NCJ Number
79329
Date Published
1979
Length
332 pages
Annotation
The Illinois Status Offender Services (ISOS) project, designed to deinstitutionalize status offenders, is analyzed to further understanding of the process of institutional change and institution building.
Abstract
ISOS involved the creation of a different pattern for dealing with detainable status offenders -- 'minors in need of supervision' who would otherwise have been detained. Rather than referral of certain runaway or ungovernable youths, curfew violators, truants, or young drug or alcohol users to secure detention, under ISOS, status offenders are now provided with community-based services such as foster or shelter care and crisis intervention or general supervision, preferably while remaining at home. The development of ISOS is examined primarily in organizational and interorganizational areas. While the analysis does not purport to establish a set of guidelines for specific organizational change or social innovation, it is intended for use by policymakers, management personnel, and students in the juvenile justice and social services fields with special interest in the status offender. Finances, politics, organizational and interorganizational development, planning, and community support are focal concerns. The activities of key actors, particularly in ISOS, certain justice system units, and social agencies are of primary interest. The theme of the analysis is that social innovation is a result of pressures, inducements, and support principally in the interorganizational area rather than within a particular sponsoring organization. Footnotes accompany each chapter.