Family Centered Treatment, Juvenile Justice, and the Grand Challenge of Smart Decarceration

Responding to social work’s grand challenge of smart decarceration, this study investigated whether Family Centered Treatment (FCT), a home-based service for juvenile court-involved youth, is more effective than group care (GC) in reducing recidivism. Outcomes are juvenile readjudication and commitment to placement, and adult conviction and sentence of incarceration. Data were drawn from service provider and state administrative databases. Propensity score matching was used to create a sample of 1,246 FCT youth and 693 GC youth. Cox proportional hazard models estimated time to the four outcomes. FCT participants had a significantly lower risk of adult conviction and adult incarceration relative to youth who received GC. The findings for juvenile outcomes were nonsignificant. FCT shows more favorable adult criminal justice outcomes than GC, making it a potentially effective community-based service to support smart decarceration for juvenile court-involved youth