The analysis focused on whether emotional stressors vary with the restrictiveness of program security and to categorize the nature of the stress experienced by adolescent offenders taking part in peer counseling programs. The study sample consisted of 161 adjudicated male delinquents. The youths ranged from 13 to 17 years of age and had been confined for an average of 152 days. They completed questionnaires asking them to choose the most painful deprivation they had experienced. Choices on the questionnaire were the loss of liberty, lack of material possessions, the absence of interaction with girls, the loss of the right to decide things for themselves, and the physical danger from other students or staff members. Thirty-five percent of the youths reported the loss of liberty to be the main source of pain, compared to 31 percent for lack of interaction with girls, 18 percent for loss of autonomy, 11 percent for physical danger. Youths confined in the most secure programs most painfully felt the deprivations associated with the loss of personal freedom and self-regulation. Findings indicate that the real choice policymakers make is which treatment or punishment alternative to implement rather than whether to focus on treatment or punishment. A peer group counseling treatment model may provide a viable means of caring for youth in custody in the most humanistic manner possible. Tables and 18 references.