Meta-analytic reviews of street gang interventions failed to find strong evidence for existing interventions, while some have led to adverse effects for program recipients. Key problems facing gang interventions include poor retention rates, difficulty developing a therapeutic alliance, an excessive focus on risk, and failure to adequately target the benefits of belonging to a gang. To overcome these issues, the Good Lives Model (GLM) can be used as a framework to guide and improve gang interventions. The GLM assumes that everyone has basic human needs that they must meet to have a happy, fulfilling, and meaningful life. When barriers (e.g., lack of employment opportunities) prevent individuals from securing these needs through prosocial means, this may lead to offending. Using a strengths-based approach, by building an individual’s skills and access to external opportunities, the GLM has been highly effective at reducing offending behavior generally. With new empirical evidence, this chapter will begin by applying the GLM to explain the onset and maintenance of gang membership before providing in-depth guidance on how to utilize the GLM as a framework for gang interventions.

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Utilizing the Good Lives Model as a Framework to Guide and Improve Gang Interventions

  • Jaimee S. Mallion,
  • Lauren Murphy,
  • Kerys Gowland

摘要

Meta-analytic reviews of street gang interventions failed to find strong evidence for existing interventions, while some have led to adverse effects for program recipients. Key problems facing gang interventions include poor retention rates, difficulty developing a therapeutic alliance, an excessive focus on risk, and failure to adequately target the benefits of belonging to a gang. To overcome these issues, the Good Lives Model (GLM) can be used as a framework to guide and improve gang interventions. The GLM assumes that everyone has basic human needs that they must meet to have a happy, fulfilling, and meaningful life. When barriers (e.g., lack of employment opportunities) prevent individuals from securing these needs through prosocial means, this may lead to offending. Using a strengths-based approach, by building an individual’s skills and access to external opportunities, the GLM has been highly effective at reducing offending behavior generally. With new empirical evidence, this chapter will begin by applying the GLM to explain the onset and maintenance of gang membership before providing in-depth guidance on how to utilize the GLM as a framework for gang interventions.