"Scared Straight" and other juvenile awareness programs for preventing juvenile delinquency

Area of Science:

• Criminology
• Developmental Psychology
• Public Health Policy

Background:

• Scared Straight and similar programs utilize organized prison visits for at-risk youth.
• The stated aim is to deter future offending through exposure to prison life and inmates.
• Despite widespread use, program effectiveness has been consistently questioned.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the impact of prison visit programs on deterring juvenile delinquency.
• Assessed programs involving adjudicated or pre-delinquent youth.
• Focused on programs designed to prevent criminal activity.

Main Methods:

• Conducted comprehensive searches of electronic databases and consulted experts.
• Included randomized or quasi-randomized trials with no-treatment control groups.
• Performed a meta-analysis of post-intervention offending rates using official data.

Main Results:

• The meta-analysis revealed that these programs are more harmful than no intervention.
• A consistent negative effect on offending rates was observed across analyses.
• Programmatic effects were nearly identical whether using fixed or random effects models.

Conclusions:

• Programs like Scared Straight are likely to increase, not decrease, delinquency.
• These interventions may cause more harm than good to participating youths.
• Agencies must rigorously evaluate such programs for unintended negative consequences.