Families, Schools, and Delinquency Prevention

Are there ways to intervene early in a child's life that might reduce, at a reasonable cost, the probability of his becoming a serious delinquent? The results of some small-scale social experiments have been published suggesting that certain kinds of preschool education and parent training might have desirable and lasting effects. In addition, there is growing evidence that some kinds of medical intervention and certain forms of school organization and ethos could help reduce the rate of misconduct. The authors provide a full-scale assessment of the evidence that might lead to the design of new research and action efforts.

I Families, Children, and Delinquency.- 1 The Family as Context for Delinquency Prevention: Demographic Trends and Political Realities.- 2 Early Precursors of Frequent Offending.- 3 Biomedical Problems in Juvenile Delinquency: Issues in Diagnosis and Treatment.- II Promising Interventions: Family Training.- 4 What Policy Makers and Practitioners Can Learn from Family Studies of Juvenile Conduct Problems and Delinquency.- 5 Contingency Management with Oppositional Children: Some Critical Teaching Issues for Parents.- III Promising Interventions: Preschool and School Programs.- 6 Can Preschool Programs Help Prevent Delinquency?.- 7 The Implications of Early Intervention Efforts for the Primary Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency.- 8 Delinquency Prevention Through Parent Training: Results and Issues from Work in Progress.- IV The Family and Public Policy.- 9 Giving the Juvenile Court a Preschool Education.- 10 The Federal Government and the Family.- 11 Delinquency Prevention and Labeling.- 12 Multiproblem Families and the Community.- V Conclusion.- Strategic Opportunities for Delinquency Prevention.