Exploring Correctional Options for Juvenile Offenders

1. Juvenile Corrections

2. Correctional options • Probation • Intensive probation • Day treatment • Group homes • Wilderness programs • Foster care • Shelter care

3. Correctional options • Boot camps • House arrest/home detention • Electronic monitoring • Restitution/community service • Residential: state and private • Legal issues • Treatment

4. Community corrections • Probation • Differs from adult system in terms of: • Indeterminate nature • Use of formal and informal probation (not allowed with adults) • Use of probation with status offenses • Greater role at earlier stages of the process

5. Probation organization • Administered by: • Centralized statewide system • County or city, partial state • Combined—largest city has its own, state runs the rest • Locally and judicially administered (traditional—about 60% are administered this way)

6. Probation • Debate about organization • Administered locally and judicially: advantages are (1) prestige of judges • (2) judicial immunity for officers • (3) flexible, more discretion • (4) better cooperation between officers and judges

7. Probation • Statewide: • (1) more uniformity of services, less political allocation of funds based on judge’s clout • Overall standards and training, better dissemination of information • Set up for services

8. Probation • National advisory Commission suggested that probation should be state run, but with juvenile intake officers under court administration • Training and education of juvenile probation officers • Conditions of probation: reasonable, relevant and constitutional

9. Probation programs • Intensive supervision • Classification into levels of supervision, use of risk factors • Avoidance of net widening • Appear to be as effective as residential treatment at less cost

10. Probation programs • Home detention, house arrest • “passive system” home is called periodically, youth must be there (some systems relatively sophisticated • More likely to be used if parents are perceived as cooperative • “active system: electronic monitoring (EM)

11. Probation programs • Recidivism rates similar to those of residential programs, costs are significantly less, reduces residential overcrowding • Felony offenders, substance abusers and repeat offenders did more poorly with EM • The longer the sentence, failure more likely

12. Probation programs • Wilderness/Outward Bound programs • Strip them from city environment, physical and psychological challenges; confrontational style • VisionQuest, (wagon trains) Associated Marine Institutes • Short term reductions in recidivism among well run programs

13. Probation programs • Day treatment • Structured activities during the day, return to home during the evening • Cheaper than residential, works well if the family is not too dysfunctional

14. Foster care • Family paid by the state to board an abused, status offender, or delinquent child • Often from lower class deprived families, chaotic environment • Parents may be mentally ill, addicts, or in prison, likely to have been abuse and neglect

15. Foster care • Those who are a threat to others, incorrigible, or antisocial runaways do not do well in foster care • Foster homes must be licensed—adequate space, nutritious meals, good reputation in the community

16. Problems of foster parents • Frequent crises • Dealing with the biological parent • Older children may be out of control • Most suffering from emotional problems • Might treat foster children differently from their own, creating conflicts • Some foster parents not well trained; become punitive

17. Foster parents • Foster parents might become attached, find it difficult to give a child up • Foster care is difficult to monitor • Sometime it could be avoided if other services were available (homemaker, daycare, etc, treatment facilities that allow children) • Foster children display more problems

18. Boot camps • Combine boot camp drill and education, substance abuse treatment, social skills training • Short term improvements in personality measures, less antisocial, educational levels • Little effect on recidivism • Might reduce overcrowding, costs (if net widening is avoided)

19. Restitution/community service • Rehabilitative, restitution provides compensation to victims, saves money • Community service also might be rehabilitative, provides services to community that otherwise might not be available • Most orders are completed, recidivism a little lower

20. Group homes • Non-secure structured residences • Public and private • Halfway-in, halfway out • Usually around 12 youths • Residents: most are 16-18, more likely to be middle class, status offenders or property offenders, multiple family problems

21. Group homes • Family group home vs. staffed group home, or combination • Group homes somewhat selective • Vary in terms of population (some take certain types of youths), length of stay, screening, treatment, staffing and physical facility

22. Group homes • Youths are in school. Some large group homes have their own school • In most instances, youths attend a local school. A criteria for admittance is often whether the youth can behave in school • Group homes in Massachusetts

23. Group homes • Highfields projects: lower recidivism rates, concluded that it was as effective as a training school, and less expensive to operate • Silverlake experiment: compared group home attendees, one group received GGI, the other did not. Both groups showed declines in delinquency

24. Group homes • Project New Pride: emphasis on academic skills and vocational training • Successful programs: • Address a variety of skills • Have intensive contacts (group therapy) • Socially grounded approach