Multisystemic Treatment of Juvenile Sexual Offenders

Abstract

Multisystemic therapy (MST)is an ecologically-based treatment model that has proven effective with violent and chronic juvenile offenders and that holds promise with juvenile sexual offenders. This article describes the empirical underpinnings, theoretical foundation, and clinical features of MST and provides a brief review of MST outcome studies with juvenile sexual offenders. The theoretical foundation and clinical features of MST draw upon empirical findings regarding the multidetermined nature of serious antisocial behavior as well as upon social-ecological models of behavior in which the youth and family's school, work, peers, and neighborhood are viewed as interconnected systems with dynamic and reciprocal influences on the behavior of family members. In two randomized trials with juvenile sexual offenders, MST has had positive effects on key social-ecological factors (e.g., family affective relations, peer relations, school performance) associated with sexual offending and has demonstrated long-term reductions in criminal activity and incarceration. The success of MST can be attributed primarily to (a) the match between MST intervention foci and empirically identified correlates/causes of sexual offending in youths and (b) the flexible use of well-validated intervention strategies in the natural environment.     

Factors Affecting Attitudes Toward Juvenile Sex Offenders

ABSTRACT

This study investigated attitudes toward juvenile sex offenders and factors influencing those attitudes. Additionally, the influences of perpetrator characteristics such as age, gender, and ethnicity on societal attitudes towards intervention requirements were also investigated. Overall, attitudes toward juvenile sex offenders and their treatment amenability were negative. No differences in attitudes toward juvenile sex offenders were found between those who had been victims of sexual abuse and those that had not. Sex offenses committed by juvenile female sex offenders were viewed to be more serious and require more intervention than those committed by juvenile male sex offenders.     

A Solution-Oriented Approach to Working with Juvenile Offenders

This article describes the ways in which a solution-focused practice approach is advantageous for social workers working in a variety of settings with juvenile offenders, due to its strengths-based and positive orientation. The general approach is discussed as well as specific techniques and examples of applications, such as building a relationship with a juvenile offender who has been mandated into services, finding and amplifying exceptions to the problem and other resources and strengths, and setting goals with the use of scaling questions.     

Culturally Competent Practice with African American Juvenile Sex Offenders

African American juveniles adjudicated for sexual offenses may struggle with the mistrust of both the judicial and treatment systems. Unlike general mental health services, juvenile sex offender treatment is often mandated by the court or child welfare services, thus these youths and their families must engage in the treatment process. Without clinicians and services that can acknowledge and respond to a minority youth’s experience in a sensitive, culturally competent manner, there could be significant resistance to treatment. Traditional treatment approaches fail to prioritize issues involving cultural competence. This article addresses the unique challenges of African American juvenile sex offenders and makes recommendations for creating culturally competent practice for these youth and their families.     

Coping while Incarcerated: A Study of Male Juvenile Offenders

The present study examines the associations between coping efforts and psychological (internalizing and externalizing symptoms) and behavioral adjustment in a sample of 373 male juvenile offenders (ages 14-17) during the first month of incarceration. Social support seeking was associated with a more rapid decline in internalizing symptoms and lower levels of externalizing symptoms. Acceptance had a stress-buffering effect with regard to internalizing symptoms, whereas denial predicted higher levels of these symptoms. The only coping variable related to violent behavior was active coping, which was associated with lower rates of violent offending among youth with any violent incidents. The importance of fostering coping skills and increasing positive coping options for incarcerated adolescents is discussed.     

Treatment of Juvenile Sex Offenders: A Review of the Literature

This article reviews the literature concerning the treatment of juvenile sex offenders, an area that has only recently begun to receive attention by researchers. This review considers the types and modalities of treatment methods available as well as the research supporting their efficacy. Special issues for therapists who work with juvenile sex offenders are also discussed. This review found that although there is a wide variety of treatment techniques available to treat juvenile sex offenders, very little research has been done to validate their efficacy. The need for controlled systematic research is noted.     

Random Acts of Delinquency: Trauma and Self-Destructiveness in Juvenile Offenders

This article provides an explanatory model of the way in which trauma leads to serious delinquency. Using perspectives from information processing, social learning, and self-regulation theories, we present evidence to suggest that adolescents whose lives were shaped by trauma perceive and encode social cues differently than non-traumatized individuals. A number of assessment tools and therapeutic interventions are recommended, followed by suggestions for advocating on the behalf of adolescents incarcerated in the juvenile justice system.     

CONTESTED PORTRAYALS: Medical and Legal Social Control of Juvenile Sex Offenders

While juvenile courts were originally designed to respond to troubled youth by providing treatment appropriate to the needs of individual offenders, advocates of a system that gets tough on young criminals by meting out punishments based on offense characteristics (both present offense and past offense history) have become increasingly influential in recent years. In this article, I examine a special case, that of juvenile sex offenders in a Washington State county. for whom a 1990 law reintroduced treatment as a central goal. While Washington has been a forerunner in the shift toward a juvenile justice system in which offending behavior is the central factor in decision making, I argue that, largely as a result of this law, juvenile sex offending has been medicalized and that, in this process, distinctions based on offense characteristics have noticeably diminished. This case study provides both empirical support for established theoretical arguments regarding medicalization and a detailed explication of the differences between medical and legal assumptions about social problems.     

The Development of Theory and Treatment with Substance Abusing Female Juvenile Offenders

Little is known regarding the specific treatment needs of those female juvenile offenders with a history of substance abuse. While social scientists have advanced distinct theories regarding adolescent substance use and juvenile delinquency, minimal work has been conducted to integrate or link these two. In attempting to further explore their interrelationships, this article will review and incorporate the relevant theoretical and practice milestones in three areas: (1) substance abuse and women, (2) substance abuse and adolescents, and (3) substance abuse and juvenile delinquency, leading to the development of new theory and practice relevant to the female substance abusing juvenile offender population. The authors propose some practice considerations for current interventions with this population and discuss implications for future research and exploration.     

Recidivism and Resilience in Juvenile Sexual Offenders: An Analysis of the Literature

SUMMARY

The majority of research that exists studying juvenile sex offenders (JSOs) is dominated by the predilection that identifying risk factors associated with recidivism will benefit both the JSOs and treatment providers. Further, the majority of existing treatments are guided by research that has identified what makes JSOs more likely to reoffend. Absent from the majority of the literature is an examination of the strengths and positive characteristics demonstrated by JSOs that may prove useful in both reducing recidivism and increasing the likelihood of achieving positive outcomes (i.e., demonstrating resilience). Research examining known risk factors for sexual and nonsexual recidivism is described. Next, literature on resilience is reviewed, followed by a discussion of this literature in the context of treatment for JSOs. Finally, future directions of research are presented.     

School,Social-Communicative,and Academic Challenges Among Delinquents and Juvenile Sexual Offenders

This study explores the association between student factors and delinquency by comparing two groups of adjudicated youth in six Midwestern residential facilities: 331 young men committed for a sexual offense, and 171 committed for a nonsexual offense. Statistically significant findings include juvenile sexual offenders exhibiting a greater number of delinquent behaviors and greater academic and social difficulties compared with their counterparts adjudicated for a nonsexual offense. Additionally, path analysis revealed that school experience was negatively associated with delinquency for both groups. For juvenile sexual offenders, academic difficulties were associated with delinquency through their school experience. Among general delinquents, delinquency was directly associated with social difficulties and school experience. Implications for interventions and future research are discussed.     

Judicial Decision-Making and Juvenile Offenders: Effects of Medical Evidence and Victim Age

ABSTRACT

A growing body of evidence suggests that jurors place greater weight on DNA or other types of forensic evidence than non-forensic evidence (Cole & Dioso-Villa, 2009). For cases involving child sexual abuse, certain types of evidence, including forensic medical evidence, may be viewed as more important or indicative of abuse than other types of evidence, such as victim statements or disclosure. The present study evaluated perceptions of juvenile offenders and victim credibility across four vignettes that systematically manipulated variables related to victim age and physical indicators of abuse. A sample of 636 participants read vignettes and answered questions pertaining to the vignette. Participants also provided demographic information and responded to a series of items assessing participants’ judicial decision-making strategies and outcomes. Broadly, the presence of medical evidence significantly influenced participants’ decision-making across a variety of variables, including verdict outcome, verdict confidence, confidence that the victim was truthful, and determinations involving sex offender registration and notification requirements. The influence of medical evidence and victim age on perceptions and sentencing of juvenile sex offenders across these and additional outcome variables will be discussed.     

Punishing Juvenile Offenders as Adults: An Analysis of the Social and Political Determinants of Juvenile Prison Admissions across the United States

Abstract

Although the punishment of juvenile offenders has increasingly become an issue of major concern to the public, few studies test the government's coercive response to offending by this particular group. This article addresses the issue by examining the variation in the willingness of courts in the United States to adjudicate juvenile offenders in the adult criminal courts and sentence them to adult correctional facilities. I use pooled time-series negative binomial regression to analyze raw counts of juveniles admitted to adult prisons from 1983 to 2001. Results consistently show that states with larger minority populations admit more juvenile offenders to prisons but that states with very large African American populations send fewer of these offenders to prison. The findings also show that differences in the ideological climate of each state are a strong predictor of the variation in adult sanctions for minors. Additional evidence shows that states where judges must run in an election to gain their seats and states where judges have shorter terms proscribe more severe sanctions for juvenile offenders by sentencing more of them to adult prisons. Overall, the results suggest that race and politics play a very strong role in the sentencing of juvenile offenders to adult prisons.     

Ethnic Identity and Offending Trajectories Among Mexican American Juvenile Offenders: Gang Membership and Psychosocial Maturity

We examined the association of joint trajectories of ethnic identity and criminal offending to psychosocial maturity, gang membership, and Mexican American affiliation among 300 Mexican American male juvenile offenders from ages 14 to 22. There were two low‐offending groups: one was the highest in ethnic identity and changing slightly with age and the other was the lowest in ethnic identity and stable with age. A third group displayed moderately declining offending and moderately stable ethnic identity. A fourth group displayed high‐offending individuals with moderate, but increasing, levels of ethnic identity, who were initially lower in psychosocial maturity and more likely to be gang members. The findings highlight the need to contextualize theories of ethnic identity development.     

Situational Factors Related to Childhood Sexual Abuse in the Orthodox Jewish Community Among Adult and Juvenile Offenders

In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to situational factors associated with childhood sexual abuse (CSA) to explain incidence of CSA, as well as to provide potential targets for prevention efforts. However, very few studies have examined situational factors associated with juvenile perpetration, despite juveniles composing a substantial proportion of offenders. In addition, no studies to our knowledge have applied a situational framework to CSA research in the Orthodox Jewish community (OJC). In the present study, we obtained data from therapists regarding 80 victims of CSA in the OJC from both the United States and Israel. We hypothesized that (a) more abusers’ first perpetration would be between ages 12 and 17 than between any other age range, which corresponds to increased sexual urges, as well as increased unsupervised access to minors; (b) among juvenile offenders, the time of day of the abuse would depend on the relationship of the offender to the victim; and (c) age of the victim and grooming strategies would be associated with the frequency of abuse. Our first two hypotheses were confirmed, and our third hypothesis was partially confirmed, as younger victims tended to have higher frequency of abuse. Additionally, we discuss possible implications of significant correlations found during exploratory analyses. Our results generally support the importance of considering culturally specific situational factors when studying or developing prevention efforts for CSA.     

Female Juvenile Sexual Offenders: Understanding Who They Are and Possible Steps That May Prevent Some Girls From Offending

In recent years, there has been accumulating evidence that sexual abuse committed by females is not rare and can be just as traumatic as sexual abuse committed by males. Despite the increased recognition given to sex offending by adult women, however, very little attention has been given to sex offenses committed by juvenile females. There has further been very little published material that has focused specifically on intervening with female children and adolescents before they offend. In an attempt to fill this gap, this article describes common characteristics of juvenile female sex offenders, ways in which juvenile female sex offenders are similar to and different from juvenile male sex offenders, and the limitations that exist related to our knowledge about these offenders. Based on this information, suggestions are given for possible ways to intervene in the lives of at-risk female youth before they offend.     

The Family Context of Relational Aggression in “Difficult to Treat” Female Juvenile Offenders

Female juvenile offenders often engage in socially aggressive behaviors that make them more difficult to treat than male juvenile offenders. This social (i.e., relational) aggression may be developed or maintained through transactions with family members. To investigate this issue, we measured relational aggression in the family interactions of 140 adolescents divided by gender and offender status into four equal‐sized groups (female juvenile offenders, male juvenile offenders, female nonoffenders, and male nonoffenders). Adolescents and caregivers completed a family discussion task, and raters coded relationally aggressive behaviors at the dyadic level. Results showed that female juvenile offenders and their mothers directed more relational aggression toward each other than did mother–adolescent dyads in the other groups. Implications of these results for treatment and research are discussed.