Juvenile Treatment Programs - Essay Example

Juvenile Treatment programs Introduction: The avoidance of violent criminal acts and other severe crimes committed by youths has become a critical issue on the national health care schedule as the astounding fiscal and social expenditures of such crimes become apparent. To address this issue, mental health experts and policy makers have reasonably argued for the encouragement of childhood programs that may avoid the development of violent activities. Even though primary deterrence programs targeted at young kids are definitely needed and promising programs are presently being examined, the development of effectual interventions with youths who are expected to commit serious crimes has been comparatively neglected. It has been observed that severe juvenile offenders are, undoubtedly, at the greatest risk for committing extra severe crimes. Averting or attenuating further criminal action in such youths would positively influence their lives, families, and societies (Borduin, Mann, Conn, Henggeler, Fucci, Blaske and Williams, 569). Research carried out regarding juvenile treatment: Interventions with serious juvenile delinquents historically have had little accomplishment. Recently, Kazdin has explained several empirically driven treatments as "promising" (such as, behavioral parent training, cognitive-behavioral therapy), and Lipsey has debated that such structured, skill-oriented treatments have revealed the largest impacts on juvenile delinquents in general. However, in clinical trials with severe juvenile delinquents, such treatments have failed to generate favorable long-term consequences. In consideration of the sustained difficulty of even well-conceived treatments to create lasting alteration in youth antisocial behavior, researchers have debated that the major restriction of such treatments is their comparatively narrow focus and failure to account for the multi-determined aspect of antisocial actions. Overwhelming evidence sustains a social-ecological outlook in which antisocial behavior in youths is conceptualized as multi-determined. Simcha-Fagan & Schwartz, have portrayed that criminal behavior is linked directly or indirectly with major traits of youths and the relatives, peer, school, and neighborhood arrangements in which youths are pushed in (Borduin, Mann, Conn, Henggeler, Fucci, Blaske and Williams, 569). Juvenile treatment in the state of New Mexico: New Mexicos crime concerns highlight aggressive crimes against individuals. Enhanced mobility and the effect of the media have led to a blurring of the differentiations between urban and rural crime. The issues of crime and public safety we need to be concerned about over the next 5 to 10 years incorporate extensive and increasing abuse of drugs and alcohol, the crisis in family steadiness, the consequences of the greater participation of youths in crime, the impact of the unequal numbers of minorities arrested and imprisoned in the correctional structure, and increasing misuse and abuse of computer know-how. General public recognition of the erosion of civil liberties is also an alarming trend. The Town Hall in New Mexico observes the most inducing problem to be a predicament in those commonly-held human principles that maintain healthy communities. The educational system often cannot cope with at-risk kids and often fails to educate them with essential literacy skills. Both public and private sectors can sustain families by organizing flextime, home based service, day care, and other attributes that sustain parents in raising their kids. While many family-based communal and educational services exist, there are a small number of programs aimed at rehabilitation of the delinquent. There is also a critical requirement for significant development of alternative education programs so as to decrease the impact of the dropout rate. While a lot of programs offer useful services, they do not operate in a continued and coordinated manner. They also do not require sufficient evaluation techniques to measure the achievement of these programs. The role of the public sector is to offer a clear policy structure and communal, educational, and support services. The role of the private sector is to offer service and other opportunities to facilitate citizens to take part in the process. They need to recognize opportunities for public-private joint ventures, and to understand that the accountability for dealing with their crime problem lies with community as a whole, in particular at the local community level. The objectives of New Mexicos criminal and juvenile justice arrangement emphasize on trying to guarantee the public security and to deal with the results of the criminal act. The general emphasis is on justice and incapacitation instead of rehabilitation and avoidance. The current structure tends to treat the delinquent in isolation rather than as element of the society and family setting. There needs to be a shift towards a balance among a variety of goals. This indicates putting more resources into deterrence, early interference, therapy, and reintegration services. The public and private sectors uniformly share in the challenge of addressing these objectives. Currently, a little responsibility is required. The two sectors function independently and contend against each other for financial support. There should be interagency system-wide arrangement and collaboration (Crime, corrections, and the law in New Mexico, 1). Treatment programs provided to the juveniles- Case study findings: New Mexico operates a small, centralized adolescent justice education structure. Juvenile justice youth are provided by the Children, Youth and Families Department (CYFD). CYFD offers family services (child care and early child progress), defensive services (foster and adoptive care, inquiries, and youth services) and youth justice services. CYFD are direct accountability to Juvenile justice educational services. Juvenile justice programs comprise of twelve locally functioned custody centers, and 6 residential assurance programs that vary in size from about 20 to 153 beds. Two of the housing programs provide a mix of seized and committed youth. The 20 bed residential commitment program provides post-secondary learners. The department is not accountable for day treatment programs, which are operated by local school regions. Youths are entrusted to the department up until the age of eighteen, and depending on their extent of stay, the department can provide youth up to the age of twenty-one (Pesta, 2). In accordance with CYFD administrators, No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has had a major effect on the educational services for juvenile justice youth. The department has applied NCLB to a historically ignored area. The area most highlighted by New Mexico has been the requirements for highly competent teachers. For instance, over the past 3 years, nearly 60 percent of the juvenile justice teachers in the structure have been reinstated with more highly specialized and in-field teachers. The elimination of previous under-qualified teachers and the enhancement in professionalism has facilitated the department to increase curriculum values in their residential amenities. The NCLB obligation for statewide testing has also increased their responsibility towards the juvenile justice education system. CYFD accounts state-test results for American Yard Products (AYP) as their own Local Education Agency (LEA). Besides, the Juvenile Justice NCLB Collaboration Project optimistically affected New Mexico’s education services for confined youth. The superintendent for education applies information from yearly reports of Florida State University (FSU’s) Juvenile Justice Educational Enhancement Program (JJEEP) to lobby for more sources and sketches to execute an educational quality assurance arrangement close to JJEEP’s (Pesta, 5-6; An Analysis of Juvenile Justice Process and Treatment Providers in New Mexico, 3-6). . Programs that have gained success in the country: Recent State action relating to boot camps for juveniles has been noteworthy. In New Mexico, the Governor marked into law in 1995. It is a proposal that will offer for work camps with a focus on professional skills in forestry, preservation, or ranching for severe, violent criminals. It sketches for a 50-bed boot camp for less hazardous criminals. The juvenile justice reform proposal ratified in Oregon requires the founding of 8 regional youth liability camps, with an emphasis on work and physical training, a cognitive reshaping component, and a drug and alcohol rehabilitation stage. To meet the criteria for the program, participants must be criminals who otherwise would have been sent to the States teaching school. However, they are considered suitable for safety risks of work and teaching in such camp (Juvenile Boot Camps). The Wilderness Therapy Program for the teenagers copes with behavioral and emotional matters that may be surpassing the lives of the teens. Juveniles may suffer from a range of psychological issues- nervousness, depression, drug and alcohol reliance, consumption disorders, misery issues, low self-respect, oppositional disobedience, post-traumatic strain disorder, and different neurological disorders. Wilderness Therapy Programs and educational institutions are planned to address their specific requirements. With the increasing expansion of Wilderness Programs both in the United States and other nations, parents are encountered with the confrontation of choosing the right program for the specific requirements of their youngsters. The counselors are there to help people go through the hundreds of program alternatives, to discover the ones that meet the specific conflicts that a child is facing (Teen Wilderness Therapy Programs and Therapeutic Camps). Parents who are struggling with a pre-juvenile or teenager often find that alteration is difficult provided the youngster remains in the domestic surroundings. Influences outside the home affect manners, often more than the family does. Young adults contending against material abuse issues can also hit upon the pressures and manipulations of their every day environment. This makes it difficult for them to develop strong coping skills. For this reason, residential programs can result in profound alterations in troubled adolescents and young adults. These programs can remove them from the school and neighborhood and put them in a well controlled surrounding where they can focus on behavioral alteration. Outdoor education, also known as wilderness therapy, is an exclusive alternative to long-term residential educational institutions and rehabilitation programs. These programs have been confirmed to be highly effectual in dealing with matters such as oppositional defiant disorder, ADHD-associated behavioral struggles, and material abuse problems. Wilderness Programs focus rehabilitation and positive behavioral alteration over discipline. While learners must follow severe guidelines to guarantee the security of all participants, nature serves as the crucial teacher. Troubled teenagers are mainly affected by the understanding that the wilderness cannot be influenced by them. The group environment educates them the worth of collaboration and joint attempt. Through the expansion of wilderness skills, teenagers develop healthy self-esteem and succeed in reacting positively towards their peers (Wilderness Treatment Programs). Recommendations and conclusion: The Town Hall advocates the following priorities, approaches, or alterations in the law to attain a more effectual, efficient, and responsible criminal and juvenile justice structure. The criminal and juvenile justice organizations must function as a unified structure. The criminal and juvenile justice system must execute an inclusive joint statewide planned correctional proposal that reveals universal purposes, goals, and assignment and expand a combined criminal and juvenile justice information structure to track delinquents. The Town Hall identifies and sustains the founding of the Criminal and Juvenile Justice Coordinating Council. The Department of Corrections and the Juvenile Justice Division should see that convicts remain crime-free for a considerable and quantifiable period of time. Implementation of society policing should be supported. Magistrate, civic, metropolitan, and ethnic courts need management and support services to deal critically with offenses and criminals. The legislature and executive division must comprehend that when new laws are ratified, old laws modified, or extra resources entrusted to law enforcement, additional and proportionate resources must be added to courts, prosecution and defense services, jails, penitentiaries, and optional authorizations and programs. Particularly, the legislature and executive must offer equivalent financial support to both prosecution and defense services. Youngsters who are sufferers or dependents of crooks or victims are potentially in need of services. Abuse of chemical materials is a public health issue. Stress should be placed on avoidance, early interference, and rehabilitation. Residential material abuse treatment programs, residential programs with a more universal focus, and non-residential rigorous rehabilitation and management programs should be obtainable in every society as an alternative to imprisonment. There is need for encouragement of victim-offender arbitration and settlement programs, such as the Navajo Peacemaker model, and make them accessible as alternatives to pre-prosecution diversion for first time criminals (excluding family aggression). Victim-offender arbitration and reconciliation agendas should also be presented in all post-conviction cases. It has been suggested to ratify enforceable hate offenses legislation. There is a requirement to offer law enforcement with the learning, resources, and guidance to facilitate them to more efficiently identify hate crimes. The suggestions also include changing the term "vengeance" to the concept of chastisement and personal responsibility of the individual; make sure that adequate resources are assigned for the recognition, detainment, prosecution and incapacitation of the most severe lawbreakers. Funding allocation choices should be based on program efficiency in lessening crime and cost efficacy. There is a necessitation for evaluation and settlement of differences in the criminal code categorizations. A study of sentencing equities should be carried out to determine inequalities in relation to sex or minority status. Stress should be placed on variety within the Parole Board and term boundaries placed on associates or participants. There is need for expansion of alternatives to incarceration, in order that misconduct related offenses and first criminals are not guided into the prison arrangement. Incarceration should be applied only in cases where public security and safety are jeopardized. There is also a requirement for obligatory multi-cultural consciousness training (such as, ethnic, race, sex, class, religious conviction, occupation, sexual orientation, etc.) for all engaged in the criminal and juvenile justice structure and having direct communication with criminals and the public. Multilingual services should be provided at all stages of the juvenile justice system. Federal judges in New Mexico should expand the federal jury pool for the District of New Mexico by incorporating drivers license lists as a resource of jurors. With the intention of optimizing the valuable impact of society based services by alterations and the Juvenile Justice Division of Children, Youth, and Families, personnel should be assessed to ensure an equilibrium between law enforcement and therapy and treatment approaches, especially for alterations and probation and parole officials. Improved and timely information about the illegal and juvenile justice system procedure and support services for casualties of crimes must be offered to them from the time of primary contact with the structure and throughout the procedure so that the casualty is given the appropriate attention. Devices for teaching the general public and the media is required to be developed and executed in the area of juvenile justice methods. It should be made mandatory that all high school learners take and pass a one semester program on offense and the regulation in New Mexico. Focus should be on at-risk adolescents, juvenile crooks, and their families. It should be ensured that they are assisted in participating seriously in the juvenile and adult penal structure, especially at the time of first encounter. There is a vital need to considerably expand optional educational programs so as to decrease the impact of the dropout rate. Educational opportunities for all youngsters, even those who drop out, are postponed, or are driven out must be provided. Financial support for alternatives to conventional education will be derived from current sources. The existing school funding formula must be altered to reflect this. New Mexico First embraces a Town Hall to deal specially with young crime, corrections, and the young code in New Mexico. Prisoners should be provided employment and educational and vocational learning programs in jail that guarantee the development of communal attitudes, information, and job skills that will provide them the chance to live crime-free. The labor of imprisoned criminals should be applied, where possible, for construction and preservation of prison arrangement facilities and tools to promote cost competence in management. All recommendations of this Town Hall report should be extended to cover the Native American criminal justice systems. The Native American justice systems should be incorporated in policy preparation and decision-making of the state juvenile and criminal justice structures. Legislation should be developed to get rid of bias in recruiting and keeping ex-criminals when the conviction is not purposely associated with the job duties. The State of New Mexico should offer economic inducements to private owners to employ and retain ex-lawbreakers. (Crime, corrections, and the law in New Mexico, 1-2) State statutes regarding absenteeism should be altered to approve municipalities to ratify ordinances that permit local police to pick-up and return school-aged learners to school in the time of school hours. References: 1. Borduin, Charles M, Mann, Barton J, Conn, Lynn T, Henggeler, Scott W, Fucci, Bethany R, Blaske, David M, Williams, Robert A. “Multisystemic Treatment of Serious Juvenile Offenders: Long-Term Prevention of Criminality and Violence”. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Vol. 63. No. 4, 1995. p. 569-578. Available at: http://humanservices.ucdavis.edu/academy/pdf/borduinetal.pdf (Accessed on Nov. 28, 2009). 2. “Crime, corrections, and the law in New Mexico” Consensus report of the Sixteenth New Mexico town hall, Oct. 26-29, 1995. Available at: http://www.nmfirst.org/townhalls/TH16execsum.pdf (Accessed on Nov. 28, 2009). 3. Pesta, George. “New Mexico: Juvenile Justice Education, Case Study Results”, n.d. Available at: http://www.criminologycenter.fsu.edu/p/nationalDataClearinghouse/State%20Structures/New_Mexico_Case_Study.pdf (Accessed on Nov. 28, 2009). 4. “An Analysis of Juvenile Justice Process and Treatment Providers in New Mexico”. State of New Mexico Criminal and Juvenile Justice Coordinating Council, Nov. 2002. Available at: http://nmsc.unm.edu/index.php/download_file/-/view/219. (Accessed on Nov. 28, 2009). 5. “Juvenile Boot Camps”. Juvenile Justice Reform Initiatives in the States- 1994-1996, n.d. Available at: http://ojjdp.ncjrs.org/pubs/reform/ch2_g.html (Accessed on Nov. 28, 2009). 6. “Teen Wilderness Therapy Programs and Therapeutic Camps”. Teen Wilderness Programs, n.d. Available at: http://www.teenwildernessprograms.org/ (Accessed on Nov. 28, 2009). 7. “Wilderness Treatment Programs”. Healthinforum, n.d. Available at: http://www.healthinforum.org/Wilderness-Treatment-Programs-info-24893.html (Accessed on Nov. 28, 2009). 8. Lipsey, Mark W. The effects of treatment on juvenile delinquents: Results from meta-analysis. National Institute of Mental Health Meeting for Research to Prevent Youth Violence. Bethesda, MD, November, 1992. Read More