NCJ Number
92990
Date Published
1980
Length
63 pages
Annotation
England's Community Service Volunteers (CSV) program, which provides for juvenile offenders to work voluntarily in ancillary roles to care for children, the elderly, and the handicapped, has been found to be successful in facilitating a juvenile's subsequent integration into the community and reduction in delinquent behavior.
Abstract
During the first 3 years of the project, 432 juveniles were referred by social workers for placement. Since there are no selection criteria, all were accepted, but a small percentage withdrew before placement, usually because they had secured employment. Most of those referred were female (63 percent) aged 15 or 16 at time of referral. Those referred were found to be much more likely to be emotionally unstable and under stress than other juveniles under care. The CSV program is intended to provide work and social-skill development for juveniles who are unemployed or having trouble at school. Of the 432 volunteers referred to the program, 349 worked, and 75 percent of these remained in their first placements for the duration of their community service experience. Efforts to match adolescents to work situations proved unnecessary because of the ability of the participants to adjust to a wide variety of placements. The evaluation of the program included a survey of all participants 9 months after they had completed their last placement. A questionnaire asking about the juvenile's present circumstances was also sent to the supervising social worker. In all, 230 participants were eligible for study, and 166 social-worker questionnaires were completed (72 percent response rate). Nine months after leaving the program, 84 percent of the juveniles were living in the community. Comparing this situation to the sample's living situation at the time of referral shows an encouraging move toward independence in the community. To assess the impact of the project on offending, convictions incurred within 6 months of leaving the program were determined. Forty-three percent of the 'serious offender' boys and 33 percent of the girls in the program committed an offense either while in the program or within 6 months of leaving. These rates compare well with institutionalized juveniles' post-release recidivism, although the number of youth involved is not large enough to make comparison conclusive. Reoffending rates were more encouraging for less criminally experienced youth, as only 29 percent of the boys and 13 percent of the girls with less than six convictions prior to referral committed an offense within 6 months of leaving the program. While the results of the evaluation are not conclusive, it appears that the CSV project has helped some serious offenders as much and perhaps more than institutionalization. The appendix contains a comparative analysis of volunteers on CSV's current child-in-care programs, and data from the evaluation are included throughout the report.