Dr. Daniel Shibru of the University of California-San Francisco said the program proved to be cost efficient in comparison with the cost of a stay in a juvenile detention center.

"This study demonstrates that investing dollars in preventive intervention programs is not only a good public health practice but it is a good economic practice as well," Shibru said in a statement.

The study included 154 patients ages 12 to 20 hospitalized for intentional violent trauma at a university-based urban trauma center in Alameda County, Calif.

About half of the patients received a minimum of five interactions with an intervention specialist, while the control group of 79 patients were selected based on age, gender, ethnicity or race, type of injury and year of hospitalization.

The study, published in The Journal of the American College of Surgeons, found 16 percent of risk reduction in criminal justice involvement can be attributed to the peer intervention program.