Comparison of two community alternatives to incarceration for chronic juvenile offenders

The relative effectiveness of group care (GC) and multidimensional treatment foster care (MTFC) was compared in terms of their impact on criminal offending, incarceration rates, and program completion outcomes for 79 male adolescents who had histories of chronic and serious juvenile delinquency. Results show that boys who participated in MTFC had significantly fewer criminal referrals and returned to live with relatives more often. Multiple regression analyses showed that assignment to a treatment condition (i.e., GC or MTFC) predicted official and self-reported criminality in follow-up beyond other well-known predictors of chronic juvenile offending (i.e., age at ist offense, number of previous offenses, age at referral).