NCJ Number
201654
Date Published
January 2002
Length
82 pages
Annotation
This annual report, prepared in January 2002, provides details of Colorado's Youthful Offender System (Y.O.S.).
Abstract
The report begins by offering an overview of the Y.O.S. and explaining the sentencing procedures. Eligible juveniles include those who are between 14 and 18 years of age and have committed certain eligible offenses, such as Class two felonies, crimes of violence, felonies involving a deadly weapon, and certain classes of vehicular crimes. The first section also contains legislative changes that affect the Y.O.S. The second section provides an overview of the Y.O.S. program structure. Intake, diagnostic, and orientation are explained, and then Phase I through Phase III of the program are explored. Phase I involves core programs, supplementary activities, and educational or vocational programming. Phase II takes place during the last 3 months of the period of institutional confinement and includes supervision in a 24-hour custody residential program designed to prepare the youth for community reintegration. Phase III involves the supervision of the youth while community reintegration occurs. The third section reports on future program considerations, including integrating Positive Peer Culture and Guided Group Interaction into Phases I and II and offering a mentoring program during Phase III. Program expenditures and costs are the subject of section four, while section five offers Y.O.S. offender profiles, including admission trends, total releases, population characteristics, and participation in program phases. Recidivism and reoffense after Y.O.S. program completion are explored in the sixth section; during the period from 1995 through 1998, 18.6 percent of youthful offenders were readmitted to the Department of Corrections for new felony convictions within 3 years of their release from Y.O.S. Program interventions are the topic of the seventh section; interventions include the core interventions of gang education, drug education, and skills for daily living, while supplementary program interventions include anger management and stress management, among others. Tables of the daily and weekly schedules for Y.O.S. participants are provided in the eighth section, while the last section offers one table of reoffense rates for Y.O.S. discharges.