NCJ Number
127284
Journal
Corrections Today Volume: 52 Issue: 7 Dated: (December 1990) Pages: 118-126
Date Published
1990
Length
9 pages
Annotation
The Glen Mills School in Delaware County (Pennsylvania) has challenged the traditional custody/clinical model followed by most residential facilities for juvenile delinquents in the U.S. Used for nearly 10 years, the sociological model is providing more positive results at a lower cost per juvenile than the traditional system.
Abstract
The custody/clinical model is based on the assumption that juvenile delinquents engage in deviant behavior because of dysfunctional families, abnormal development, or other psychosocial problems. Psychiatric counseling, provided on an individual basis, seeks to change the individual's personality and behavior. The model hires professionals to treat the offenders and erects elaborate security and surveillance systems. The cost is high, and the results are largely negative because the model fails to address issues of interpersonal and vocational skills or behavior modification. The sociological approach, on the other hand, treats the juvenile offender as a normal person who needs group treatment in order to learn behavior modification and life skills. Glen Mills School uses peer group culture to control anti-social behavior while also promoting individual growth and responsibility. Confrontation on positive and negative behaviors is the essential feature of the Glen Mills experience. The purpose of confrontation is to reinforce accepted norms of behavior; confrontations replace the security measures used at the custody/clinical model institutions. Glen Mills students have achieved results academically, athletically, and behaviorally, and the per diem cost of the program has been reduced 30 percent since its conversion to the sociological model.