Four Conceptual Levels of the Model

The IAP model is designed to achieve operational integrity by incorporating four conceptual levels that begin with integrated theoretical assertions about the causes and correlates of chronic, serious

delinquency and move on to guiding principles for reintegration, key programming components, and an array of required services (see Table 2, page 10).

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2-6 1. Integrated theory

At the most abstract level of conceptualization (i.e., “grand” theory), the IAP model is driven by an integration of social control, strain, and social learning theories. Concerted efforts to develop more refined theory-driven program approaches involving the integration of existing theoretical formulations, often referred to as “grand” theories, have risen to the forefront of applying research to the design of interventions over the past several decades. Integrated theories combine formerly freestanding theories into various new explanatory constellations of principles and axioms. The integrated configurations are important because they reflect the growing recognition that a contributing source of past failure for correctional programs has been the reliance on narrow, unicausal theories of delinquency (Fagan and Jones, 1984; Greenwood and Zimring, 1985; Meier, 1985; Ferdinand, 1987; Altschuler and

Armstrong, 1994a).

2. Five principles of programmatic action

An integrated theory, coupled with research on risk and needs factors, provides a sound basis for identifying general goals around which program elements and specific services must be tailored in an IAP model. It is inadequate and irresponsible to approach the high-risk juvenile recidivist problem in less than a comprehensive, carefully coordinated, multifaceted fashion that cuts across institutional and professional boundaries. At this second conceptual level in the model, one sees a distinctive domain of activity addressing the reintegrative demands for responding to circumstances of a youth’s removal and isolation from his or her community and subsequent reentry. Here, the IAP framework offers a very logical and structural set of guidelines to overcome community disconnect. The principles are:

• Preparing youth for progressively increased responsibility and freedom in the community.

• Facilitating youth-community interaction and involvement.

• Working with both the offender and targeted community support systems (e.g., families, peers, schools, employers) on qualities needed for constructive interaction and the youth’s successful community adjustment.

• Developing new resources and supports where needed.

• Monitoring and testing the youth and the community on their ability to deal with each other productively.

These five principles collectively establish a set of fundamental operational goals and the mission upon which the IAP model rests. The intended outcome is to transition and reintegrate identified high-risk juvenile offenders from secure confinement gradually back into the community and thereby to lower the high rate of failure and relapse. While the principles are general in nature, allowing for a reasonable degree of flexibility in how goals will be achieved, planners and practitioners must consider the following program elements as they seek to translate IAP theory and principles into practice.

2-7 3. Program elements

The three major program elements are: (1) organizational and structural characteristics, (2) overarching case management, and (3) management information and program evaluation. With respect to daily operational requirements, the second of these program elements, i.e., overarching case management, is especially critical. Five components are subsumed within the case management framework:

• Assessment, classification, and selection criteria.

• Individual case planning incorporating a family and community perspective.

• A mix of intensive surveillance and services.

• A balance of incentives and graduated consequences coupled with the imposition of realistic, enforceable conditions.

• Service brokerage with community resources and linkage with social networks.

These components provide the mechanisms through which objective assessment, coordinated and comprehensive planning, information exchange, continuity and consistency in decisionmaking, service provision and referral, and monitoring of performance can be achieved with juvenile offenders who have been committed to confinement. These youth will need to be transitioned back into the community and than closely monitored throughout a carefully structured decompression process. Each of these program elements will be discussed in greater detail in Section 2, Topics 6-12.

4. Treatment and service provision

Considerable research has focused on the key question of what constitutes the appropriate range of required services and treatment interventions for serious juvenile offenders exhibiting histories of chronic and/or violent delinquent acts (Mann, 1976; Strasburg, 1978; Taylor, 1980; Fagan, et al., 1981;

Armstrong and Altschuler, 1982; Agee and McWilliams, 1984; Altschuler and Armstrong, 1983, 1984

; Bobal, 1984; Fagan and Jones, 1984; Hartstone and Cocozza, 1984; James and Granville, 1984;

Greenwood, 1986; Brewer, et al, 1995; Howell, 1997; Lipsey and Wilson, 1998; McCord, Widom, and Crowell, 2001). Suggestions for effectively remediating serious and chronic juvenile offending extend across a substantial number of professional disciplines and approaches that include clinical psychology and psychiatry, sociology and social work, educational improvements, social skills

development, and vocational training/job development and placement. Two major trends in theory and practice can be readily discerned within these proposed interventions, namely, modalities stressing the importance of either psychodynamics or competency/skill development and enhancement (Altschuler and Armstrong, 1984). Although usually intertwined as essential components in various program models, these two fundamentally divergent approaches are grounded in differing assumptions about the causes and nature of serious delinquent behavior.

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The psychodynamic model can be traced to important advances made in the fields of psychology, psychiatry, and psychoanalysis during the first half of the 20thcentury. A wide array of therapeutic approaches have been developed—applicable both in institutional and community-based settings—with special relevance to the problems, needs, and deficits of high-risk delinquent youth. The

competency/skills development model reflects a growing sense over the past several decades of the need for a basic redirection and new definition of what constitutes the appropriate parameters and content of the treatment paradigm. Although not grounded in a reputation of psychodynamic theory and technique, this approach represents a basic shift away from the medical model. Many juvenile justice professionals have come to believe that psychodynamic interventions alone are insufficiently inclusive and do not meet the multifaceted challenges posed by many severely delinquent youth.

The vast majority of incarcerated youth not only have chronic histories of delinquent behavior, often quite serious in nature, but also tend to lack economic opportunities and be poorly socialized, educated, and equipped with the competitive and adaptive skills necessary to deal with the demands of daily living (Strasburg, 1978; Taylor, 1980; Altschuler and Armstrong, 1983). Even for those youth who are reasonably well-socialized, there is often a history of academic failure and a noticeable lack of work skills and job experience. Further, rarely do youth reach the point of being confined to a facility without manifesting major problems in educational settings; many are chronically truant or dropouts and have experienced multiple suspensions and expulsions. Another problem area that compounds these difficulties is the inadequacy or total lack of reasonable living arrangements for this population upon release. Returning to the homes of natural parents or even extended family members is frequently problematic. Consequently, alternative placement involving strategies such as independent living, long-term group homes, or therapeutic foster care creates another layer of programming demands on youth correctional systems. As a result of all these factors, much of the emerging interest for developing new and highly innovative reintegrative approaches focuses on interventions that emphasize coping and survival skills, job training and placement, vocational skills, and alternative education.

A third theme relevant in program development is the heightened focus on strategies for intensifying the level of social control that has become prominent with the growth and consolidation of a national intensive supervision movement. A new generation of highly intrusive techniques relying on enhanced surveillance capacity are now being widely deployed in certain community corrections programs. In addition to the argument that such interactions guarantee a greater degree of community protection is the accumulatory evidence from research on the efficiency of highly structured approaches that seem to indicate the need for blending surveillance with treatment and supportive services. With regard to surveillance, it is often necessary in the short term to deter misconduct, imposing substantial social control to allow treatment and service provision adequate time to make a discernable impact. The revolving door of reincarceration must be avoided if the goal of long-term community normalization is to be achieved.

The above considerations about treatment, service provision, and social control led IAP staff to identify 10 separate categories of program activity that appear to be fundamentally important for inclusion in a comprehensive continuum of intervention for the high-risk juvenile offender transitioning from

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confinement (see Figure 1, page 11). Obviously, it is highly unlikely that any one youth would require attention across all 10 of these areas; however, this targeted population will require the availability of all 10 areas if their problems, needs, and deficits are to be systematically and effectively addressed.

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Table 2: The Four Conceptual Levels That Configure the IAP Model

One:

Integrated Theory

A synthesis of:

• Strain theory.

• Social learning theory.

• Social control theory.

Two:

Underlying Principles of Programmatic Action

• Progressively increasing responsibility and freedom.

• Facilitating client-community interaction and involvement.

• Working with both offender and targeted community support systems.

• Developing new resources, supports, and opportunities.

• Monitoring and testing.

Three:

Program Elements

• Organization and structural characteristics.

• Overarching case management:

• Assessment and classification for client selection.

• Individual case planning with a family and community perspective.

• Surveillance/service mix.

• Incentives and graduated consequences.

• Service brokerage and linkage with social networks.

• Management information and program evaluation.

Four:

Service Areas

• Special needs and special populations.

• Education and schooling.

• Vocational training, job readiness, and placement.

• Living arrangements.

• Social skills.

• Leisure and recreation.

• Client-centered counseling (individual and group).

• Family work and intervention.

• Health.

• Special technology.

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