The influence of treatment programmes on the recidivism of juvenile and adult offenders: An european meta-analytic review

Abstract

Abstract Meta-analyses have examined the effectiveness of different treatment techniques on delin-quent and criminal behaviour in America and Europe. In one of the last meta-analyses, that integrated the results of programmes applied in European countries (Redondo, Garrido, and Sánchez-Meca, 1997), the global effect size obtained for all treatment and effectiveness measures (Psychological factors, education, etc.) was d = 0.3039 (r = 0.15). In general, it muld be interpreted that treatment groups surpassed controls by 15%, On this work, the results of a meta-analysis to determine which treatments are more effective in reducing on recidivism rates are presented. A total of 32 European studies that evaluated recidivism during an average follow-up period of two years obtained a global Effect size of d = 0.243 (r = 0.12), equivalent to a 12% reduction in recidivism. Regarding the differential influence of treatment models, behavioural and cognitive-behaviourd techniques were most beneficial in reducing recidivism.