RECIPROCAL PEER TUTORING AND MULTISYSTEMIC THERAPIES AND OFFENDING BEHAVIOUR OF OUT-OF-SCHOOL ADOLESCENTS IN MOTOR PARKS IN OGUN STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Offending Behaviour (OB), a transgression against norms and social order, is generally detested by society and the criminal justice system. Extant literature has shown that outof-school adolescents in motor parks in Ogun State exhibit high offending behaviour. Previous studies on OB largely focused on the influence of environmental and parental factors with little attention paid to interventions such as reciprocal peer tutoring and multisystemic therapy. This study, therefore, was designed to determine the effects of Reciprocal Peer Tutoring (RPT) and Multisystemic (MT) therapies on OB among out-of-school adolescents in Motor Parks in Ogun State, Nigeria. The moderating effects of Peer Influence (PI) and Self-control were also examined. Albert Bandura’s Social Learning and Jeremy Bentham’s Rational Choice theories were adopted as the framework, while the pretest-posttest control quasi-experimental design with a 3×2×2 factorial matrix was utilised. Three local governments (Abeokuta North – Lafenwa; Ado Odo-Ota – Sango-ota; and Sagamu – Isale Oko) were purposively selected based on the high number of out-of-school adolescents in the motor parks. The participants were screened with the Modified Criminal Sentiments Scale (r=0.73); and those who scored 25 and above were selected. The participants were assigned to RPT (29), MT (30), and control (30) groups. The instruments used were OB (r=0.79), PI (r=0.71), and Self-control (r=0,70) scales. The treatment lasted eight weeks. The data were analysed using Analysis of covariance and Scheffe post-hoc test at 0.05 level of significance. The participants’ age was 17.35±1.50 years, and 95% were males. Against the threshold of 25.1, their PI (𝑥̅=35.9) and Self-control (𝑥̅=32.5) were high. There was a significant main effect of treatment on OB (F(2; 86)=246.81; partial η2=0.88). The participants in the MT group had the highest reduced post-OB mean score (33.07), followed by those in RPT (36.86) and control (63.17) groups. There were significant main effects of PI (F(2; 86)=29.52; partial η2=0.44) and Self-control (F(2; 86)=8.71; partial η2=0.20) on participants’ OB. The participants with low PI had the highest reduced post-OB mean score (36.85), followed by those in moderate PI (44.21) and high PI (52.47) in the MST group. The participants with high Self-control had the highest reduced post-OB mean score (34.03), followed by those in moderate Self-control (49.57) and low Selfcontrol (57.48) groups. There were significant two-way interaction effects of treatment and PI (F(2; 86)=11.56; partial η2=0.33); treatment and Self-control (F(2; 86)=5.76; partial η2=0.20); and PI and Self-control (F(2, 86)=10.77; partial η2=0.32), in favour of low PI, high Self-control from the MT; low PI and high Self-control from the RPT groups, respectively. The three-way interaction effect was significant (F(2; 86)=3.69; partial η2=0.10), in favour of participants with high Self-control and low PI from RPT. Multisystemic, more than Reciprocal peer tutoring therapy reduced offending behaviour of out-of-school adolescents in motor parks in Ogun State, Nigeria. Counselling psychologists should adopt these therapies in managing offending behaviour among out-of-school adolescents, with consideration to peer influence and self-control.