Juvenile Justice Chapter 9

Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care

a cost-effective alternative that provides short-term, highly structured therapeutic care in foster families. Its goal is to decrease negative behaviors, including delinquency, and to increase youths' participation in appropriate prosocial activities, including school, hobbies, and sports. Evaluations of MTFC demonstrated that youths who participated in the program had significantly fewer arrests (an average of 2.6 versus 5.4 offenses) and spent fewer days in lockup than youths placed in other community-based programs.

Continuum of Sanctions

a range of punishment options, providing graduated levels of supervision in the community. Judges are able to exercise discretion by selecting, from a range of sentencing options, the punishment that best fits the circumstances of the offense and the youth. ranges from diversion programs to being placed in community correctional facilities The intermediate sanctions can be grouped from those less intrusive to offenders to those that are most intrusive. The basic aim behind intermediate sanctions, or alternative sanctions, is to escalate punishments to fit the offense. These sanctions typically are administered by probation departments and include intensive probation (which was examined in Chapter 8), community service, house arrest, and electronic monitoring. But they also involve sentences that are administered independently of probation, such as day treatment programs, drug courts, and residential care. See Figure 9-1.

Life Skills Training

a three-year intervention curriculum designed to prevent or reduce the use of "gateway" drugs, such as tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana. The lessons emphasize social resistance skills training to help students identify pressures to use drugs. reduce tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana use by 50 to 75 percent in intervention students compared to control students.

intermediate sanctions

allow juvenile judges to match the severity of punishment with the severity of the crime. grouped from those less intrusive to offenders to those that are most intrusive. escalates punishments to fit the offense. These sanctions typically are administered by probation departments and include intensive probation community service, house arrest, and electronic monitoring. But they also involve sentences that are administered independently of probation, such as day treatment programs, drug courts, and residential care.

juvenile drug courts

alternatives to the traditional adjudication process for juveniles with substance abuse problems that focus on rehabilitating the juveniles and eliminating drug abuse

Reintegration

assumes that both the offender and the receiving community must be changed. The community is as important as the client and plays a vital role in facilitating the reabsorption of offenders into its life. reconstruction, or construction, of ties between offenders and the community through maintenance of family bonds, employment and education, and placement in the mainstream of social life. Youths should be directed to community resources, and the community should be acquainted with the skills and needs of youthful lawbreakers.

Delinquency prevention

attempt to thwart youths illegal behavior before it occurs

Violent Juvenile and Delinquency Prevention Programs (1990s)

based on the assumption that the juvenile justice system does not see most serious offenders until it is too late to effectively intervene. Advocates presume that in order to reduce the overall level of violence in American society successful intervention in the lives of high-risk youth offenders, who commit about 75 percent of all violent juvenile offenses, is necessary. The general characteristics of these programs is that they (1) address key areas of risk in youths' lives (2) seek to strengthen the personal and institutional factors that contribute to the development of a healthy adolescent (3) provide adequate supervision and support (4) offer youths a long-term stay in the community. Importantly, these prevention programs must be integrated with local police, child welfare, social services, school, and family preservation programs.

federal grants

the basis of the funding of many community programs.

guided group interactions

the most popular treatment method; the members of the group are expected to support, confront, and be honest with one another so that they may be helped in dealing with their own problems. The role of the therapist in GGI is to help the members develop a more positive and prosocial group culture. Some group homes deliberately avoid a comfortable climate, and staff may even try to arouse anxiety. The treatment philosophy behind this is that without a relaxed atmosphere, youths are more likely to become unsettled and thereby more receptive to personality change.

deinstitutionalization movement

to transfer the primary focus of treatment from the hospital to the community. Led to the development of a wide network of residential and day treatments programs for youths the Department of Youth Services administers some of these programs, but more often the juvenile court sponsors these programs, or state or local agencies contract for services for those youths from private vendors in the community. The most innovative and effective ones attempt to provide a continuum of care for youthful offenders.

group therapy

treatment oriented and used as a treatment modality. These group sessions are largely supportive; they do not probe very deeply, and discussion usually is limited to problems as they arise.

wilderness prgrams

use the wilderness, dessert, sea, and urban areas in order to allow participants to gain self reliance, to prove ones worth and to define ones personhood

Group residence or halfway houses

used in some parts of the country to identify a small facility serving about thirteen to thirty-five youths. It usually houses two or more groups of youths, each with its own child care staff. This residence tends to use agency rather than community services, and its architecture and large size differentiate it from nearby homes and apartments.

Juvenile health courts

voluntary diversionary programs, which address the needs of children with mental health needs. These courts rely on cooperation and collaboration among members of a multidisciplinary team working with and for the benefit of youth and their families by decreasing recidivism; and increasing participants' adherence to treatment. Preliminary results indicate that they are effective both in reducing recidivism and increasing the use of mental health services.

1970 diversion programs

community service

Outward bound (Wilderness camps)

consists of mountain walking, backpacking, high-altitude camping, solo survival, rappelling, and rock climbing. offer 750 wilderness courses serving adults, teens, and youths. Courses include rock climbing, kayaking, dogsledding, sailing, rappelling, backpacking, and more. encourages over 30,000 students and 4,000 teachers to reach high levels of achievement and to discover their potential.

secondary prevention

directed at early identification and intervention in the lives of individuals or groups criminogenic circumstances

Primary prevention

directed at modifying conditions in the physical and social environment at large

tertiary prevetnion

directed at the prevention of recidivism after acts have been committed and detected.

juvenile mediation programs

encourages all involved parties to join together to resolve differences without court involvement. Status and nonviolent offenders from the aforementioned five counties are eligible to participate in this program. A mediator is used whose responsibilities include determining the sincerity of remorse of the accused juvenile, deciding a fair and just penalty for his or her wrongdoing, and concluding whether any services are necessary. Before proceeding to the mediation hearing, the juvenile must have admitted that he or she is guilty of a crime and signed a waiver of rights. This waiver relinquishes the right to have witnesses or lawyers present (1) successful: juvenile completed the required contractual agreement in ninety days (2) unsuccessful: juvenile failed to meet the required agreement and is referred to the probation department for formal proceedings (3) dismissal: the mediator recommends dismissal prior to disposition

Restorative Justice

focus on the welfare of victims in the aftermath of crime. In bringing criminal and victim together to heal the wounds of violation, the campaign for restorative justice advocates alternative methods to incarceration, such as intensive community supervision. T The most popular of the restorative strategies are victim-offender conferencing and community restitution. In many states, representatives of the victims' rights movement have been instrumental in setting up programs in which victims/survivors confront their violators. Restorative justice processes pay attention not only to the harm inflicted on the direct victims of a crime, but also to the ways in which the crime has harmed the offender and the community. The focus, thus, is on victim healing, offender reintegration, and community restoration. This emphasis on victim healing has persuaded some to consider restorative justice to be a victim-centered approach. Yet the emphasis on providing offenders an opportunity to make amends and to increase their awareness of the consequences of their actions has persuaded others to regard restorative justice as offender focused. It is the third emphasis, community restoration that puts victim healing and offender reparation into perspective.

Group Home

generally refers to a single dwelling owned or rented by an organization or agency for the purpose of housing offenders. provides care for a group of about children, and staff are viewed as house parents or counselors rather than as foster parents. provide an alternative to institutionalization. used as short-term residences. can be used either as a "halfway-in" setting for offenders who are having difficulty keeping to the conditions of probation or as a "halfway-out" setting for juvenile offenders who are returning to the community but do not have adequate home placement.

1980s diversion programs

grassroots efforts led to the establishment of local youth court programs

Midwestern Prevention Project

includes school normative environment change as one of the components of a comprehensive three- to five-year community-based prevention program that targets gateway use of alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana. The school-based intervention is the central component of the program. the program brought net reductions of up to 40 percent in adolescent smoking and marijuana use, with results maintained through high school graduation.

Graduated Sanctions

integrated approach employed to stop the penetration of youthful offenders into the system.

early 1990 diversion programs

local youth court programs proliferated and grassroots efforts spread accross state lines

Effectiveness of Community Based Programs

many community-based correctional programs reduce recidivism and are less expensive than confinement. community-based corrections ultimately requires breaking down community resistance and obtaining greater citizen involvement in community-based programs, while at the same time developing a broader continuum of services in the community for juveniles who need such services. (1) establish programs (2) decide who will be placed in community facilities. Careful planning is obviously necessary to gain greater public support for community-based programs. conservative: if the wrong youth is put in the wrong place at the wrong time and commits a serious or violent crime, such as rape or murder, the adverse publicity may destroy the best-planned and implemented program. Therefore, to preserve the viability of community-based programs, only juveniles most likely to be helped should be kept in the community. The opposite approach argues that all but the hard-core recidivist should be retained in the community, for it is there that the youth's problems began in the first place. Advocates of this position believe that institutionalization will only make more serious criminals out of confined youths. Some of these supporters even propose leaving many of the hard-core or difficult-to-handle youths in the community. The programs that have this integration of services are more likely to have positive effects on youthful offenders assigned to them. Another advantage of these continuum-of-service programs is that they are not as likely to experience the fragmentation and duplication of services that are found so frequently in other programs in the juvenile justice system.

Big Brothers Big Sisters of America (BBBSA)

one-to-one relationships between youth and volunteer adults, BBBSA is the best known and largest mentoring program in the nation. The program serves youths ages six to eighteen, a significant number of whom are from disadvantaged and single-parent households. An eighteen-month evaluation found that compared with a control group waiting for a match, youths in this mentoring program were 46 percent less likely to start using drugs, 27 percent less likely to start drinking, and 32 percent less likely to hit or assault someone. They also were less likely to skip school and more likely to have improved family relationships

Youth Courts

- Community-based programs in which youths sentence their peers for minor delinquent and status offenses - Also known as teen, peer, and student courts First time offenders who are charged with offenses such as theft misdemeanor assault, disorderly conduct, and possession of alcohol. Usually results in community service or apology letters.

Less intrusive to offenders

prevention programs diversion programs probation day treatment programs community restitution and drug courts

Group Home

A residential placement option that operates as a homelike setting in which a number of unrelated youth live for varying time periods. Assigned while on probation or when released from training school.

Functional Family Therapy

A short-term family-based prevention and intervention program. Treats high-risk youths and their families. Specifically designed to help underserved and at-risk youth ages eleven to eighteen, this multi-systemic clinical program provides twelve one-hour family therapy sessions spread over three months demonstrated significant and long-term reductions in the reoffending of youth, ranging from 25 to 60 percent.

Community Restitution and Apprenticeship Focus Training Program

A vocational training program for high-risk youths It was started in 1994 and this program works in partnership with private facilities, juvenile judges, juvenile justice system personnel, educational agencies, and other human service agencies. Although the initial sample size was small, an early study indicates that most youths, 15 percent, recidivate during their first year after release, 10 percent recidivate in their second year, and 1 percent recidivate in their third year after release; these data compare favorably with an untreated sample with a 50 percent recidivism rate over three years.

Adult judge youth-court

An adult serves as judge and rules on legal terminology and courtroom procedures. Youths serve as attorneys, jurors, clerks, bailiffs, and so forth.

Incredible Years: Parent, Teacher, and Child Training Series

promote social competence and to prevent, reduce, and treat conduct problems in children ages two to eight who exhibit or are at risk for conduct problems. trained facilitators use videotaped scenes to encourage problem solving and sharing of ideas.

Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994

Authorized the attorney general to make grants to various agencies to establish drug courts.

Blue print for violence prevention

BBBSA Bully Prevention Program Functional Family Therapy Incredible years: Parent, Teacher and Child Training series Life Skills Training Midwester Prevention Project Multidimensional treatment foster care Multi systemic Therapy Project toward no drug abuse Promoting alternative thinking strategies

multisystemic therapy

provides cost-effective community-based clinical treatment of chronic and violent juvenile offenders who are at high risk of out-of-home placement. The overarching goal of the intervention is to help parents understand and help their children overcome the multiple problems contributing to antisocial behavior.

Results of comprehensive strategy

Enhanced community-wide understanding of prevention services and sanctions options for juveniles Expanded networking capacity and better coordination among agencies and service providers Institution of performance measurement systems Hiring of staff to spearhead the ongoing Comprehensive Strategy planning and implementation efforts Development of comprehensive five-year strategic action plans.

2002

First national public awareness campaign is launched for youth courts

Community Corrections Act

Formal written agreement between a state government and local entities that funds counties to implement and operate community corrections programs on a local level.

Types of community and residential treatment programs

Group Home Day Treatment Wilderness Programs

Community based prgramming

reintegration, continuum sanctions and restorative justice

More intrusive to offenders

Intensive probation House arrest electronic monitoring residential facility

Comprehensive/ Multi-systemic approaches to delinquency prevention

require a strong collaborative effort between the juvenile justice system and other service provision systems, such as health, mental health, child welfare, and education. An important component of a community's comprehensive plan is to develop mechanisms that effectively link these service providers at the program level. designed to deal simultaneously with many aspects of youths' lives. The intent is that they are intensive, often involving multiple contacts weekly, or possibly daily, with at-risk youth. They build on the strengths of these youths, rather than dwell on their deficiencies. These programs operate mostly, although not exclusively, outside of the formal justice system under a variety of public, nonprofit, or university auspices. Finally, they combine accountability and sanctions with increasingly intensive treatment and rehabilitation services that are achieved through a system of graduated sanctions

role of diversion programs

Keeping juveniles outside the formal justice system through the police and the courts or through agencies outside the juvenile justice system. Justice subsystems retain control over youthful offenders.

Private delivery of correctional services to youthful offenders

Most of these programs were religious or business backed, but died in the early to mid-1900s. In 1972, the private sector reentered the field of juvenile corrections in an unprecedented manner. Privately run programs are emerging as a result of budget problems that prevent local or state agencies from supplying the services in an efficient manner. Privatization has become big business and has sparked the interests of investors from all walks of life. Those operating in the private sector receive payment for their programs through federal, state, or local funding, from insurance plans, or from the juvenile's parents.

Drug court pros

Much faster and much more comprehensive intake assessments Much greater focus on the functioning of the juvenile and the family throughout the juvenile court system Much closer integration of the information obtained during the assessment process as it relates to the juvenile and the family Much greater coordination among the court, the treatment community, the school system, and other community agencies in responding to the needs of the juvenile and the court Much more active and continuous judicial supervision of the juvenile's case and treatment process Increased use of immediate sanctions for noncompliance and incentives for progress for both the juvenile and the family.

1997-2008 diversion programs

National Youth Court Movement

Day Treatment Programs

Nonresidential programs that do not provide living and sleeping quarters

Bully Prevention Program

restructures the social environment and secondary schools in order to provide fewer opportunities for bullying and to reduce the peer approval and support that reward bullying behavior.

Training Schools

Popular because of the prohibitive cost

CRAFT Treatment

Project CRAFT has been teaching court-involved youth ages fifteen to nineteen marketable construction trade skills that help them find jobs, instill a sense of confidence and excitement about the future, and provide them with a viable career option. Once graduates earn their industry-recognized pre-apprenticeship certification, Project CRAFT staff helps them find jobs, continue their education, or join the military. curriculum in electric wiring, carpentry, landscaping, facilities maintenance, plumbing, and painting, depending on the program.

Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies

Promotes social and emotional competencies, focuses on the understanding, expression, and regulation of emotions. Designed to be used by teachers and counselors within classrooms of children in kindergarten through fifth grade. The basic outcome goals are to provide youths with tools to achieve academically as well as to enhance the classroom atmosphere and the learning process. Evaluations have found positive behavioral changes related to hyperactivity, peer aggression, and conduct problems.

Juvenile drug court goals

Provide immediate intervention treatment, and structure in the lives of juveniles who use drugs through ongoing, active oversight and monitoring by the drug court judge. Improve juveniles' level of functioning in their environment, address problems that may be contributing to their use of drugs, and develop/strengthen their ability to lead crime- and drug-free lives. Provide juveniles with skills that will aid them in leading productive crime- and drug-free lives—including skills that relate to their educational development, sense of self-worth, and capacity to develop positive relationships in the community. Strengthen families of drug-involved youth by improving their ability to provide structure and guidance to their children. Promote accountability of both juvenile offenders and those who provide services to them.

SafeFutures

SafeFutures is a program funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) that appears to be a model worth replicating in communities across the nation. Seeks to improve the service delivery system by creating a continuum of care that is responsive to the needs of youths and their families at all points along the path toward juvenile reintegration. This coordinated approach of prevention, intervention, and treatment is designed both to serve the juveniles of a community and to encompass the human service and the juvenile justice systems.

Ways community based programs are administered

state sponsored, locally sponsored, and privately administered

2005

The American Youth Policy Forum held a briefing for policy makers on youth courts at capitol hill in Washington dc

Established prevention as a national priority

The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974 and the Juvenile Justice Amendments of 1977, 1980, and 1984

Day treatment programs

These court-mandated programs are popular because they are more economical than residential placements, do not need to provide living and sleeping quarters, make parental participation easier, require fewer staff members, and are less coercive and punishment oriented. Day treatment programs, similar to diversion programs, were used less in the 1980s and early 1990s than they were in the 1970s, but two of the most promising programs—the Associated Marine Institute (AMI) and Project New Pride—continue to thrive. The AMI is described here.

Youth judge youth court

This is similar to the adult judge model, except that a youth serves as the judge.

Peer jury youth court

This model does not use youth attorneys: the case is presented to a youth jury by a youth or adult. The youth jury then questions the defendant directly

Project Toward No Drug Abuse (TND)

targets high school youth ages fourteen to nineteen who are at risk for drug abuse. Over a four- or five-week period, twelve classroom-based lessons offer students cognitive motivation enhancement activities, information about the social and health consequences of drug use, correction of cognitive misperceptions, help with stress management, training in self-control, and instruction in active listening

2006

United States Senate passed a resolution designating September 2006 as National Court Month

Group Home Cons

Vacancies: Openings are hard to find and long waiting lists Staff is underpaid and not trained right Residents overstay

Tribunal youth court

Youth attorneys present the case to a panel of three youth judges, who decide the appropriate disposition for the defendant. A jury is not used.