Risks, Outcomes, and Evidence-Based Interventions for Girls in the US Juvenile Justice System

Abstract

The proportion of the juvenile justice population that is comprised of females is increasing, yet few evidence-based models have been evaluated and implemented with girls in the juvenile justice system. Although much is known about the risk and protective factors for girls who participate in serious delinquency, significant gaps in the research base hamper the development and implementation of theoretically based intervention approaches. In this review, we first summarize the extant empirical work about the predictors and sequelae of juvenile justice involvement for girls. Identified risk and protective factors that correspond to girls’ involvement in the juvenile justice system have been shown to largely parallel those of boys, although exposure rates and magnitudes of association sometimes differ by sex. Second, we summarize findings from empirically validated, evidence-based interventions for juvenile justice–involved youths that have been tested with girls. The interventions include Functional Family Therapy, Multisystemic Therapy, Multidimensional Family Therapy, and Treatment Foster Care Oregon (formerly known as Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care). We conclude that existing evidence-based practices appear to be effective for girls. However, few studies have been sufficiently designed to permit conclusions about whether sex-specific interventions would yield any better outcomes for girls than would interventions that already exist for both sexes and that have a strong base of evidence to support them. Third, we propose recommendations for feasible, cost-efficient next steps to advance the research and intervention agendas for this under-researched, under-served population of highly vulnerable youths.

Pathways to Preventing Substance Use Among Youth in Foster Care

“…Second, potential gender differences in intervention effects on target outcomes are rarely discussed in the literature (Leve et al, 2015), and our study is one of the few studies that specifically tested whether the intervention program would be equally effective for both boys and girls. The lack of gender differences in the intervention effects suggests that KEEP SAFE is likely to benefit boys as well as girls in foster care by reducing risk for involvement in substance use.…”

“…In addition, to our knowledge, few researchers have examined whether programs would be equally effective for boys and girls in foster care and whether they work through similar mediating pathways (Leve, Chamberlain, & Kim, 2015). As such, we know relatively little about whether intervention programs would be equally effective for boys and girls or whether gender-specific programs would yield better results (Leve et al, 2015).…”

“…In addition, to our knowledge, few researchers have examined whether programs would be equally effective for boys and girls in foster care and whether they work through similar mediating pathways (Leve, Chamberlain, & Kim, 2015). As such, we know relatively little about whether intervention programs would be equally effective for boys and girls or whether gender-specific programs would yield better results (Leve et al, 2015). The present study sought to fill this gap by focusing on whether and how KEEP SAFE, a program designed to prevent substance use in foster youth worked—particularly investigating whether there would be gender differences in the program’s mechanisms of change.…”

A Meta‐Analysis of Program Characteristics for Youth with Disruptive Behavior Problems: The Moderating Role of Program Format and Youth Gender

“…The call for the development of gender-specific interventions and evaluations of programming for girls has emerged from an accumulation of research demonstrating that girls' correlates of DBP are unique from boys' (i.e., Henggeler & Sheidow, 2012;Javdani et al, 2011a;Leve et al, 2015). Indeed, girls and boys with DBP both have high rates of emotional, behavioral, and health-related needs, but often the etiology (e.g., experiences of violent victimization) (Javdani et al, 2011a) and the expression (e.g., emotional dysregulation, PTSD) (Dierkhising et al, 2013) of these needs are different between boys and girls.…”

“…The latter aim is particularly important given the lack of research on treatment impact for adolescent girls, despite steady increases or lower relative decreases in girls’ rates of arrests for a variety of offenses, including violence (Snyder & Sickmund, ). Indeed, a growing literature underscores gender‐specific risk and protective factors associated with girls’ DBP (Javdani, Sadeh, & Verona, , ; Leve, Chamberlain, & Kim, ) and suggests differential impact of DBP programming on girls’ outcomes (Chesney‐Lind, Morash, & Stevens, ; Zahn, Day, Mihalic, & Tichavsky, ). However, despite girls’ different constellations of risk, the majority of review and meta‐analytic studies on DBP do not examine the possibility that treatment impact may vary for boys versus girls (Anderson et al., ; Javdani & Allen, ).…”