Myth of Delinquency #8: All juvenile delinquents are hopeless, cannot be helped, cannot change, and/or will not change.

            To be thought of as hopeless is heart breaking. To be looked at by much of society as lost cause must be debilitating. There are the schools of thought that support rehabilitation and those who support punishment. If the belief is that adjudicated youth cannot be helped or cannot/will not change, then punishment is the natural result. However, if there is a belief in rehabilitation, the entire approach is different.

            To catch up from the beginning, start with “Clarifying Beliefs About Juvenile Delinquency.”

Myth 8 – All juvenile delinquents are hopeless, cannot be helped, cannot change, and/or will not change.

There is research on both sides of the argument about punishment versus rehabilitation for juvenile offenders. The original goal of juvenile detention was to take a different approach to offenders who are believed to be “savable.” A small percentage of juveniles, however, have been sentenced for more violent crimes and are determined not to be redeemable. As a result, some juvenile detention centers have turned toward a more punitive stance, thereby focusing on punishment instead of rehabilitation (Chamberlin, 2001). Despite research to the contrary, some states have chosen to serve the public cry for retribution instead of the original intent of juvenile detention. “The juvenile housed in a facility that focuses on retribution is more likely to re-offend than one who is placed in a center with a goal of rehabilitation” (Hughes, 2001, p. 163).

Rehabilitation has been shown to be effective in Missouri, which uses a nationally recognized model of juvenile justice. “In 2009, Missouri’s recommitment rate (new juvenile offenses) was 8.4%. Long-term recidivism into the adult system (incarceration within 3 years) was 6.2% and two-thirds of youth remained law-abiding for 3 years or more” (Missouri Approach, 2010, para. 1).  This is compared to the national juvenile recidivism rate of “as high as 66% when measuring recidivism by rearrest and as high as 33% when measuring re-offending by reconvictions” (Harris, Lockwood, & Mengers, 2009, p. 1).

“Proper treatment and rehabilitation services can help many youth currently in the juvenile system become healthy and productive members of society” (Gottesman & Schwarz, 2011, p. 1). These data confirm, based on successful systems in Missouri, rehabilitation is indeed possible and is more economical (Gottesman & Schwarz, 2011).