Mindfulness Meditation with incarcerated youth: A randomized controlled trial informed by neuropsychosocial theories of adolescence

Objective: There is mounting evidence that the stressors and traumas disproportionately faced by incarcerated youth outside of custody are barriers to the healthy development of self-regulation, compounding their risk for poor social and developmental outcomes. To identify a feasible method of intervening and effectively supporting the development of self-regulation in youth both while they are in custody and after their release, a free Internet-based Mindfulness Meditation intervention was delivered and assessed in a long-term juvenile justice facility.;Methods: A total of 60 young men participated in a randomized controlled trial of Mindfulness Meditation compared to Guided Relaxation on changes in self-regulation, with age conceptualized as a moderator of treatment effects. Interventions consisted of 8 1-hour classes of either guided Mindfulness Meditation using free MP3 downloads from www.DharmaPunx.com or Guided Relaxation using an MP3 download purchased on-line, played on an ipod attached to a speaker. Pre and post-test measures of self-regulation and Mindfulness were collected. A total of 27 participants completed both pre and post-test measures and were thus included in the analyses of treatment effects. The most common reason for attrition from the study was release or transfer prior to the post-test. Multiple regression analysis was used to asses the differences between treatment and control groups on post-test scores, controlling for pre-test scores, with age group included as a moderator.;Results: Treatment youth in the oldest age group (age 19-23) scored significantly higher on interactional self-restraint at post-test than similarly aged youth in the control group. Differences were found in the interaction model only, with no differences found in the main effects model.;Conclusions: Findings support the use of Internet-based Mindfulness Meditation as a method of fostering the development of interpersonal self-regulation in incarcerated youth. Findings also support the use of age as a moderator in analyses of treatment effects when outcomes are self-regulatory in nature. The inclusion of age groupings as a moderator may help to identify treatment effects with more precision when those effects would otherwise be lost in the noise of developmental variation of age groups analyzed together.