ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the protective factors on children and adolescents and their associations with the development of juvenile offending. Effectiveness programmes differ as to their ability to inflict changes in serious and violent juvenile offenders. A model regarding criminal development was introduced by Loeber, who described different trajectories from less serious problem behaviour to far more serious offences. Social exclusion as an extra-familial risk factor has been shown to lead to acts of extreme violence both in Europe and the US, where young school shooters took the lives of fellow students and teachers. Functional family therapy (FFT) was developed some decades ago and combines family system concepts, social learning theory, behavioural management and cognitive processes. Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MTFC) is used in a therapeutic living environment with foster parents and suits youths that do not live at home.
