentiate between alleged criminal acts and convicted criminal acts. For this CrimeSolutions review, the outcome of interest was alleged offenses.

A comprehensive search of 20 electronic databases and hand-searches for grey literature was conducted. A total of 10 studies that examined the impact of reentry or aftercare programs were identified for inclusion. The 10 studies provided a total of 15 independent program sites (because some studies included more than one program), which contributed to 24 effect sizes. Of the 15 independent program sites, 13 sites looked at alleged offenses. The 13 sites included 5 randomized controlled trials, 2 quasi-experimental designs with matched comparison groups, and 6 quasi-experimental designs with weakly matched comparison groups. Six studies included only male juveniles, while 7 studies included a mix of male and female juveniles. Three studies included whites/mixed races, while 10 studies were predominately minority.

Effect sizes were calculated as odds ratios for dichotomous outcome data. Standardized mean differences were used in calculating effect sizes for continuous data, with the Cox logit transformation applied to enable commensurability with the odds ratios. A fixed-effects model was used to analyze data.