In her review of 149 school-based programs, Denise Gottfredson (1997) found that programs successful in reducing crime and delinquency shared a number of common features, including:

• Building school capacity to support innovation.

• Communicating clear messages about acceptable and unacceptable behavior and enforcing rules consistently.

• Emphasizing responsible decisionmaking and problem solving in whatever approach is adopted.

• Teaching high-risk youth critical thinking skills that enable them to consider alternatives to delinquent behavior.

Although it is important to provide students with access to school psychologists and counselors, according to Gottfredson, programs that focused exclusively on counseling, especially group counseling, had little impact on students’ criminal and delinquent behavior. Programs that built skills were much more likely to have positive results, such as reducing school disorder.