Evaluating the Juvenile Breaking the Cycle Program's impact on recidivism

This article presents findings from an evaluation of the Juvenile Breaking the Cycle (JBTC) Program, an intervention that was designed to provide criminal justice system monitoring and individualized treatment and services to substance-using youth who were assessed as high recidivism risks following an initial police encounter. Results from logistic and negative binomial regression models, using repeated data measures, indicated that JBTC participants, relative to baseline and a sample of comparison youth, were significantly less likely to be arrested and had significantly fewer arrests in the six to twelve months after entering the program. The JBTC Program appears to be one that jurisdictions should consider replicating in an effort to address the needs of juveniles who are at risk for delinquency and substance use in their communities.