Effective treatment programs for violent adolescents: Programmatic challenges and promising features

The search for effective treatment programs for violent adolescent offenders has produced more questions than answers. Only a handful of treatment programs have proven efficacious with adolescent offenders. This paper reviews the similarities and common features of four programs that have proven effective at reducing recidivism in adolescent offenders. The programs not only differ in many ways, but they also share some striking similarities. All take a comprehensive approach; utilizing a multidimensional treatment system to work with the youth and their family. All share a similar philosophy, theoretical framework, and structural approach to treatment. These similarities provide a template to facilitate progress in future programming, and research.