NCJ Number
80035
Date Published
1981
Length
246 pages
Annotation
This paper is intended to support planners, grantmakers, program operators, consultants, trainers, and evaluators in the development, design, implementation, and evaluation of delinquency prevention programs.
Abstract
The paper's main purpose is to suggest how delinquency prevention can be a distinct and accountable type of programming and, furthermore, to provide grounds for some of the choices that will be made in design and implementation. A second main purpose is to advance delinquency prevention practice, not merely to reflect it. A critical review of contemporary delinquency theory and research concludes that delinquency prevention programs can be categorized according to their effectiveness, the justification of their theories, their implementation, and their benefits or outcome. A number of programs are rejected outright as demonstrably ineffective or unpromising for delinquency prevention. Subsequent chapters concentrate on the remaining options of program possibilities. Delinquency prevention is considered as efforts towards selective organizational change undertaken to alter organizational contributors to delinquency and to strengthen organizational supports for law-abiding behavior. In addition, a form of the self-contained service program is proposed that can be implemented on a small scale over a short term, while allowing groundwork to be laid and methods to be learned for application on the larger scale needed for delinquency prevention. Finally, some issues of implementation for the recommended programs are discussed, with emphasis on anticipated problems and tactics for engaging key actors in organizational change. Footnotes, an index, and over 200 references are provided. (Author summary modified)