Family Centered Treatment,Juvenile Justice,and the Grand Challenge of Smart Decarceration

Abstract

Purpose:

Responding to social work’s grand challenge of smart decarceration, this study investigated whether Family Centered Treatment (FCT), a home-based service for juvenile court-involved youth, is more effective than group care (GC) in reducing recidivism. Outcomes are juvenile readjudication and commitment to placement, and adult conviction and sentence of incarceration.

Method:

Data were drawn from service provider and state administrative databases. Propensity score matching was used to create a sample of 1,246 FCT youth and 693 GC youth. Cox proportional hazard models estimated time to the four outcomes.

Results:

FCT participants had a significantly lower risk of adult conviction and adult incarceration relative to youth who received GC. The findings for juvenile outcomes were nonsignificant.

Discussion:

FCT shows more favorable adult criminal justice outcomes than GC, making it a potentially effective community-based service to support smart decarceration for juvenile court-involved youth.

Keywords

juvenile justice grand challenges delinquency offending Family Centered Treatment

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