Virtual Reality Intervention (VR--GINSO) for Reducing Aggression in Young Offenders

Juvenile violence constitutes a major public health and social challenge, with significant individual, societal, and economic consequences. In Spain, violent offenses committed by adolescents account for approximately 5% of all registered crimes, and official data indicate a marked increase in youth violence over the past decade. Both perpetrators and victims are frequently minors, particularly in contexts such as bullying, physical assault, dating violence, and youth gang-related offenses. Beyond its immediate impact on victims, juvenile violence is strongly associated with adverse developmental trajectories for offenders, including academic failure, social exclusion, mental health problems, and an elevated risk of persistent criminal behavior into adulthood.

Adolescence represents a critical developmental period characterized by heightened emotional reactivity, ongoing neurobiological maturation, and increased sensitivity to environmental influences. Individuals who display stable patterns of violent and antisocial behavior in adulthood often begin exhibiting aggressive conduct during adolescence. Consequently, early identification and intervention with young offenders are essential to prevent the consolidation and chronicity of aggressive behaviors. Interventions targeting this population have the potential not only to improve individual outcomes but also to reduce recidivism and enhance public safety.

To date, a range of psychosocial interventions aimed at reducing aggression in adolescents has demonstrated some degree of effectiveness. Programs focusing on cognitive-behavioral strategies, emotional regulation, social skills training, and problem-solving have yielded positive outcomes, particularly when delivered in a targeted and time-limited manner to high-risk youth. However, meta-analytic evidence suggests that the magnitude of these effects is generally small to moderate, highlighting important limitations in current treatment approaches. Factors such as low treatment adherence, reduced motivation, difficulties in generalizing learned skills to real-life situations, and limited engagement with traditional therapeutic formats may partially account for these modest outcomes, especially in adolescents involved in the juvenile justice system.

In response to these challenges, there is growing interest in the integration of innovative technological tools to enhance the effectiveness of psychosocial interventions. Virtual Reality (VR) has emerged as a promising therapeutic modality due to its capacity to generate immersive, interactive, and ecologically valid environments that simulate real-world situations. VR facilitates experiential learning by allowing users to engage in realistic scenarios while maintaining a high level of experimental and clinical control. This technology has demonstrated effectiveness as an adjunctive tool in psychological treatments, particularly for anxiety disorders, phobias, post-traumatic stress disorder, and substance use disorders. More recently, VR-based interventions have been developed to address aggression-related processes, including emotional awareness, physiological arousal regulation, empathy enhancement, and assertive interpersonal skills.

Despite these promising developments, the empirical evidence supporting the use of VR in the treatment of juvenile violence remains limited. Existing VR-based programs often focus on specific components (e.g., empathy induction or anger management), are not fully integrated into structured therapeutic protocols, or have not been specifically designed for adolescent populations. Moreover, few studies have evaluated the added value of VR when embedded within multicomponent interventions, and even fewer have been conducted within secure or semi-secure juvenile justice settings or adapted to the Spanish sociocultural context. As a result, there is a clear need for rigorous, well-controlled studies that assess the effectiveness of VR-enhanced interventions for aggressive behavior in youth offenders.