NCJ Number
158827
Journal
Saint Louis University Public Law Review Volume: 14 Issue: 1 Dated: (1994) Pages: 217-237
Date Published
1995
Length
21 pages
Annotation
This analysis of juvenile justice policies during the past 15 years concludes that the increasing emphasis on punishment through incarceration and aftercare as usual has given little or no attention to the risk factors that in combination tend to predict juvenile offending in the community: dysfunctional family relations, school behavior problems, negative peer group influences, and drug involvement.
Abstract
Although punishment by incarceration has a rightful place in juvenile corrections, protecting the public once offenders are released from secure confinement cannot be left to the vagaries of a fragmented and overloaded system. In contrast to the current approaches, a reintegration- oriented institutional corrections model offers a framework to guide the design, management, operation, and evaluation of an approach that integrates and merges in design and practice the use of secure confinement and the provision of aftercare. The program explicitly and formally joins together its structure, organization, administration, staffing patterns, job responsibilities and training, surveillance and treatment services based on identified risk factors, positive reinforcement and graduated consequences, service providers, community resources and supports, and accountability-based management information. Such a program reduces the changes of fragmentation, miscommunication, and missteps. The collaboration requires the proper combination of leadership, bureaucratic commitment, bottom-up input, merged institution and aftercare service delivery and supervision, and competent and committed staff. Reference notes