What
leads to the fist offense? After that, what leads to the next? For youth in
extremely challenging circumstances, maybe home is not the best place to be.
One adult inmate told me
prison is the best place he’s ever lived – he gets a free studio apartment
(sort of), three free meals a day for which he doesn’t have to do any work, and
a free college education. He said he wants to make sure he can stay until he
graduates from college because he likes having no distractions from that goal
and knows he won’t finish school if he gets out too early. I bet you are as surprised
by his perspective as I was.
Of
the incarcerated youth with whom we work, how many will come right back upon
release? How many want to? How many can’t help it? What is the story behind
their return?
If
you are just joining this conversation, please read the first blog post, “ClarifyingBeliefs About Juvenile Delinquency” to better understand where all this is coming
from.
Myth 7 – All juvenile delinquents will stay criminals.
A common theme
throughout the survey responses in this study was resignation. “They will all
grow up to be criminals if there isn’t a drastic intervention.” “They are lost
children who have been failed by society and their families.” “[They] end up in
prison throughout their adulthood.”
Anecdotally,
multiple educators in juvenile justice facilities have shared that juveniles
reoffend because they do not want to go home. The facility may be safer for
them than their home for a number of reasons. They may also only feel cared for
and loved when they are in a secure care placement. This is not unusual, yet it
is not empirically represented.
Recidivism rates
and reasons were monitored by the New York State Division of Criminal Justice
Services in a study of 9,477 youth who had been discharged from the Division for
Youth in 1991 through 1995 (Frederick, 1999). Of those who reoffended, “over 95
percent had problems in four or more
of the following areas: mental health, substance abuse, behavior at school,
academic performance, handicapping conditions, household characteristics,
criminal or abusive family environment, or personal relationships with other
family members” (Frederick, 1999, p. 1). Looking at these characteristics, it
is easy to support the anecdotal evidence provided by those in the field. As
simply stated by a survey respondent, “…they are a product of their
environment.”
Instead of
assuming, however, the young offenders will be lifelong criminals, it is quite
possibly the environment causing the repeated criminal offending is the
juvenile system itself. Research shows any contact with the juvenile justice
system drastically increases the likelihood of contact with the justice system
as an adult (Petitclerc, Gatti, Vitaro, & Tremblay, 2013). In a 10-year
study of 35,000 Chicago youth who had contact with the juvenile justice system,
Aizer and Doyle (2013) found “those who were in juvenile detention are 41
percentage points more likely than other children residing in the same
community to be found in an adult correctional facility by age 25” (p. 21).
