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Juvenile Reentry Programs For Released Minors in America

Juvenile Reentry Programs For Released Minors in America

Reentry is the process of preparing and planning for inmates to transition back to their home communities. Juvenile Reentry Programs, hence, prepare children who have spent time in prison to return to the community. They are also known as juvenile reintegration or aftercare. To guarantee the delivery of essential services and oversight, these reintegrative methods create cooperation with the community and its resources.

Ideally, juveniles who return to their communities encounter several difficulties. These include:

  • Lack of familial support.
  • Barriers to education.
  • Barriers to employment.
  • Finding permanent housing.

These difficulties may obstruct effective reintegration. Hence, reentry programs aim to address some of these difficulties. These programs usually aim to change youth’s behavior and assist them in developing practical skill sets to avoid future criminality and guarantee effective reintegration into society.

There are many kinds of reentry programs, each with components and the procedures and variables influencing implementation. They include:

EDVA’s Local Reentry Program

In 2009, the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA) launched the Second Chance Offender Rehabilitation Effort (SCORE) program. SCORE is a reentry court that aims to give drug addicts the tools, resources, and motivation they need to build a productive, meaningful life for themselves. The program aims to improve public safety by producing legal citizens whose successful reentry into society enhances the community’s quality of life.

The juveniles on federal probation or supervised release with a history of drug addiction are eligible for the SCORE program if they have at least two years left on their supervision. The program is completely voluntary, and participants must commit to participating for at least 15 months. Graduates of the program will have their supervision period cut by up to one year. The rest of an offender’s supervision will be canceled if they have less than one year remaining on supervision after completing the program.

In this five-phase program, SCORE participants are closely monitored. However, this program requires;

  • Sobriety.
  • Drug abuse and mental health treatment.
  • Job or community service.
  • Attendance at frequent support network meetings.
  • Establishing and maintaining a connection with a sponsor.
  • Regular court appearances.

The facilities reward the SCORE participants for good conduct. They also punish them for bad or unlawful activity. If a person fails to complete SCORE, they have to go before the United States District Judge who put them under federal supervision.

Adolescent Diversion Project

The Adolescent Diversion Project (ADP) is a university-led, strengths-based initiative that offers community-based assistance to arrested adolescents instead of traditional juvenile court processing. The ADP’s goal is to prevent future delinquency by strengthening youth’s attachment to family and other prosocial individuals, increasing youth’s access to community resources, and preventing youth from potentially stigmatizing social contexts, all of which are based on a combination of theoretical perspectives.

Within a strengths-based advocacy framework, the ADP aims to provide an alternative to juvenile court proceedings. Caseworkers:

  • Spend 6–8 hours each week with the juveniles in their homes, schools, and communities throughout the 18-week intervention.
  • Work with adolescents one-on-one to offer services that are customized to their particular needs.
  • Assist the adolescents in improving their abilities in various areas, such as family connections, school problems, jobs, and leisure activities.
  • Educate children about community services so that after they complete the program, they may use these resources on their own.

The active phase of treatment lasts for 12 weeks, during which caseworkers spend time with juveniles each week, offering direct help with behavioral contracting and advocacy activities. Caseworkers spend a little less time each week helping children in those same areas during the final four weeks of services, known as the follow-up phase. Still, their function is that of a consultant, preparing juveniles to apply the skills and strategies they’ve learned after the program ends.

Second Chance Act Youth Offender Reentry Program

The Second Chance Act Youth Offender Reentry Program helps states and local governments provide comprehensive reentry services for moderate to high-risk youth offenders before, during, and after their release from confinement in collaboration with interested parties (including federal corrections and supervision agencies), service providers, and nonprofit organizations.

Following release from a juvenile residential institution, this program aims to improve public safety and decrease recidivism among moderate to high-risk adolescents. As part of the facility’s program, these youths undergo evaluation and assessment for needs and risks of reoffending. It is anticipated that suitable community-based program services would be identified and coordinated at least 90 days before release, depending on the risk and needs assessment findings. Youth receive case management services and be linked to evidence-based programming throughout the post-release phase of the reintegration program to ensure continuity of services and a safe and effective transition from placement to the community. During the prerelease phase, case management and evidence-based programming commence.

Reading for Life

RFL (Reading for Life) is an Indiana diversion program for non-violent adolescent first and second offenders between 13 and 18 years. Juveniles in the program engage in small groups with trained volunteer mentors to study literature and traditional virtue philosophy. The aim is to promote moral growth and decrease recidivism among adolescents who have committed crimes.

Juveniles are given a 3-minute reading exam during an initial assessment to determine group placement. The groups are small, with no more than five people of similar reading ability and two trained mentors in each. For ten weeks, the groups meet twice a week for an hour each time. Each small group chooses a book to read from a list of choices at the start of the group meetings. Oral readings, journaling about questions created by the mentors, and guided conversations on moral character implications discovered in the readings and during writing activities are all part of the curriculum. Journaling activities often center on personal life reflections arising from group conversations.

All RFL groups are given a chance to practice what they’ve learned in class by completing a one-day community service project thematically related to the readings and conversations. The purpose of this practice is to encourage community participation and healing. A group that has read a novel with an environmental subject, for example, may decide to volunteer to do tree-planting.

Participants give a final presentation to their parents or guardians, group mentors, and RFL personnel at the end of the program. In all, juveniles participate in official program activities for approximately 25 hours. The best part of this program is that these participant juveniles do not have to indicate the reason for their arrests while applying for jobs or academics. However, they have to complete this program for that benefit to apply to their release. When they reach legal adulthood, individuals may ask the state to have their juvenile record erased if they haven’t committed any offenses for at least a year.

AMIkids Community-Based Day Treatment Services

This program provides a range of community-based, experiential treatment treatments for at-risk and delinquent adolescents that are cost-effective and intended to decrease recidivism. These programs include day treatment centers, wilderness camps, home-based family counseling, residential programs for male adolescents, and gender-specific programming.

This program aims at incorporating evidence-based treatment techniques as these children undertake the program. The program includes;

  • Educational programs such as GEDs and ESLs.
  • How to deal with challenging experiences.
  • Cognitive-behavioral therapy.
  • Strengths-based case management.
  • Behavior modification.
  • Family collaboration.
  • Problem-solving and social skills development.
  • Community service

The main goal of this program is reducing recidivism and improving pro-social outcomes through addressing the risks, needs, and responsibilities of young people; And creating a comprehensive approach to helping children that include the person, family, and community.

The program also gives each child the Positive Achievement Change Tool (PACT) when they join AMIkids. The PACT assessment tool assesses the criminogenic risks and needs of young people. Based on individual risk and protective variables, response to treatment, willingness to change, and criminogenic requirements, the evaluation also determines treatment activities’ required intensity and length. The program also focuses on the Replacement of Aggression, Anger and skill deficiencies, and moral thinking. Hence, these juveniles can cope with social skills deficiencies.

Youths are allocated to mental health or drug abuse treatment programs based on the PACT evaluation. These treatment programs are:

  • Cognitive–Behavioral Therapy (CBT) treats anger, mental health, behavior, and drug abuse.
  • Motivational Enhancement Therapy (MET) deals with drug abuse problems.
  • Motivational Interviewing for establishing a connection with adolescents and encouraging them to make reasonable changes.

Independence Youth Court

This is a juvenile offender diversion program. The program’s main aim is to decrease juvenile crime by diverting young people away from the conventional juvenile court system and providing them with an alternative to formal processing. The program has a Promising rating. When compared to control group kids, treatment group youth were statistically substantially less likely to re-offend. Defendants must be at least seven years old but not more than 16 years old to be eligible for diversion to the IYC. Volunteers must be at least 13 years old and pass a juvenile bar test if acting as an attorney or judge.

A teen court is neither the same as a regular juvenile court nor a problem-solving court. Teen courts, on the other hand, are juvenile diversion programs. Teen courts are organized to enable adolescents to participate as court clerks, bailiffs, lawyers, jurors, and, on rare occasions, judges. They are based on the idea that interacting with pro-social peers may benefit deviant children. Overall, teen courts aim to take advantage of adolescents’ desire to be liked and included by creating a courtroom model run by pro-social peers with minimal adult involvement to decrease juvenile recidivism.

The IYC receives over 500 cases each year, most of which are first-time offenders with petty crimes like theft, truancy, and vandalism. However, the IYC also hears cases involving status crimes, third-degree assault, and minor drug and alcohol infractions. An average procedure lasts about 10 minutes. A trial, on the other hand, may run anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. As long as the crimes are minor, defendants are eligible for diversion to the IYC on several occasions. Police make the overwhelming majority of recommendations to the IYC, with local schools making a lesser number of referrals.

Maine Juvenile Drug Treatment Courts

Maine’s juvenile drug treatment courts are court-supervised drug diversion programs that offer extensive community-based treatment services to juvenile offenders and their families after a plea (but before a final disposition). Drug court programs have the main aim of reducing substance usage and the risk of arrest among juveniles.

Juvenile drug courts are for the young teens who:

  • Show a medium to high risk of criminal recidivism.
  • Have a serious drug abuse issue.
  • Can engage in substance addiction treatment.
  • Have a parent or other adult figure willing to participate or play an active role in the program’s youth involvement.

The juvenile community corrections officer (JCCO) utilizes the Youthful Offender Level of Service Inventory, a screening instrument for assessing the risk of reoffending, to decide whether these juveniles qualify for enrollment. They conduct an evaluation test, and later the drug court manager performs a clinical evaluation before making a final decision to accept the youngster to the program. Only after a hearing and an order from the court may a facility admit the juvenile into the drug court program. To participate, minors must submit a guilty plea to outstanding charges or accept a petition to revoke probation. Those who do not qualify for the program go back to court for conventional adjudication.

The juvenile drug court programs last 52 weeks. Juveniles undertake this program in four stages, each with its own set of treatment objectives and deadlines:

  • The first phase, which lasts around eight weeks, focuses on evaluation and planning.
  • The second phase lasts around 20 weeks, and it focuses on developing support and teaching participants new skills.
  • The third phase, which lasts around 12 weeks, aims at developing skills and consolidating support.
  • The fourth is the monitoring phase, which lasts approximately ten weeks.

After completing the program, the juveniles can graduate from the drug court program; and be ready to reintegrate back to society. However, to graduate, these juveniles must;

  • Abstain from drug and alcohol use.
  • Pass a certain number of random drug and alcohol tests.
  • Attend substance abuse treatment sessions.
  • Appear at weekly status hearings before the designated program judge.
  • Refrain from committing any new crimes.

Free Talk program

The Free Talk program is a group motivational interviewing intervention. It aims at preventing negative consequences of regular alcohol and other drug use in adolescence such as;

  • Unprotected sex while under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
  • Poor physical and mental health.
  • Impaired cognitive development.
  • Delinquent behavior.

The program targets juveniles between 14 and 18 years. In six 55-minute group sessions, this method employs a motivational interviewing technique. Discussion of the benefits and drawbacks of continued alcohol and other drug use versus cutting back or quitting, assessing the adolescents’ readiness for change in their alcohol and other drug use, and providing support for their alcohol and other drug use are all strategies used in motivational interviewing. Each session focuses on a different topic. Some of these topics of discussion include:

  • Myths surrounding alcohol and other drugs use.
  • Concerns among teenagers regarding how their ideas may influence their future behavior.
  • Teens’ perspectives on the journey from abstinence through experimentation to addiction.
  • What role do alcohol and other drugs play in other risky behavior?