An Intervention Program for Male Juvenile Offenders in Turkey: A Pilot Randomized Trial.

Researchers have developed various intervention programs to prevent children from committing crimes and from recidivism; however, few intervention programs have been implemented in juvenile detention centers in Turkey. The aim of this study was to examine the effectiveness of a psychoeducation program to improve the social skills of juvenile offenders. The participants consisted of 38 male adolescents aged 13 to 18 years (M = 17.02, SD = 1.14) randomly assigned to intervention (n = 19) and comparison (n = 19) groups. The results demonstrated that the interaction effects between the group and time were significant for communication and empathy skills. The intervention program prevented declines in empathy skills among program participants, while empathy skills decreased in the comparison group. The participants also improved their communication skills, while comparison group members' communication skills declined over time. Considering the limited number of intervention programs discussed in the literature, this study provides preliminary support for the literature on intervention programs.

Inequitable access to sport in juvenile justice across the USA: findings from a national survey.

The USA incarcerates more young people than any other industrialized nation in the world, and black youth are much more likely to be incarcerated than white youth. Young people who interface with the criminal justice system are at higher risk for poor health upon release and the justice system is believed to be a contributor to racial health disparities. Sport participation during incarceration has the potential to improve health and health equity, but the evidence on the health benefits of youth sport participation has almost exclusively focused on school and community settings in the USA with little attention to non-traditional settings, such as the justice system. Given the poor health consequences of incarceration, the potential of sport to improve health, and the lack of research on this phenomenon in the USA, our objective was to describe the landscape of sport programming in juvenile correctional facilities and provide a baseline understanding upon which future research can build. Through a cross-sectional survey of all long-term secure juvenile correctional facilities in the USA (n = 211), we found 55.1% operate a sport program. Among facilities with programs, there was a range of sport program offerings. Gender disparities in access to various types of programs exist, with girls generally having less opportunity than boys. Most facilities reported a purpose of positive youth development in the operation of their programs. These findings have important implications for health promotion and the further integration of sport and juvenile justice as part of a public health agenda.

In the USA, we have more young people in prison than anywhere in the world. Time in prison is linked with a wide range of negative consequences, including worse health. Research on young people in general shows that participating in sports has the potential to protect them from a range of risky behaviors and can improve their health. It follows that sports in prison may help to protect those particularly at-risk youth from the negative health consequences of incarceration. Because so little is known about the availability of sport programs in youth prisons in the USA, we conducted a survey of the most restrictive facilities across the country and found that just over half offer sport programs to the young people in their care. Further, we found that girls in prison had less opportunity to play sports than boys. It was encouraging to learn that most of the facilities that offer sports do so with the purpose of promoting positive development which is often found in traditional sport programs and may improve the wellbeing of young people. More research is needed to see if these programs actually result in positive health impacts for young people who are incarcerated.

Criminal offense charges in women: A 10-year follow-up of an RCT of treatment foster care Oregon.

OBJECTIVE: The prevention of delinquency can have long-term benefits for both the individual and society. Previous work has demonstrated positive effects of Treatment Foster Care Oregon (TFCO) on reducing delinquency across a 2-year period for adolescent females involved in the juvenile justice system. The present study examined whether the effects of TFCO are present across a 10-year period, and whether criminal offenses accrued in the juvenile justice system mediate the association between intervention condition and cumulative criminal offenses through emerging adulthood. METHOD: The sample included 166 women (68% non-Hispanic White) who had been court mandated to out-of-home care as adolescents, randomly assigned to one of two interventions, and followed for an average of 10 years. Juvenile (< 18 years of age) and adult criminal records data were collected and coded for offense severity. RESULTS: Analyses revealed a significant effect of the TFCO intervention on cumulative criminal offense charge severity across the 10-year follow-up period (ß = -.15, p < .05). This effect was mediated by offense charges that occurred after the baseline assessment and prior to Age 18, as shown through a significant indirect effect, ß = -.09, p < .05, suggesting the importance of reductions in juvenile delinquency on later criminal offending. CONCLUSIONS: Intensive out-of-home interventions that reduce juvenile offenses for youth with chronic delinquency may have sustained effects on adult criminality. Implications for prevention programs for female adolescents are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Echoing Mechanism of Juvenile Delinquency Prevention and Occupational Therapy Education Guidance Based on Artificial Intelligence.

In this paper, in-depth research and analysis of juvenile delinquency prevention and occupational therapy education guidance using artificial intelligence are conducted, and its response mechanism is designed in this way. Two crime type prediction algorithms based on time-crime type count vectorization and dense neural network and crime type prediction based on the fusion of dense neural network and long- and short-term memory neural network are proposed. The outputs of both are fed into a new neural network for training to achieve the fusion of the two neural networks. Among them, the use of the dense neural network can effectively fit the relationship between the constructed features and crime types. The behavioral manifestations and causes of the formation of deviant behavior in adolescents are discussed. They can only read numerical data, but there is a lot of information in the textual data that is closely related to the training effect. When experimenting, it is necessary to extract knowledge and build applications. The practical work with adolescents with deviant behaviors is again carried out from group work and casework, respectively, with problem diagnosis, needs assessment, and service plan development for specific clients, to carry out relevant practical service work. The causes of juvenile delinquency in the Internet culture are discussed in terms of the Internet environment, juvenile use of the Internet, Internet supervision, and crime prevention education, respectively. The fourth chapter focuses on the analysis of the prevention and control measures for juvenile delinquency in cyberculture. In response to the above-mentioned causes of juvenile delinquency in cyberculture, the prevention and control measures are discussed in four aspects, namely, strengthening the construction of cyberculture and building a healthy cyber environment, strengthening the capacity building of guiding juveniles to use cyber correctly, building a prevention and supervision system to promote the improvement of the legal system, and improving and innovating the crime prevention education in the cyber era.

Juvenile Delinquency from the Perspective of Socialization and Social Control.

In recent years, the crime rate of minors in our country has risen steadily, laying a hidden danger for the harmonious and orderly development of the country and society. The healthy growth of teenagers is not only related to the harmony of a family and the future of a nation but also to the destiny of a country. Therefore, in order to ensure the healthy growth of young people and prevent juvenile delinquency, we should start with the causes of juvenile delinquency, identifying the core issues, so as to better study juvenile delinquency. In schools and families, strengthen the education of minors and guide them to develop positively. In terms of law, strengthen the supervision of minors to prevent them from breaking the law.

Reconsidering the effectiveness of mentoring for prevention of juvenile criminal recidivism: A brief comment on systematic review and meta-analysis of noninstitutional psychosocial interventions to prevent juvenile criminal recidivism (Olsson et al., 2021).

Interventions implemented outside of the juvenile justice system are widely utilized with youth offenders to decrease the likelihood of future offending and justice system involvement, both of which are well-documented as being costly to youth and society at large. Olsson et al. (2021) conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of these types of interventions for youth aged 12-17 and failed to find any of the interventions examined to be more effective than control treatments in reducing future criminality. This commentary further examines the evidence for one of these interventions, mentoring, based on an expanded search of the literature that identified several additional studies of mentoring for recidivism prevention that meet the eligibility criteria utilized by Olsson et al. A meta-analysis of these studies and those identified by Olsson et al. finds mentoring to be more effective than control treatments (typically services as usual within the juvenile justice system): risk difference between groups of 0.09 (random effect model; 95% confidence interval [.03-.15]). This reanalysis thus indicates greater promise for mentoring as a tool in reducing juvenile crime and juvenile justice system involvement than was suggested by the results of Olsson et al. Importantly, it also underscores the potential for the results of meta-analyses to be sensitive to not only unidentified studies with null or negative results (the so-called "file-drawer problem") but also missed studies with positive findings. Recommendations for literature search procedures in systematic reviews and sensitivity analyses in meta-analyses are provided with this concern in mind. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Psychological Characteristics and Health Behavior for Juvenile Delinquency Groups.

The related literature is studied to explore the psychological characteristics of juvenile delinquency groups and implement their psychological characteristics model for the intervention of health behavior. Drawing on the results of current literature research, the Youth Psychological Characteristics Crime Prevention Questionnaire (YPPQ) was compiled, which can be simply referred to as the Crime Prevention Questionnaire. The whole psychological characteristics of juvenile delinquency are analyzed by means of a questionnaire. Firstly, the YPPQ scores of different groups were compared, and a structured interview was conducted on the reasons for the crime of the problem youth group. Secondly, data analysis was carried out on the results of questionnaires and interviews, and the psychological characteristics of juvenile delinquency were summarized. A "mixed hierarchical intervention model" was proposed to intervene in the mental health behavior of juvenile delinquency groups, and corresponding intervention strategies were also proposed. The results reveal that through the questionnaire survey, the educational background of juvenile subjects was generally distributed in middle school, the number of juveniles with primary school education was less than 30% of the juvenile delinquency groups, the middle school education accounted for more than 60% of the juvenile delinquency groups, and the approximate age was about 18 years old. The largest number in each group were adolescents with secondary school education, indicating the importance of psychological education on crime prevention for adolescents in secondary school. By comparing the YPPQ test scores of different groups, the adolescent group has higher test scores than the juvenile delinquency groups in five of the dimensions. Through the comparative analysis of the YPPQ test results of the juvenile delinquency groups, the problem youth group, and the normal youth group, it is found that the YPPQ has high reliability and validity, so its detection and evaluation are highly feasible. By comparing the odds ratio (OR) of each question in the YPPQ test between the experimental group and the control group, it is found that the psychological characteristics of the experimental group are significantly affected by family, school, and even society. Finally, it proposes a "mixed hierarchical intervention model" for juvenile delinquency to intervene in health behaviors. The purpose is to provide some research ideas for the study of the psychological characteristics of juvenile delinquency groups and to put forward some suggestions for the prevention of juvenile delinquency and the intervention of health behavior.

A Community-Based Youth Diversion Program as an Alternative to Incarceration, Illinois, 2017-2019.

The US justice system unfairly targets youths of color; systemic reform plus interventions to keep youths out of the justice system are needed. The Juvenile Justice Collaborative provided care coordination and wraparound services to adolescents in a diversion program from 2017 to 2019 in Cook County, Illinois. Youths showed increased strengths and decreased needs by program's end. Youths who successfully completed the program showed reduced recidivism compared with nonprogram youths. Community-based alternatives to incarceration may decrease life disruption, promote positive health and social outcomes, and reduce further justice involvement. (Am J Public Health. 2022;112(9):1265-1268. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2022.306946).

Diferencias de personalidad entre adolescentes infractores en Brasil y España evaluadas con el Jesness Inventory Revised / Personality differences between Brazilian and Spanish adolescent’ offenders, assessed with the Jesness Inventory Revised

En delincuencia juvenil, algunos aspectos de la personalidad tienen un peso importante en la probabilidad de realizar conductas antisociales. Poresto, integrarlos al trabajo con esta población permite hacer las intervenciones más sensibles a las características de los jóvenes y, por ello, másefectivas. Como las estructuras de muchos sistemas de atención de la delincuencia juvenil tienen objetivos socioeducativos semejantes, los estudiostransculturales/comparativos son pertinentes para explorar este problema. El objetivo de este estudio fue comparar grupos de adolescentes de Brasily España, infractores y no infractores, con respecto a aspectos de personalidad. La muestra estuvo compuesta por 210 adolescentes varones con unaedad media de 17.7 años. Estos jóvenes respondieron al Jesness Inventory – Revised (JI-R), una herramienta que mide el funcionamiento psicológicoen el contexto de justicia juvenil. Las puntuaciones directas en el JI-R fueron comparadas por análisis de varianza (ANOVA) y el tamaño de efecto fuecalculado con la d de Cohen. Los resultados muestran que, entre los grupos de infractores, la muestra de adolescentes brasileños presenta nivelesmás elevados en Valores Subculturales y Ansiedad Social. Como se hipotetizaba, los grupos de infractores no son tan distintos entre sí, en especial alo que se refiere a la orientación antisocial, lo que suma evidencia a que adolescentes que se desarrollan en culturas distintas comparten variables depersonalidad asociadas al comportamiento delictivo. (AU)

In juvenile delinquency, some aspects of the personality have an important role in the probability of engagement in antisocial behaviors. For this reason, integrating themto the work with this population makes it possible to propose interventions more sensitive to the characteristics of young people and, therefore,more effective. As the structures of many juvenile delinquency care systems have similar socio-educational objectives, cross-cultural / comparativestudies are pertinent to explore this problem. The aim of this study was to compare groups of adolescents from Brazil and Spain, offenders andnon-offenders, regarding aspects of personality. The sample consisted of 210 male adolescents, with a mean age of 17.7 years. These young peopleresponded to the Jesness Inventory - Revised (JI-R), a tool that measures psychological functioning in the context of juvenile justice. The raw scoreson the JI-R were compared by analysis of variance (ANOVA) and the effect size was calculated with Cohen’s d. The results show that, among thegroups of offenders, the sample of Brazilian adolescents presents higher levels in Value Orientation and Social Anxiety. As hypothesized, the groupsof offenders are not so different from each other, especially with regard to antisocial orientation, which adds evidence that adolescents who grow upin different cultures share personality variables associated with criminal behavior. (AU)

Influence of Alcohol Consumption, Personality and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder on Traffic Offenders / Influencia del Consumo de Alcohol, la Personalidad y el Trastorno de Déficit de Atención e Hiperactividad en Delincuentes viales

Background: Despite the authorities’ efforts to promote responsible driving, traffic accidents are a notable cause of death in many countries. Scientific research shows that variables such as alcohol abuse and personality dimensions can contribute to explaining this social phenomenon and the rising number of traffic offences. The present study aims to explore how alcohol abuse, personality disorders and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are associated with risky driving behaviour. Method: the sample included 300 subjects: the study group (199 convicted of traffic offences) and the control group (101 subjects from the general driving population). The tools used were the International Personality Disorder Scale, the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test and the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS). Results: a higher incidence of signs of paranoid, antisocial, impulsive, borderline and anxious personality traits was detected for the study group, as well as a higher prevalence of alcohol abuse. Conclusions: this research offers indications for the design of effective preventive and reinsertion interventions. It also highlights the importance of considering psychological dimensions to ensure road safety.(AU)

Antecedentes: Los accidentes de tráfico son una causa de muerte en muchos países, pese a los esfuerzos por promover una conducción responsable. La investigación sobre el problema muestra que variables como el abuso de alcohol y dimensiones de personalidad, contribuyen a explicar este fenómeno social y el aumento de la delincuencia vial. El propósito de este estudio es explorar cómo el abuso de alcohol, los trastornos de la personalidad y el Trastorno por Déficit de Atención e Hiperactividad (TDHA) se asocian a conductas de riesgo al volante. Método: Participaron 300 sujetos: un grupo de estudio (199 personas condenadas por delitos viales) y otro control (101 sujetos extraídos de la población general de conductores). Los instrumentos utilizados fueron el examen internacional de trastornos de la personalidad (IPDE), el cuestionario de identificación de trastornos por consumo de alcohol (AUDIT) y el cuestionario autoinformado de cribado del TDAH. Resultados: el grupo estudio presentó mayor incidencia de indicios de trastornos de personalidad paranoide, disocial, impulsivo, límite y ansioso; así como mayor prevalencia de abuso de alcohol. Conclusiones: El estudio ofrece claves para construir intervenciones preventivas y de reinserción eficaces, enfatizando la relevancia de dimensiones psicológicas para garantizar la seguridad en las vías públicas.(AU)

Systematic review and meta-analysis of noninstitutional psychosocial interventions to prevent juvenile criminal recidivism.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the effectiveness of noninstitutional psychosocial interventions in preventing recidivism among criminal adolescents. METHOD: We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized and nonrandomized controlled trials assessing the impact on recidivism among juveniles aged 12-17. The included studies had a low to medium risk of bias and were published between 2000 and 2019. Standardized mean differences or risk differences were calculated. RESULTS: We included 35 (20 randomized, 15 nonrandomized) studies evaluating 17 unique, noninstitutional psychosocial interventions. A meta-analysis found no significant reductions in recidivism for studied interventions compared to control conditions. Although single studies suggested some positive effects, the evidence provided by these studies was found to have very low certainty. Post hoc analyses indicated that studies including a low-intensity control condition might have stronger relative intervention effects compared to studies with medium or high-intensity control conditions. CONCLUSION: This systematic review did not find any one noninstitutional psychosocial intervention to be more effective than control treatments in reducing future criminality among juvenile offenders aged 12-17. We discuss the implications of the present findings for social work and child and adolescent psychiatry practices. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Preventing school-based arrest and recidivism through prearrest diversion: Outcomes of the Philadelphia police school diversion program.

OBJECTIVES: Created to combat the school-to-prison pipeline, the Philadelphia Police School Diversion Program offers voluntary community-based services to eligible youth accused of minor school-based offeses in lieu of arrest. This study evaluated program effectiveness in accomplishing goals related to reductions in school-based arrests, serious behavioral incidents, and recidivism. HYPOTHESES: We expected the annual number of school-based arrests in Philadelphia schools to decrease over the program's first 5 years and predicted that the annual number of serious behavioral incidents would not increase. Further, we expected that diverted youth-compared to youth arrested in schools the year before Diversion Program implementation-would have significantly lower rates of recidivism arrests in the 2 years following their school-based incidents. METHOD: Using a quasi-experimental design, we examined data from 2,302 public school students (67.0% male; 76.1% Black; age range: 10-22 years) who were either diverted from arrest through the Diversion Program or arrested in Philadelphia schools in the year prior to Diversion Program implementation. We compared rate of recidivism arrest, number of arrests, and time to arrest between diverted and arrested youth. We also used district-wide descriptive statistics to examine 5-year trends in school-based arrests and serious behavioral incidents. RESULTS: Since program implementation, the annual number of school-based arrests in Philadelphia has declined by 84% and the number of serious behavioral incidents has declined by 34%. Diverted youth demonstrated less recidivism than arrested youth in the 2 years following their initial incident; however, after propensity score matching, we no longer observed significant differences. CONCLUSIONS: Findings indicate that a prearrest diversion program can safely reduce school-based arrests and suggest a need for future research regarding the role of demographic and incident-related characteristics in recidivism outcomes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Turning Off the 'School-to-Prison Pipeline'.

School nurses are key to keeping at-risk children in school.

Remote delivery of a therapeutic intervention to court-mandated youths of Haitian descent during COVID-19.

The threat generated by the COVID-19 pandemic has triggered sudden institutional changes in an effort to reduce viral spread. Restrictions on group gatherings and in-person engagement have increased the demand for remote service delivery. These restrictions have also affected the delivery of court-mandated interventions. However, much of the literature has focused on populations that voluntarily seek out face-to-face medical care or mental health services, whereas insufficient attention has been paid to telehealth engagement of court-mandated populations. This article draws on data gathered on an NIH/NIDA-funded study intervention implemented with juvenile justice-involved youths of Haitian heritage in Miami-Dade County, Florida, during the COVID-19 public health crisis. We explore the process of obtaining consent, technological access issues, managing privacy, and other challenges associated with remote delivery of family-based therapy to juvenile justice-involved youth. Our aim is to provide some insights for consideration by therapists, healthcare workers, advocates, researchers, and policymakers tasked with finding alternative and safer ways to engage nontraditional populations in health services. The clinical trial registration number is NCT03876171.

Effects of the Dating Matters® Comprehensive Prevention Model on Health- and Delinquency-Related Risk Behaviors in Middle School Youth: a Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial.

Teen dating violence (TDV) is associated with a variety of delinquent behaviors, such as theft, and health- and delinquency-related risk behaviors, including alcohol use, substance abuse, and weapon carrying. These behaviors may co-occur due to shared risk factors. Thus, comprehensive TDV-focused prevention programs may also impact these other risk behaviors. This study examined the effectiveness of CDC's Dating Matters®: Strategies to Promote Healthy Teen Relationships (Dating Matters) comprehensive TDV prevention model compared to a standard-of-care condition on health- and delinquency-related risk behaviors among middle school students. Students (N = 3301; 53% female; 50% black, non-Hispanic; and 31% Hispanic) in 46 middle schools in four sites across the USA were surveyed twice yearly in 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. A structural equation modeling framework with multiple imputation to account for missing data was utilized. On average over time, students receiving Dating Matters scored 9% lower on a measure of weapon carrying, 9% lower on a measure of alcohol and substance abuse, and 8% lower on a measure of delinquency by the end of middle school than students receiving an evidence-based standard-of-care TDV prevention program. Dating Matters demonstrated protective effects for most groups of students through the end of middle school. These results suggest that this comprehensive model is successful at preventing risk behaviors associated with TDV. clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT01672541.

Collaborative Responses to Commercial Sexual Exploitation as a Model of Smart Decarceration.

Historically, youths who are affected by commercial sexual exploitation (CSE) in the United States have been implicated as perpetrators of crime and overrepresented in the juvenile justice system. As an intriguing example of the "smart decarceration" social work grand challenge, policy and practice initiatives have converged to decriminalize cisgender girls and young women experiencing CSE by reframing them as victims of exploitation rather than as criminals. To date, these efforts have largely focused on gender-specific programming for cisgender girls and young women. In this article, the authors describe how federal, state, and local policy and practice innovations have supported reframing CSE as a form of child maltreatment and rerouted girls and young women from the juvenile justice system to specialized services. Using Los Angeles County as a case example, the authors detail how innovative prevention, intervention, and aftercare programs can serve as models of smart decarceration for CSE-affected cisgender girls and young women with the potential to address the needs of youths with diverse gender and sexual identities.

Understanding the perception of stakeholders in reducing adolescent-to-parent violence/aggression.

INTRODUCTION: Adolescent-to-parent violence/aggression (APV/A) is an understudied yet increasingly common social problem for adolescents and families, particularly those involved in the juvenile justice system. The current study focused on improving interventions for this population by gathering qualitative data from stakeholders to inform treatment targets. METHODS: Participants (N = 23) comprised of court professionals (n = 7), parents/guardians (n = 9), and their male adolescent children (n = 7) in the United States. Parent and adolescent participants were recruited through monthly court-mandated domestic violence education classes offered by the juvenile court. Parent/guardian participants were between the ages of 38 and 77 and consisted of four males and five females. Adolescents were between the ages of 14 and 17. Court professional participants consisted of judges, probation officers, and court psychologists. Semi-structured interviews were analyzed qualitatively using grounded theory. RESULTS: Results indicated that, from the perspective of key stakeholders, an effective intervention to reduce APV/A likely involves a two-pronged approach: (1) address specific and theoretically modifiable emotional, behavioral, and psychological factors at the adolescent-level; and (2) induce change in the family system by addressing environmental barriers to seeking treatment and by creating positive family relationships. CONCLUSIONS: The present study aimed to gather the perspectives of court professionals, adolescents, and parents/guardians regarding the development of an effective intervention for APV/A-involved families. This study represents the first step toward the development of a feasible, acceptable, sustainable, and effective intervention for adolescents and their families who are involved in the juvenile justice system due to APV/A.

Can We Uncouple Neighborhood Disadvantage and Delinquent Behaviors? An Experimental Test of Family Resilience Guided by the Social Disorganization Theory of Delinquent Behaviors.

Although the influence of neighborhood disadvantage on youth development of delinquent behavior is well established, findings from this research have yet to inform the development of family-centered prevention programming to protect youth from these erosive effects. The current paper examines the role of family integration in buffering the impact of social disadvantage in a sample of N = 298 families randomly assigned either to a control condition or to a family-based prevention program previously shown to enhance marriage and parenting. We first confirmed that neighborhood concentrated disadvantage predicted change in delinquent behaviors across the course of the study. Additionally, replicating prior work, parents participating in the Protecting Strong African American Families (ProSAAF) program, relative to those randomly assigned to the control group, significantly improved their use of effective communication strategies with each other and reduced ineffective conflict in front of youth. This resulted in a significant indirect effect of ProSAAF on change in youth delinquent behaviors. Furthermore, using mediated moderation analysis, the study tested the buffering effect of greater family integration, showing that experimentally produced change in interparental communication skills and the resulting reduction in youth exposure to parental conflict buffered the effect of neighborhood disadvantage on change in youth delinquent behaviors, supporting a mediated moderation model in which family environments buffer neighborhood effects.

Aunque la influencia de los barrios desfavorecidos en el desarrollo de conductas delictivas en los jóvenes está firmemente consolidada, los hallazgos de esta investigación contribuirán al desarrollo de un programa de prevención centrado en la familia para proteger a los jóvenes de estos efectos erosivos. El presente artículo analiza el papel de la integración familiar en la moderación del efecto de las desventajas sociales en una muestra de N = 298 familias asignadas aleatoriamente a una condición de control o a un programa de prevención basado en la familia que anteriormente ha demostrado mejorar el matrimonio y la crianza. Primero confirmamos que la desventaja concentrada de los barrios predijo el cambio de conductas delictivas a lo largo del transcurso del estudio. Además, replicando trabajos anteriores, los padres que participaron en el programa "Protección de Familias Afroamericanas Fuertes" (Protecting Strong African American Families, ProSAAF), en comparación con aquellos asignados aleatoriamente al grupo de control, mejoraron considerablemente su uso de estrategias de comunicación eficaz entre ellos y redujeron el conflicto ineficaz en frente de los jóvenes. Esto resultó en un efecto indirecto considerable del ProSAAF en el cambio de las conductas delictivas en los jóvenes. Además, mediante el uso del análisis de moderación mediada, el estudio evaluó el efecto moderador de una mayor integración familiar, lo cual demostró que el cambio producido experimentalmente en las habilidades de comunicación interparental y la reducción resultante de la exposición de los jóvenes al conflicto parental moderaron el efecto de la desventaja del barrio en el cambio de las conductas delictivas de los jóvenes. Todo esto respaldó un modelo de moderación mediada en el cual los entornos familiares moderan los efectos del barrio.