Do wilderness intervention programs really help adjudicated adolescents with behavioral difficulties? The answer is "Yes". Collins (1980) defines recidivism as a return to prior behavior. Studies in the past have measured recidivism in terms of reported new offenses, or re-arrests, or reconviction during the program supervision and subsequent to release from program (Roy, 1995). One such study conducted by Benda (1987) of adjudicated delinquents in a state correctional facility measured recidivism by the number of youth who had police contact following their discharge. The purpose of this study was to discover how Alternative Youth Adventures may affect a participants subsequent recidivism 12 months following their completion of the program. Recidivism in this study was measured in terms of frequency and severity of criminal offenses. Probation Officers were contacted to discover each students criminal activity 12 months* prior to enrollment in the Alternative Youth Adventures program and then again 12 months following the students release from the program. In addition to this, they were also asked the type of setting the student is currently living. The population selected were youth who participated in Alternative Youth Adventures during the 1998-2000 season. This period involves a convenient sample one hundred and thirty five students 103 males and 33 females. Some students within the groups were not included in the study because of difficulty in contacting their probation officers. Students who left the program early were also not included in this study. The survey was administered over the phone to probation officers. The results of the statistical analysis computed for
criminal activity before and after the program are shown in Table 1,
Table 2 and Table 3. Overall, there was a decrease or trend towards
improvement shown in all the areas. Table 1 Red. Pre-intervention Green. Post intervention
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