Developing delinquent youths: a reintegrative model for rehabilitation and a new role for the juvenile justice system.

Abstract

This article presents logical, theoretical, and empirical arguments for a new rehabilitative agenda for juvenile justice, based on positive principles of youth development. It offers a critical examination of the dominant intervention paradigms within the juvenile justice system, compares the underlying theoretical and philosophical assumptions of a competency-based rehabilitative model with the deficit-based individual treatment approach, and highlights the practices and programs that will most fully support the positive development of young people in the juvenile justice system.