The primary factors that characterize effective interventions with juvenile offenders: A meta-analytic overview
Abstract
Previous meta-analyses have identified many effective interventions for reducing the recidivism of juvenile offenders and various program factors that are associated with the best outcomes. Most of that work has been focused on only one intervention area and thus has limited scope. Notable exceptions are two relatively comprehensive meta-analyses that have identified a small number of factors or principles that appear to characterize the most effective programs. This paper presents a new analysis of data from one of those meta-analyses designed to test a broader range of intervention factors in a manner that allows identification of both the general principles and the distinct intervention types associated with the greatest reductions in recidivism. Only three factors emerged as major correlates of program effectiveness: a “therapeutic” intervention philosophy, serving high risk offenders, and quality of implementation. With other variables statistically controlled, relatively few differences were found in the effectiveness of different types of therapeutic interventions.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The RNR model is applicable to juvenile offenders.
“Even though the risk-need-responsivity model was developed for adult offenders research shows that this model is also applicable to juvenile offenders (Lipsey, 2009).”
From The care of Filipino juvenile offenders in residential facilities evaluated using the risk-need-responsivity model (2016) · cites this paper as Lipsey, 2009
Cites
Landenberger, N. A., & Lipsey, M. W. (2005) · Journal of Experimental Criminology · doi:10.1007/s11292-005-3541-7 · Cited by 850 · see citing works
Self-citationWhat works for female offenders: a meta-analytic review
Dowden, C., & Andrews, D. A. (1999) · Crime & Delinquency · doi:10.1177/0011128799045004002 · Cited by 423 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Bonell, C., Fletcher, A., Morton, M., Lorenc, T., & Moore, L. (2012) · Social Science & Medicine · doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.08.032 · Cited by 582 · see citing works
Davis, L., Bozick, R., Steele, J., Saunders, J., & Miles, J. (2013) · doi:10.7249/rr266 · Cited by 388 · see citing works
Fletcher, A., Jamal, F., Moore, G., Evans, R. E., Murphy, S., & Bonell, C. (2016) · Evaluation · doi:10.1177/1356389016652743 · Cited by 294 · see citing works
The impact of incarceration on juvenile offenders
Lambie, I., & Randell, I. (2013) · Clinical Psychology Review · doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2013.01.007 · Cited by 291 · see citing works
Risk factors for interpersonal violence: an umbrella review of meta-analyses
Fazel, S., Smith, E. N., Chang, Z., & Geddes, J. R. (2018) · The British Journal of Psychiatry · doi:10.1192/bjp.2018.145 · Cited by 185 · see citing works
Gobeil, R., Blanchette, K., & Stewart, L. (2016) · Criminal Justice and Behavior · doi:10.1177/0093854815621100 · Cited by 142 · see citing works
Leonard, N. R., Jha, A. P., Casarjian, B., Goolsarran, M., Garcia, C., Cleland, C. M., Gwadz, M. V., & Massey, Z. (2013) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00792 · Cited by 74 · see citing works
A framework for learning from null results
Jacob, R. T., Doolittle, F., Kemple, J., & Somers, M.-A. (2019) · Educational Researcher · doi:10.3102/0013189x19891955 · Cited by 65 · see citing works
Goense, P. B., Assink, M., Stams, G.-J., Boendermaker, L., & Hoeve, M. (2016) · Aggression and Violent Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.avb.2016.08.003 · Cited by 68 · see citing works
Humayun, S., Herlitz, L., Chesnokov, M., Doolan, M., Landau, S., & Scott, S. (2017) · Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry · doi:10.1111/jcpp.12743 · Cited by 57 · see citing works
Wolf, B., & Harbatkin, E. (2023) · Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness · doi:10.1080/19345747.2022.2071364 · Cited by 45 · see citing works
Effects of flywheel resistance training on sport actions. A systematic review and meta-analysis.
Raya-González, J., Prat-Luri, A., López-Valenciano, A., Sabido, R., & Hernández-Davó, J. (2021) · Journal of Human Kinetics · doi:10.2478/hukin-2021-0020 · Cited by 38 · see citing works
Interaction of Theory and Practice to Assess External Validity
Leviton, L. C., & Trujillo, M. D. (2017) · Evaluation Review · doi:10.1177/0193841x15625289 · Cited by 35 · see citing works
Livheim, F., Tengström, A., Andersson, G., Dahl, J., Björck, C., & Rosendahl, I. (2020) · Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science · doi:10.1016/j.jcbs.2020.03.008 · Cited by 29 · see citing works
Goldstein, N. E. S., Giallella, C. L., Haney-Caron, E., Peterson, L., Serico, J., Kemp, K., Romaine, C. R., Zelechoski, A. D., Holliday, S. B., Kalbeitzer, R., et al. (2018) · Psychological Services · doi:10.1037/ser0000184 · Cited by 27 · see citing works
Reducing Crime and Violence: Experimental Evidence on Adult Noncognitive Investments in Liberia
Blattman, C., Jamison, J. C., & Sheridan, M. (2016) · doi:10.1596/1813-9450-7648 · Cited by 27 · see citing works
An outcome evaluation of Functional Family Therapy for court‐involved youth
Celinska, K., Sung, H., Kim, C., & Valdimarsdottir, M. (2019) · Journal of Family Therapy · doi:10.1111/1467-6427.12224 · Cited by 22 · see citing works
Hein, S., Weeland, J., Square, A., Haeffel, G. J., Chapman, J., Macomber, D., Lee, M., Foley Geib, C., & Grigorenko, E. L. (2020) · International Journal of Law and Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.ijlp.2020.101626 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
Spruit, A., Wissink, I. B., & Stams, G. J. J. M. (2016) · International Journal of Law and Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.ijlp.2016.04.005 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
van der Baan, H. S., Collot D'Escury-Koenigs, D. A. L., & Wiers, D. R. W. (2024) · Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.jbtep.2023.101916 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
Safety First! Residential Group Climate and Antisocial Behavior: A Multilevel Meta-analysis
E. M. A, E., J. J, R., G. H. P, V. D. H., E. J. E, H., C. H. Z, K., K. S, N., S, V., J. D, L., G. J. J. M, S., E, K., et al. (2025) · International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology · doi:10.1177/0306624x241252052 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
“In addition, residential rehabilitation programs can decrease re-offending rates among formerly incarcerated offenders (see e.g., Lipsey, 2009; Pompoco et al., 2017; Van Stam et al., 2014).”
- Authors
- Lipsey, M. W.
- Affiliations
- Vanderbilt University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Lipsey, Mark W.
- ORCID
- Lipsey, Mark W.
- Venue
- Victims & Offenders
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2009-02-13
- Volume
- 4
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 124-147
- ISSN
- 1556-4886 (ISSN-L)
- 1556-4991
- OpenAlex
- W2032590176
- Cited by
- 962
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 38 · 2025: 33 · 2024: 39 · 2023: 41 · 2022: 38 · 2021: 63 · 2020: 57 · 2019: 78 · 2018: 88 · 2017: 73 · 2016: 90 · 2015: 57 · 2014: 73 · 2013: 70 · 2012: 54
- FWCI
- 131.55
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Victims & Offenders (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Crime Patterns and Interventions
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis
- Social Sciences › Law › Criminal Justice and Penology
- Keywords
- juvenile offenders, recidivism reduction, juvenile justice intervention, program effectiveness, high-risk offenders, implementation quality, intervention types
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
