Posted on Sun, Oct. 17, 2004
BEHAVIOR
'Scare tactics' fail to halt teen violence
A panel of experts concluded that counseling, not boot camps and other 'tough love' programs, showed success in preventing teen violence.
WASHINGTON - (AP) -- Boot camps and other ''get tough'' programs for adolescents do not prevent criminal behavior, as intended, and may make the problem even worse, an expert panel has concluded.
Further, laws transferring juveniles into the adult court system lead these teens to commit more violence and at the same time, there is no proof they deter others from committing crime, the panel said. More promising, it said, are programs that offer intensive counseling for families and young people at risk.
The 13-member panel of experts, convened by the National Institutes of Health, reviewed the available scientific evidence to look for consensus on causes of youth violence and ways to prevent it.
' `Scare tactics' don't work,'' the panel concluded in its report, released Friday. ``Programs that seek to prevent violence through fear and tough treatment do not work.''
SOME PROGRESS
Youth violence has declined from its peak a decade ago, but rates of violent crime are still high, the panel said. Violence can be traced to a variety of troublesome conditions. Among possible causes: inconsistent or harsh parenting, poor peer relations, gang involvement, lack of connection to school and living in a violent neighborhood.
The trouble with boot camps, group detention centers and other ''get tough'' programs is they bring together young people who are inclined toward violence and teach each other how to commit more crime, the panel said: ``The more sophisticated [teens] instruct the more naive in precisely the behaviors that the intervener wishes to prevent.''
''All the evaluations have shown they don't work,'' said the panel's chair, Dr. Robert L. Johnson of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. ``Many communities are wasting a great deal of money on those types of programs.''
THERE IS `GOOD NEWS'
The panel looked for programs that have been tested using rigorous research methods and concluded that ''the good news is that there are a number of intervention programs that have been shown'' effective.
The report cited two: a therapy program where youths and their families attend 12 one-hour sessions over three months, and a community-based clinical treatment program that targeted violent and chronic offenders at risk of being removed from their families. This second program provided about 60 hours of counseling over about four months with therapists available at all hours.
One key, Johnson said, was letting counselors observe families and children together and offer suggestions for better parenting. Both programs reduced arrest rates and out-of-home placements, with positive effects four years after treatment ended.
The report identified six other programs that seemed to work but that hadn't been studied as closely, including Big Brothers/Big Sisters, a nurse-family partnership program and Project Towards No Drug Abuse.
