The Juvenile Hall System

The juvenile hall system works to a large degree, on the concept that the way to get a child/teen to cease participating in negative behavior is to punish them. It is assumed that the reason that an individual breaks the law is for the sole purpose of "being bad". This is not usually the case, however. There is usually a much greater problem that leads to the type of behavior that sends someone to Juvenile Hall.

The majority of youth who are placed in juvenile hall come from a background of poverty. They live in areas that often miss out on the positive effects of government funding. Less police are available, the parks, if they exist, are poorly kept, and no politicians feel encouraged to make neighborhood improvements, such as by fixing sidewalks or putting in ramps for wheelchairs and strollers. As a result of the absence of governmental support, societally negative behaviors are not discouraged, and are, in some cases, deemed necessary.

One example of such behavior arising out of one's living situation exists in the lack of safety in communities of poverty. In such neighborhoods, the response time of both the police and the paramedics is much longer than in areas of higher income. In an area where citizens cannot rely on the government providing safety, the neighborhood will often take it upon themselves to provide their own safety. They do this by imposing their own regulations and punishments through groups such as gangs. If an individual then breaks a regulation, violence will likely be used to punish the individual.

In my experience working with youth from such neighborhoods, fights often break out. When I ask them why their response is to hit back, rather than tell me, the response is very often something to the effect of, "My daddy told me I had to make sure no one hurt me. If they hurt me, he said I should hit back." Sometimes, they are even told that if they come crying rather than do something about it themselves, they will "get [their] ___ kicked" by the parent making the claim. It doesn't make sense to these kids, then, to rely on justice occuring for them. They are taught by society that they must make their own justice.

This is only one example of a reason for youth to choose to commit a crime. Other examples include seeing crime so often by family that it seems normal, feeling peer pressure to commit the crime or be ridiculed and harrassed by others, etc.

This does not give an excuse for youth to commit crimes. It does, however, say that we must respond differently to their crimes. Punishment alone usually does not work. The likelihood that a child/teen put in Juvenile Hall will be back within a year after leaving is over 60 percent (the overall recividism rate among juveniles is 90% in California and 10% in Missouri... Missouri is more rehabilitation-based). This is due, to a great extent, to the feeling that the risk of going back to Juvie is better than the risk of being punished by ridicule, harrassment, and physical attacks by family members and friends. If a youth chooses to go back to his or her community and "straighten up", he/she will likely be shunned by the groups in which he/she was formerly accepted. As social individuals, lacking friends and acceptance is often harder to handle than being locked up in a youth jail.

In my experiences working in a juvenile hall (I volunteered, directing the recreation program), I even found that some of the teens purposely broke probation in order to come back the very next day after getting out. In talking with some of these teens, they told me that Juvie was safe, unlike their homes or their neighborhoods, and that breaking probation was the only way to get away from these places (this was said even though they knew that one one of the girls ended up with a broken arm after struggling with a guard.) The negative behavior would have been decreased simply by finding a way to change their living situation so that they felt more safe.

Instead of focusing solely on punishment, then, the Juvenile Justice System should also provide better alternatives to keep kids and teens out of trouble, before and after the problems start. And when a teen does go to Juvenile Hall, then when they are released, an intense follow-up program should exist to help the individual to get out of the routine he/she was in before going to The Hall.
(brought over from my geocities blogs)