TAKING ON THE JUVENILE DETENTION SYSTEM
500,000 youth are presented to the court system each year (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 2014). What an image this number places in our mind. Each young life stifled by criminal activity bringing them into a system which has been tainted by ineffective programs, limited funding, overworked staff, and corruption. Our juvenile systems presents with unique characteristics as it must balance a duty to care for the minor children and the community all within the constraints of policies compiled by legislature, politics, and economics.
The theory that juveniles need to be protected from the adult penal system began when a group of merchants, the Society for the Prevention of Juvenile …show more content…
One inspiration is the state of Missouri, a leader in the progressive rehabilitation of our juvenile detention system. The Missouri model which has re-structured their juvenile prison system and downsized the institutions to smaller, rehabilitative facilities (Bernstein, 2014).
Over the course of decades, the juvenile detention system has undergone many organizational face-lifts. Community service programs top the charts for declining rates in juvenile recidivism (Office of Juvenile Justice and Prevention, 2015). However, these programs are few and economically challenged. The majority of delinquent youth are sent to juvenile detention centers whose primary focus is to house and maintain offenders until their release back into society. The rate of recidivism is high among detainees release from juvenile prisons where they continue to face many of the challenges they had on the streets that perpetuated their criminal behavior.
The conditions of the current juvenile detention system are not adequate in size and program resources to effectively rehabilitate delinquent youths back into society to be productive
500,000 youth are presented to the court system each year (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 2014). What an image this number places in our mind. Each young life stifled by criminal activity bringing them into a system which has been tainted by ineffective programs, limited funding, overworked staff, and corruption. Our juvenile systems presents with unique characteristics as it must balance a duty to care for the minor children and the community all within the constraints of policies compiled by legislature, politics, and economics.
The theory that juveniles need to be protected from the adult penal system began when a group of merchants, the Society for the Prevention of Juvenile …show more content…
One inspiration is the state of Missouri, a leader in the progressive rehabilitation of our juvenile detention system. The Missouri model which has re-structured their juvenile prison system and downsized the institutions to smaller, rehabilitative facilities (Bernstein, 2014).
Over the course of decades, the juvenile detention system has undergone many organizational face-lifts. Community service programs top the charts for declining rates in juvenile recidivism (Office of Juvenile Justice and Prevention, 2015). However, these programs are few and economically challenged. The majority of delinquent youth are sent to juvenile detention centers whose primary focus is to house and maintain offenders until their release back into society. The rate of recidivism is high among detainees release from juvenile prisons where they continue to face many of the challenges they had on the streets that perpetuated their criminal behavior.
The conditions of the current juvenile detention system are not adequate in size and program resources to effectively rehabilitate delinquent youths back into society to be productive