As I promised, during this blog I am going to talk about rehabilitation for violent criminals, in this case juvenile criminals.
The Violent Juvenile Offender (JVO) program was begun in 1980 by the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. It was in response to the inadequacies of the present ways that the justice system deals with repeatedly violent juveniles. The JVO was based on well-established criminology theories about the root causes of violent youth. It was designed to "strengthen the bonds that linked youths to 'prosocial' institutions - their families, the workplace, the school, and 'straight' peers." The JVO approached these objectives through an individualized and intensive approach.
The program included 3 phases: 1. pre-release training inside the institution
2. aftercare in a transitional living situation outside of prison
3. reentry into self-sustaining life in the community
The youth were helped through each of these phases by skilled case managers.
This program was attempted in Boston, Detroit, Memphis, and Newark. Boston and Detroit were the most successful due to the consistency of their implementation while Newark hardly got off the ground. Boston and Detroit had extremely successful results. They greatly reduced the rate of recidivism in their chronically violent youth population. Even those who did commit another crime took longer to re-offend.
These results were mainly attributed to the tangible opportunities that the case managers opened up for these youth such as job placements with subsidized salaries. The managers approached each case individually and holistically looked at their situation and place in the community.
Some critics have accused the juvenile justice system of being too focused on rehabilitation due to its claim that they are based on rehabilitation principles. Yet when closer examined, you see that those who makes these claims often have weak rehabilitation implementation and short-lived programs. Of course resulting in ineffective results.
Without true rehabilitation, these youth are being robbed of a normal and healthy adulthood. The rest of their life depends on how the justice system choses to deal with them today. We must choose carefully.
5 comments:
Rehabilitation for violent criminals is certainly a complicated issue. I was thinking about your blog as I heard the tragic news about Jennifer Hudson's family. The suspect, Mr. William Balfour, who is being held in connection with the murders of Ms. Hudson's mother, brother, and nephew is now 27 years old, and had spent 7 years in prison for attempted murder and hijacking in 1999. I don't know any of the details regarding his prison time, (and since I'm not exactly sure of the dates he may not have been classified as a juvenile when he was sentenced) but it sounds from what I've read on your blog, there's a good chance that rehabilitation was not part of the program.
It is important to note that Mr. Balfour has not been officially charged with the murders, he is being held on a parole violation. He is however being referred to as a suspect.
If it turns out that Mr. Balfour did commit the crimes in question, it is interesting to view the issue through one of the themes on this blog: Punishment vs. Rehabilitation.
When you apply the two polarized positions on punishment vs. rehabilitation to this case, you can see good arguments on both sides. Those who favor keeping violent criminals locked up indefinitely would argue that this second crime would never have been committed if the suspet had remained in prison. Those who favor rehabilitation would argue that perhaps if he received the right kind of help while he was imprisoned, he would not have committed the second crime when he was released.
Of course this is only one tragic case, which is receiving a great deal of attention due to the celebrity factor you addressed in your earlier blog posting, but it is representative of what I'm sure are many similar cases.
That's just what I was thinking energy4tomorrow! We may be all for rehabilitation, but who will be accused when an ex convict commits a crime again after he has left jail and rehabilitation?
Rehabilitation doesn't ensure that someone won't commit a crime after he's reintegrated to society, but that person has better chances that the one who left prison without any rehabilitation at all.
With the juvenile program, there needs to be a strict form of punishment so that the young people know that they do not want to go back to prison, but at the same time rehabilitation is needed so that the prisoners will know what to do and what not to do when they get out of prison. The balance of the two is probably hard to find but I feel that if a young person creates a crime he/she must be punished but also must be taught whats wrong and right to put them on the right track after prison.
Energy4tomorrow & Petra:
I had not actually heard about the Hudson murders. That is so tragic. It is hard to hear about a specific killing, especially if it is the family of someone who you can put a face and a name to, and not feel like they are terrible people and deserve the worst punishment they can get. I think that this example actually helps the argument for rehabilitation. It is just another example where our present prison system principles don't work. He was released, and like so many others, committed a crime again. It is true that you cannot be sure that rehabilitation would have kept him from killing again, but if someone is going to be in jail they should be rehabilitation. Rehabilitation doesn't always mean less time in prison, as many seem to think, it just means a more productive time spent in prison.
son of ander:
It seems that many people like yourself think that punishment and rehabilitation are two completely different things. Like I said above, rehabilitation doesn't always mean less time in prison. Although I don't agree that punishment is a deterrence, if rehabilitation programs were a part of the prison sentence I don't think they would lessen the deterrence at all, instead they would probably increase it. When people say "there needs to be punishment so that they don't want to go back to jail" I always wonder what exactly they mean. Does this punishment include the sinister side of prisons, where rape and violence and gangs reside. Are we trying to keep our prisons like this so that they are less appealing? Or by punishment do they mean the boredom of sitting in a cell all day and in some cases getting only an hour outdoors. What is the purpose of this? It we could stop looking at rehabilitation as a way of letting prisoners off easy maybe it won't seem so hard to balance the two.
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