Counterproductive Juvenile Justice
| Author | Joan McCord |
| DOI | 10.1375/acri.35.2.230 |
| Date | 01 August 2002 |
| Published date | 01 August 2002 |
230 THE AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY
VOLUME 35 NUMBER 2 2002 PP.230–237
Counterproductive Juvenile Justice
Joan McCord
Temple University,Philadelphia, USA
By describing evaluations demonstrating that carefully planned and
executed interventions can have harmful effects, the author argues
that programs to prevent crime should be tested for safety as well as
efficacy. Although client reports of benefits and improvements over
predicted outcomes would have suggested benefits from intervention,
randomly assigned matched cases used in one such comparison showed
that an intervention lasting more than five years increased the likelihood
of serious crime, alcoholism,early death, and mental illness.
Justice has a heavy burden when applied in the juvenile arena. Juveniles ought not
to be held responsible for knowing what they have had no opportunity to learn.
Unfortunately, few delinquents have been reared in homes that provide them with
the lessons of good citizenship.
Partly because of this, a plethora of programs to prevent crime have been insti-
tuted. Few of them have been tested for both safety and efficacy.
I am going to try to convince you that this is a mistake. It is a mistake because
ineffective programs waste both time and money. More importantly, it is a mistake
because some social programs have harmful effects.
Few investigators look to see whether the programs they evaluate have harmful
effects. Most believe, as I did for far too long, that an intervention that has been
carefully planned and executed must be beneficial.
But let me turn to what I hope will be convincing evidence. The name of the
project I will describe is the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study.
Its creator, Richard Clark Cabot, laid the foundation for a scientific approach to
studying intervention programs. Convinced that delinquency arose through general
social deprivations, Dr. Cabot decided to evaluate the widespread belief that offer-
ing friendly guidance and social support, healthful activities after school, tutoring
when necessary, and medical assistance as needed would reduce the likelihood of
delinquency in impoverished areas. Dr. Cabot also insisted that the program be
evaluated with a scientifically credible design.
The Youth Study staff collected the names of boys living in the congested urban
environments of Cambridge and Somerville, Massachusetts. The children were
under the age of 10 at the time of their referrals. To avoid having the program
thought to be a program for bad kids, names were collected from scout leaders as
Address for correspondence: Professor Joan McCord, Department of Criminal Justice,
Temple University, Philadelphia PA 19072, USA. Email: mccord@astro.temple.edu
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