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Treatment Profiles of Troubled Female Adolescents: Implications for Judicial Disposition
Author(s) -
ELLIS RODNEY A.,
O'HARA MAGGI,
SOWERS KAREN
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
juvenile and family court journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.155
H-Index - 19
eISSN - 1755-6988
pISSN - 0161-7109
DOI - 10.1111/j.1755-6988.1999.tb00002.x
Subject(s) - disposition , psychosocial , juvenile , intervention (counseling) , psychology , cluster (spacecraft) , juvenile delinquency , dilemma , economic justice , sample (material) , clinical psychology , criminology , social psychology , psychiatry , political science , computer science , law , biology , philosophy , chemistry , genetics , epistemology , chromatography , programming language
Increasing numbers of girls are entering the juvenile justice system. This growing number of females creates a dilemma for judges concerned with appropriate disposition to treatment and diversion: since current intervention methodologies were developed primarily for males, how effective are they for females? The current paper describes a research process that addressed this issue. A sample of troubled adolescents was selected from a residential treatment facility. Data were collected from 137 youth between the ages of 12 and 17 (65 female [47%] and 72 male [52%]) regarding variables related to twenty‐three behavioral and psychosocial problems. These data were then subjected to a cluster analysis. Two distinct treatment profiles were formed, each differing in composition by gender. Based on the results of the cluster analysis, the researchers conducted a literature review to determine the implications of those profiles for successful disposition and treatment.