Group therapy can become a very vital part of the social worker's intervention with pre-delinquents and delinquents. If we consider group therapy with the delinquent population in terms of its goals, it becomes apparent that group therapy can serve a number of important functions. One of the most important functions is the resocialization of the delinquent adolescent through contact with his peers (as well as with an authority figure) in a real social situation. The fact that the group – composed of delinquent peers – may have greater situational similarity to the adolescent's real-life situation than meeting with a single therapist should increase the likelihood of generalization of the group's findings. situation to the outside world. Group members' critical insights can help each other gain insight into their own difficulties, as well as the difficulties of other group members. Through the process of structuring roles among its members, the therapeutic group can achieve the objective of revealing the distortions in the perception of the role that the delinquent brings with him. Group members can be left free to develop new roles in the context of group therapy to replace institutionalized roles that usually evolve from the expectations of society or authority. Very often the goals of group therapy with delinquent adolescents involve the individual directly addressing the behavior that led to his or her current institutionalized condition. In describing a particular program at Pioneer House, Dr. Fritze Redl aptly expresses this idea by stating that its purpose was not “to push or entice the aggressive child into simply surrendering… middle of paper… You will not be as effective from the point from a behavioral point of view. It is very easy to resort to previous patterns of pathogenic behavior when given adequate social support. Perhaps the group therapy situation is more advantageous if the individual is required to continue his participation once he returns to the pathogenic environment, at least until the therapist is certain that the offender has mastered a new role in his previous environment . BIBLIOGRAPHY Robison, Sophia M. Juvenile Delinquency: Its Nature and Control. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960.Kvaraceus, William C. The Community and the Delinquent. Yonkers-on-Hudson, NY: The World Book Company, 1954. Schulman, Harry M. Juvenile Delinquency in American Society. New York: Harper & Row, 1961. Cavin, Ruth A. Juvenile Delinquency. Philadelphia, PA: J.B. Lippincott, 1969.