Alternatives to prison: Intensive probation and an example of effective intensive treatment

Abstract

Several important researches, carried out mainly in the USA and Great Britain, show that probation models based on control’s strategies such as straight monitoring and intensive surveillance are substancially ineffective. On the other hand, probationprograms strongly oriented to treatment and rehabilitation achieve goodoutcomes, such as recicidivism reduction, and represent the new generation of community corrections. These results emerge, in particular, from a recent model of treatment of the chronic juvenile delinquency: the Multisystemic Therapy (MST), developed in the USA by S.W. Henggeler. This model shows its effectiveness in the treatment of young people with serious antisocial diseases and justice problems. MST uses a home-based model of service delivery and strives to change youths’ functioning in their natural settings - home, school, neighborhood, peers -, promoting responsible behaviour and decreasing irresponsible behaviour. Thus, the goals of MST are: decreasing young delinquency and decreasing other antisocial behaviours, while attaining these goals reducing out-of-home placements. MST uses a model in which therapists have a small caseloads, are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, provide services in the home, at times convenient to the family. The average lenght of treatment is about 60 hours during a period of 4 months.