Are mainstream programs for juvenile delinquency less effective with minority youth than with majority youth? - Wilson et al. - Universiteit Utrecht

Are mainstream programs for juvenile delinquency less effective with minority youth than with majority youth? 

Wilson 

Results: The results showed positive overall intervention effects with ethnic minority respondents on their delinquent behavior, school participation, peer relations, academic achievement, behavior problems, psychological adjustment, and attitudes. Overall, service programs were equally effective for minority and White delinquents. Although there were slight differences in effectiveness for different service types between minority and majority youth, none of these differences was statistically significant. Conclusions: The use of mainstream service programs for ethnic minority juvenile delinquents without cultural tailoring is supported by these findings. 

Introduction 

At issue is whether clients of ethnic minority groups should be treated with the same methods, interventions, and programs as the majority population of a particular country. The questions raised include whether the emphasis on multicultural practice has resulted in more effective and appropriate services for ethnic minority clients; whether programs and service delivery systems should be culture-specific in their design; whether the therapeutic process is more effective if the client and the helping professional are of the same ethnic/cultural group; and whether ethnic agencies can more effectively serve ethnic communities than mainstream agencies. The present study was undertaken to assemble otherwise scattered research results about the effectiveness of service programs for minority juvenile delinquents relative to White majority delinquents. 

Effectiveness of juvenile delinquency services 

For minority youth, the weighted mean effect size for delinquency outcomes across all treatment modalities was .11; for majority youth, the corresponding effect size value was .17. Both these values were statistically significant, as evidenced by confidence intervals that do not include zero. Though the mean effect size for White youth was somewhat larger than that for minority youth, this difference was not statistically significant. 

For the other outcome constructs, mean effect sizes for both minority and White juveniles were greater than zero for all outcome categories except family functioning, although not all were statistically significant. Thus, the mainstream interventions represented in these studies, on average, had positive effects on both subsequent delinquency and several other important outcomes. Although the mean effect sizes for White samples were greater than those for minority samples on 7 of the 10 nondelinquency outcome categories, none of the differences in either direction was statistically significant, as evidenced by the highly overlapping confidence intervals. Thus, without exception, across all the outcome domains represented in these intervention studies, there were no significant differences between the overall effects of mainstream intervention services on predominantly minority treatment groups and those on predominantly White treatment groups. 

A closer look at differential effects on delinquency outcomes 

Differences in delinquency outcomes observed across studies could be due to any of several factors, including between-study differences in method and procedure, participant characteristics, amount of treatment, and, of course, type of treatment. The first possible source of effect size variability we examined for delinquency outcomes was differences across studies in methods and procedures. If two researchers use different methods to conduct their studies, and those differences influence the findings, it is difficult to tell whether those findings reflect the effectiveness of the interventions or the influence of the methods used to study them.  

• Pretreatment equivalence of experimental and control groups 

• Studies in which treatment and control groups were similar prior to treatment produced smaller effect sizes than those in which treatment and control groups were not similar. 

• Type of publication 

• Unpublished technical reports tended to produce smaller effect sizes than published journal articles, books, and dissertations. 

• Role of evaluator 

• Studies in which the evaluator assumed only a research role tended to produce smaller effect sizes. 

• Type of treatment received by control participants 

• Studies in which control participants received more services as part of “treatment as usual” control groups (e.g., institutionalization vs. no treatment or probation) resulted in smaller effect sizes. 

• Blinding in data collection 

• Studies in which those collecting outcome data were blind to the group status of participants produced larger effect sizes than those in which data collectors were not blind. 

Effects for minority and majority youth receiving the same interventions 

The results presented thus far indicate that mainstream treatments without cultural tailoring are as effective for minority youth as they are for majority youth. However, these results are all based on comparisons of different sets of studies, some using samples of minority youth and some using majority youth. The most direct comparison of the effects of delinquency intervention programs for minority versus majority youth comes from studies with both minority and majority participants that report effects separately for each group. Such studies would compare the outcomes for ethnic groups who received the same interventions that were evaluated under the same conditions with the same methods. 

Though the numbers are small, the results shown in Figure 4 are completely consistent with those from the other analyses reported above. None of the effect size differences between ethnic groups was statistically significant and the nonsignificant trends in those differences were in the direction of larger effects for minority youth than White youth. The limited data that permit direct comparison, therefore, also fail to support the view that the effects of mainstream programs for delinquency favor majority youth and are less effective with minorities. 

Discussion and applications to practice 

The analyses reported above provide no evidence that mainstream delinquency intervention programs yield poorer outcomes for minority youth than for White youth despite their general lack of cultural tailoring for minority clientele. A large, representative selection of intervention studies showed no significant differences between minority and White samples in any outcome domain, including effects on delinquency, academic achievement, behavior problems, self-esteem, employment status, peer relations, internalizing problems, attitudes, school participation, family functioning and psychological adjustment. Additional analysis of delinquent reoffending, the major target outcome for these programs, further supported the initial finding of no difference in effects for minority versus White youth. 

It should be noted that the mean effect sizes found for both minority and White youth in this meta-analysis are relatively modest. One possible interpretation of the results presented in this study, therefore, is that the mainstream delinquency intervention programs reviewed are not generally successful in producing positive outcomes. Thus, the lack of any significant differences between the outcomes for minority and White youth demonstrates not that these programs are equally effective for minorities as Whites despite their lack of cultural tailoring but that they are equally ineffective for both groups of youth. The similarity in the outcomes of mainstream programs for minorities and Whites is only interesting if they have meaningful positive effects on both groups. 

For several reasons, we do not think the above interpretation of the results is correct. First, numerically small values of the standardized mean difference effect size statistic do not necessarily indicate that the practical significance of the effects is small.  

Overall, therefore, we believe the most defensible interpretation of the available research is that mainstream treatments for juvenile delinquents are generally effective and no less effective for ethnic minority youth than White youth. We must emphasize, however, that this does not mean that issues of cultural sensitivity are unimportant to such programs when minority youth are served. It could well be that the effects of programs with cultural tailoring would be larger than those of programs without even though those without do not have differential effects for minority and White youth. The evidence reviewed here only shows that cultural tailoring is not necessary for the programs to have positive outcomes and that the absence of such tailoring does not diminish the effects for minorities relative to Whites. 

Moreover, even if the major outcomes of mainstream programs for minority youth are comparable to those with White youth, there may be other benefits to culturally sensitive programming. It may well be that the likelihood of participation, the acceptance of the program plan, the ultimate satisfaction with the program experience, and other such factors not commonly measured in outcome studies are less positive for minority youth in mainstream programs than majority youth.