@article{ref1,
title="Reducing crime among youth at risk for gang involvement",
journal="Criminology and public policy",
year="2018",
author="Thornberry, Terence P. and Kearley, Brook and Gottfredson, Denise C. and Slothower, Molly P. and Devlin, Deanna N. and Fader, Jamie J.",
volume="17",
number="4",
pages="953-989",
abstract="Research Summary No gang prevention or intervention programs meet the standards for effectiveness promulgated by Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development. This randomized controlled trial of a well-known program--Functional Family Therapy--that was modified to address the needs of gang-involved adolescents yields two main findings. First, youth at high risk for gang membership and their families engaged with and successfully completed the program at the same level as low-gang-risk youth. Second, the effectiveness results varied by gang-risk status. For youth at high risk for gang membership, the treatment group had significantly lower recidivism rates at the 18-month follow-up as compared with a &quot;treatment as usual&quot; control group. For youth at low risk for gang membership, however, no consistent differences were found between the treated and control groups.   Policy Implications Modifying and extending evidence-based delinquency programs to gang-involved youth seems to be a reasonable strategy for developing a wider array of effective programs to respond to the challenge of street gangs. The differential findings by gang-risk status suggests that the juvenile justice system should expand the use of evidence-based community programs to higher risk youth, including those identified as being &quot;at risk&quot; because of their gang involvement.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="1538-6473",
doi="10.1111/1745-9133.12395",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12395"
}