How To Reduce Juvenile Recidivism

Effect on Recidivism At some point almost every individual who has been through the justice system, whether adult or juvenile, will be released back into the general population. At this point, the concern becomes whether the justice system is designed to achieve restoration so that individuals return as constructive members of society who are willing to commit themselves to living positively in the future. When this does not happen and an individual is involved in a future criminal activity, he or she is said to have recidivated. One of the major goals of any justice system that values restoration is to reduce its recidivism rate to the lowest possible level through personal transformation. National research clearly shows that placing juveniles in the adult justice system does not reduce recidivism levels and actually causes higher levels of subsequent crime. A Centers for Disease Control (CDC) study shows that placing youth in the adult justice system leads to a thirty-four percent increase in recidivism and a seventy-seven percent increase in the …show more content…
The Department of Justice has found that approximately nineteen percent of males and fifteen percent of females under eighteen that are placed in adult correctional facilities will face some form of sexual victimization during their sentence. These high levels are compared to only ten percent for the rest of the adult prison population and nine and a half percent for those juveniles held in a juvenile detention facility. These same juveniles are also faced with higher levels of violence, being twice as likely to be beaten by facility staff and fifty percent more likely to be attacked by an adult inmate with a weapon. Overall, forty-six percent of those under eighteen in adult prison will be a victim of in some form violence during their stay in that