17 - Community alternatives to incarceration

Summary

Introduction

The central reason behind the creation of the juvenile justice system at the beginning of the twentieth century was the belief, that in contrast to adult offenders, delinquents were amenable to change in their antisocial behaviors. Therefore, the juvenile courts sought to capitalize on this opportunity and provide rehabilitation, not solely punishment. The rate of recidivism among young offenders certainly supports the notion of developing programs aimed at reforming delinquents (Snyder, 1988). The reduction in youth crime and its personal and economic costs to the individual and communities easily justify the expense of intervention (Schoenwald et al., 1996). In addition, it has been estimated that each delinquent that continues onto an adult criminal career costs society $1.3–1.5 million (Cohen, 1998).

The founding principle of the opportunity for rehabilitation has been questioned from the start as to whether effective interventions truly exist with juvenile delinquents. Early intervention efforts were based on an individualized approach to meeting the needs of the particular youth before the court. While some intervention models were based on theoretical speculations regarding the causes of delinquency, few were derived from direct research on the causes and correlates of antisocial behavior in youth. Most reflected an application of general models of psychopathology and treatment to the special case of delinquency, such as Aichhorn's psychoanalytic approach (Aichhorn, 1935). A series of research reviews in the late 1970s supported the popular belief that “nothing works” with delinquents (Lipton et al., 1975; Greenberg, 1977; Romig, 1978; Sechrest et al., 1979).