RIVERVIEW — When the 15-year-old joined his friends in stealing a car this summer, he didn't have a clue what karma meant, or how his crime would affect the car's owner — or even his own mother.

Two straight months of mandatory after-school visits to the St. Louis County Reporting Center for counseling and victim advocacy sessions has given him a new outlook, and a firm definition of karma.

"I now know basically what you give out to others is someday coming back to you," he said at the Riverview-based Reporting Center with his mother nodding at his side. "It's all about taking control for yourself instead of letting someone else take the lead."

Now, it's up to the teen to follow the law, but a recent report by the Missouri Office of State Courts Administrator suggests programs like the Reporting Center may reduce his chances of getting into further trouble.

The state report, released this month, seeks to create Missouri's first clear definition of juvenile recidivism — or the rate at which delinquent youths return to criminal behavior. More critically, the report compares how that rate differs for particular types of young offenders.

The rate for juveniles for all offenses in Missouri in 2007 was 26 percent, meaning about a quarter of the 15,900 youths who got in trouble with the law that year went on to commit another offense.

But authors say the key findings are in the circumstances in which youths return to crime.

For instance, the report found that about 41 percent of the approximately 4,100 juveniles who reoffended in 2007 did so within three months of the disposition of their previous offense. Thirteen- to 15-year-olds were far more likely to reoffend than younger or older juveniles. Teens with less serious offenses were less likely to reoffend if they had limited involvement with the juvenile court system.

Those factors paint a clearer picture of the types of rehabilitative programs that might effectively put juvenile offenders on the right track, said Gary Waint, deputy state courts administrator.

"Forty-one percent of juveniles reoffend within three months, that's a significant thing to note by juvenile officers," he said. "They can see the level of supervision and the amount of surveillance a juvenile gets early on is critical."

He said it also points to another issue that juvenile courts can't afford to overlook.

"Once there is a disposition of a youth, we need to ask, how long does it take to get services in place?" Waint said.

St. Louis County Family Court Administrator Kip Seely said the court established the Reporting Center in June to better respond to the needs of its nonviolent juvenile offenders. The court wanted to make sure teens got immediate after-school supervision and programs — even before the disposition of their cases.

About 90 percent of the juveniles who now report to the center would have otherwise ended up in juvenile detention. For most nonviolent juvenile offenders, detention was detrimental because they were mixed in with more serious teen offenders and were further exposed to bad influences, Seely said.

"We were trying to focus on ways to find an alternative for kids ... who really didn't need to be locked up in a detention setting," he said.

Waint said Missouri has always given its juvenile and family courts the discretion to create programs to specially target juvenile problems and trends in their areas,

But such a system also puts the onus of funding those programs on the local courts, he said.

The new study will enable the courts to create programs based on what works, providing the data to track whether their programs are beating the state averages in recidivism rates. This information, if used correctly, can help them successfully apply for future funding, Waint said.

"It kind of paints them a recipe card to apply for funds to intervene," he said.

Juvenile courts in St. Louis County and the city depend on grants to offer a host of programs aimed at reducing the number of repeat offenders. St. Louis Family Court Administrator Kathryn Herman said the new data will help them better determine which programs are best addressing the problem.

"If one can do that and show that the program is effective in reducing those rates, that may assist in funding," she said.

Waint said the study also had other subtle indications of what kinds of programs might not be working.

"Scared straight" programs, in which juveniles get shouted at by convicted felons inside prison walls to scare them from committing crimes, don't work because they don't address any of the factors shown in the study that lead to recidivism, Waint said.

What appears to work better, he said, are counseling and tutoring programs for juveniles targeting poor family dynamics, drug and alcohol abuse, negative peer relationships and poor school performance — factors the study found to contribute to higher juvenile recidivism rates.

The study also calls into question whether enough is being done for female juvenile offenders, Waint said. Although the number of females who break the law is relatively low compared with males, the study showed they, too, commonly reoffend.

"I think this may call attention to what types of programs are designed for females," he said, noting that girls may need different program approaches and assessments by the courts.