Juvenile Justice Anger Management (JJAM) Treatment for Girls: Results of a randomized controlled trial.

This study examined the efficacy of the Juvenile Justice Anger Management (JJAM) Treatment for Girls, an anger management and aggression reduction treatment designed to meet the unique needs of adolescent girls in residential juvenile justice facilities. This randomized controlled trial of JJAM compared changes in levels of anger and aggression among girls who participated in the JJAM treatment with those of girls who participated in treatment as usual (TAU) at the facilities. This study also investigated the theoretical model underlying the JJAM treatment, which proposed that reductions in hostile attribution biases, development of emotion regulation skills, and improvement in social problem solving would serve as mechanisms of action in JJAM. Participants were 70 female youth who ranged in age from 14 to 20 years (M = 17.45, SD = 1.24) and were placed at 1 of 3 participating juvenile justice facilities; 57 youth completed the study and were included in analyses. Results revealed greater reductions in anger, reactive physical aggression, and reactive relational aggression among girls in the JJAM treatment condition when compared to girls in the TAU control condition. The proposed theoretical model was partially supported via significant mediation findings; changes in hostile attribution bias were identified as a significant mechanism of action in the JJAM treatment. Results suggest that JJAM is a promising treatment to effectively reduce anger and reactive aggression among adolescent girls in juvenile justice placements. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Obstacles to research in residential juvenile justice facilities: recommendations for researchers.

Federal, state, and local initiatives to improve the treatment and outcomes for young people in the juvenile justice system prompt the need for additional research. Despite the call for empirical data, researchers encounter numerous obstacles when initiating and conducting studies in detention and post-adjudication facilities. These obstacles are often only briefly mentioned in publications, but they can interfere with researchers' desires and abilities to conduct studies in these settings. This paper reviews legal, ethical, and methodological challenges to successfully conducting research in detention and residential post-adjudication placements, including selecting and accessing appropriate facilities, obtaining institutional review board approval, seeking parental permission and youth assent, reporting child abuse and neglect, responding to participants' threats to harm self or others, working effectively with facilities, juvenile justice system-related attrition, and the dissemination of research findings. Recommendations are presented to help investigators anticipate obstacles when designing and executing research protocols to prevent interference and to encourage ethical responses and successful study completion.