This article compares two community alternatives to incarceration for chronic juvenile offenders.
The article compares the relative effectiveness of group care (GC) and multidimensional treatment foster care (MTFC) in terms of their impact on criminal offending, incarceration rates and program completion outcomes for 79 male adolescents who had histories of chronic and serious juvenile delinquency. Boys who participated in MTFC had significantly fewer criminal referrals and returned to live with relatives more often. Multiple regression analyses showed that assignment to a treatment condition predicted official and self-reported criminality in follow-up beyond other well-known predictors of chronic juvenile offending (e.g., age at first offense, number of previous offenses, age at referral). Developmentally appropriate, intensive and individualized family focused treatment was both feasible and superior to GC at any point in the developmental trajectory of antisocial youngsters. Notes, tables, figure, references