"Factors Predicting Treatment Retention among High-Risk
Mexican American and African American Juvenile Offenders"
David Springer, Ph.D., Principal Investigator:
Many of the same factors that predict delinquent behavior also predict adolescent drug use (Hawkins, Catalano, & Miller, 1992; Jenson, 1997), which has direct implications for intervention with substance abusing juvenile offenders. Because delinquent and drug use behaviors overlap among juvenile offenders, interventions should focus on the predictors of the behaviors rather than on the behaviors themselves (Dryfoos, 1990; Elliott, Huizinga, & Menard, 1989). There is insufficient information about factors that relate to treatment retention or the effectiveness of various treatment modalities with minority adolescent substance abusers (McBride, VanderWaal, Terry, & VanBuren, 1999). Furthermore, both African American and Mexican American youth are over-represented in the juvenile justice population, and their arrest rates for drug-related offenses have soared (U.S. Department of Justice, 1994). The foci of this study are to explore the utility of the IFOCEC model in understanding treatment retention, to examine the additional factors that predict treatment retention, and to examine the interventions that maximize treatment retention among Anglo, African American and Mexican American high-risk juvenile offending substance abusers. The study will involve data analysis using multiple regression and signal detection analysis from a sample of substance abusing juvenile offenders adjudicated delinquent through the Travis County Juvenile Court in Austin, Texas. The investigators plan to use these findings to help secure subsequent RO1 funding to further empirically test interventions that maximize treatment effects with substance abusing minority juvenile offenders.
Literature Cited:
Dryfoos, J.G. (1990). Adolescents at risk: Prevalence and prevention. Oxford University Press, New York, NY.
Elliott, D.S., Huizinga, D., and Menard, S. (1989). Multiple problem youth: Delinquency, substance abuse, and mental health problems. Springer-Verlag, New York, NY.
Hawkins, J.D., Catalano, R.F., and Miller, J.Y. (1992). Risk and protective factors for alcohol and other drug problems in adolescence and early adulthood: Implications for substance abuse prevention. Psychological Bulletin, 112 (1), 64-105
Jenson, J.M. (1997). Juvenile delinquency and drug abuse: Implications for social work practice in the justice system. In: C.A. McNeece and A.R. Roberts (Eds.), Policy and Practice in the Justice System (pp. 107-123). Nelson-Hall, Chicago, IL.
McBride, D.C., VanderWaal, C.J., Terry, Y.M., and VanBuren, H. (1999). Breaking the cycle of drug use among juvenile offenders. Available on-line at http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS13719
U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. (1994). Sourcebook of criminal justice statistics - 1993, Rockville, MD: U.S. Government Printing Office.
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Center for Social Work Research
School of Social Work
University of Texas at Austin
1925 San Jacinto Blvd
Austin, TX 78712-1203
(512) 471-5457
Send comments and questions to: cmckinley@mail.utexas.edu CREDITS
