Enhancing Interventions with Delinquent Youths

Abstract

Although recent juvenile arrest trends are encouraging, a celebration of reduced juvenile delinquency is premature. Interventions with juvenile and adult offenders using structured behavioral and cognitive behavioral interventions show the strongest effects, but consistently modest effect sizes. There is increasing awareness of the comorbidity of juvenile delinquency and depression, which has a prevalence of between 14% and 23% in juvenile justice populations. Research evidence indicates that depressed youth who are aggressive differ from their non-de-pressed peers in their cognitive styles. Cognitive behavioral interventions are efficacious with depressed adolescents and should be more consistently applied and researched in juvenile justice settings.

Key Words:

• Adolescent
• depression
• delinquency
• intervention
• cognitive behavioral