The application of theory to intervention: the intersection of theories of deviance and juvenile delinquency intervention programs

Abstract

There is a historical disconnect between what has been created to theoretically explain the causes of juvenile delinquency and the intervention programs that have been developed to deal with the phenomenon on a practical level. This work bridges the gap between theoretical criminology and intervention literature. The first purpose of this dissertation was to facilitate this connection. The second goal was to examine the connection between theory and intervention programs once it was clarified and the third goal was to translate the connection into measures appropriate for empirical testing so that the relationship could be scientifically studied and evaluated using meta-analytic procedures. Once the connection was made using a multi-phase inductive coding scheme, nine modern theories of deviance were represented among the set of juvenile delinquency intervention studies analyzed for this project. Only 55% of the studies linked some notion of deviant causality with program design components and even fewer studies actually named a specific theory and linked it to the design of the target program. Based on the meta-analysis results, it was found that the theories, taken as a set, did collectively contribute some explanation of effect size variance beyond that of the methodological and study level characteristics.