Does Wilderness Therapy Reduce Recidivism in Delinquent Adolescents?: A Narrative Review

Juvenile delinquency is a critical and costly problem affecting American and international youth. Nearly 1.5 million adolescents were arrested in 2011 in the United States for a wide range of crimes including misdemeanor petty theft, sexual assault, and murder (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, OJJDP, 2013). Costs associated with juvenile delinquency are numerous and include both monetary and societal impacts. One retrospective study estimated the financial costs of juvenile crime in Pennsylvania at nearly 5.5 billion dollars in 1993 alone (Miller, Fisher, & Cohen, 2001). Additional impacts include lost or damaged property, mental health services for affected victims, decreased quality of life for victims and offenders, pain, suffering, and increased risk of secondary victimization via the criminal justice system (Doerner & Lab, 2014; Mendenhall, 2008). Recidivism rates remain high despite OJJDP reports of an overall decline in juvenile crime since the 1990s. Recidivism can include any number of repeated criminal behaviors such as re-offense, novel convictions, correctional sentences