We examined factors predicting severity of first offense, adjudication, incarceration, and repeat offenses for first time juvenile offenders. The sample consisted of 12,468 juveniles, all born in 1985. Each of the juveniles had been assigned to the South Carolina Juvenile Justice System (SCDJJ) on at least one occasion ("referral"). Analysis on…

Assessments and case plans that identify and build upon the strengths of clients, their families and communities are increasingly being used in many fields of practice, but are only beginning to be introduced in juvenile justice settings. This article describes a strengths-based assessment tool developed specifically for use in juvenile justice…

Very few existing empirical studies have explored the putative association between exposure to negative life events and psychological well-being in adults with developmental disabilities. In the present study, data on exposure to life events in the previous 12 months, adaptive behavior, problem behavior, and psychiatric problems were provided by…

A 40-hour education program covering the impact of crime on victims and their families was offered to sentenced offenders in a statewide prison system. Questionnaire responses from 339 males, ranging in age from 21-45 years, were examined. Results indicated that the program increased knowledge of victim rights, facts of victimization, and…

Mentally ill offenders represent a substantial proportion of jail and prison inmates. Despite the fact that confining mentally ill offenders can and often will exacerbate their mental illness, the quality of mental health services available to them remains poor and insufficient. Up to date, only a few cities and counties have considered a more…

STOP is a classroom-based program for adult shoplifters on probation intended to provide education and esteem-building treatment to facilitate productive self-improvement. This article reports findings from an evaluation of the program. Using a treatment group of shoplifters ordered to the program over a twelve-month period and a comparison group…

Evaluations of prison-based drug treatment programs typically focus on one or two dichotomous outcome variables related to recidivism. In contrast, this paper uses multiple measures of outcomes related to crime and drug use to examine the impact of prison treatment. Crime variables included self-report data of time to first illegal activity,…

The effects of "Problem Solving" (Taymans & Parese, 1998) are compared across small diversion and prison samples for men and women. A second program, "Pathfinders" (Hansen, 1993), was compared to the Problem Solving program among incarcerated women offenders to determine whether its focus upon empowerment and relationships enhanced the effects of…

Spurred by large increases in prison populations and other recent sentencing and correctional trends, the federal government has supported the development and implementation of Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiatives (SVORI) nationwide. While existing research demonstrates the effectiveness of the separate components of these programs…

This article explores the impact of romantic relationships on the reentry experiences of female ex-offenders. Although attachment to a prosocial spouse is an important social bond in the desistance of male offenders, male and female offenders have different offending and life experiences and are likely to draw romantic partners from very different…

The purpose of this study was to survey the opinions of female juvenile delinquents residing in a correctional center about the role of teachers and schools in serving students involved in violence. The term violence referred to behaviors and actions including threats or intentional harm to individuals or property (Van Hasselt & Hersen, 1999). A…

Objective: This study examined intermediate outcomes of a faith-based prisoner reentry program by assessing how client spirituality related to client- and program-level characteristics, investigating differences between completers and terminators, and examining how religious preference, religiosity/spirituality, religious salience, and…

This article attempts to enter the world of orphaned children by describing how their daily activities are organized in a social rehabilitation center for minor children, called Center N in this article. The article was based on materials of a study that resulted from participant observation between 1995 and 2002, reflecting a few aspects of the…

This study addresses three questions about the population of children and families served in the highest level of care in the child welfare system in New York State residential treatment centers (RTCs): (1) How prevalent are emotional and behavioral problems in the youth entering RTCs? (2) Has the proportion of youth with such problems increased…

This discussion paper, which addresses the abuse of children in residential establishments, is presented in outline form and includes comments and contributions from a wide range of professionals working in various settings. An introduction notes the reported increase in sexual abuse of children in institutions, a variety of proposed monitoring…