Juvenile Offender Treatment

This chapter reviews the current state of knowledge regarding the effectiveness of juvenile offender treatment programs. It highlights international juvenile justice trends to document basic demographics of the juvenile justice population and the current trend toward community-based supervision and treatment programs. The chapter summarizes the results of recent meta-analyses highlighting the effectiveness of community-based programs. Juvenile offender treatment is an extremely broad term that incorporates a range of delinquency reduction programs and mental health treatment services that are delivered across diverse settings including community-based diversion programs, formal community based court supervision and aftercare programs, and out-of-home placements/residential programs. The Canadian Youth Criminal Justice Act of 2003, amended in 2012, reflects comparable principles of holding youth accountable for crimes and protecting public safety while also stressing timely interventions that promote the rehabilitation of youthful offenders. The Integrated Court Criminal Survey (ICCS) is an annual administrative survey providing statistical information about both youth and adult criminal court proceedings in Canada.