This study focuses on sentence completion and recidivism of juveniles referred to teen courts for disposition by their peers as an alternative to judicial sentencing. More than 70 percent of the referrals completed their sentences, and just less than a third recidivated over a 1-year follow-up. In multivariate models, sentence completion was significantly less likely among persons sentenced to community service, and recidivism was significantly higher among juveniles with prior records and those who were sentenced to curfews. The findings imply the need for teen courts to be guided by sound program development efforts that are based on research so that they may circumvent the panacea phenomenon.

No abstract

Relatively little is known about the psychological characteristics of prison inmates and how recent imprisonment policies may affect those characteristics. This article examines levels of self-esteem, depression, and anxiety among a sample of prison inmates who recently completed or were enrolled in prerelease life skills courses. The data reveal these inmates to be a very depressed and anxious group with little self-esteem. Implications for further research and prison programming efforts are highlighted.

No abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the psychometric properties (i.e., reliability and validity) of a battery of scales and subscales used to measure Robert Johnson's mature coping construct. The battery of instruments includes a Program Attitudes Scale, a Coping Strategies Inventory, a Social Problem Solving Inventory, a Self-Esteem Inventory, a Depression Scale, and an Anti-Social Attitudes Scale. Statistical results demonstrating the factorial validity, internal consistency reliability, and the construct validity of each scale are presented. Furthermore, descriptive statistics for these scales are reported for the adult and juvenile boot camp samples at focus in this study.