Juvenile Offenders and Rehabilitation

Juvenile offenders have grown to become a serious problem in many countries, especially the United States. Like adult offenders, juvenile offenders are more likely to reoffend, especially without the proper guidance and assistance they need in order to live a law abiding life. Research within the last five years has led to identification of specific program models as well theory-based intervention approaches that not only assist juvenile offenders in leading productive lives but also keeps them from potentially re-offending. This paper will focus on rehabilitation programs for juvenile offenders and prevention programs that help in lessening the number of potential juvenile offenders by proposing alternative means of coping with hardship and stress.

Farrington's Integrated Cognitive Antisocial Potential Theory will be examined within the context of juvenile offenders and how this framework may be applied to understanding Juvenile motivations for engaging in criminal activities Importance of rehabilitation will be emphasized because juvenile offenders that are not rehabilitated and are not given the tools to overcome their mistakes will often re-offend and sometimes commit a more serious crime. This research paper will show information from thirty-five articles that explain the advantages of intervention programs, prevention programs, as well as the type of intervention most benefitting for juvenile offenders.

In the last decade, evidence-based practice has been widely acknowledged as the best method for creating effective rehabilitation programs. Of the programs currently available, many frequently ignore evidence-based practices and choose traditional approaches refraining from modification of treatment. This leads to a low-rate of successful rehabilitations of juvenile offenders and a higher than desired re-offense rate among juvenile offenders and those that later offend into adulthood. Research suggests that negative childhood experiences, mental health problems, and psychosocial influences may create an environment where juveniles are more likely to engage in criminal behavior. Evidence-based practice recognizes these potential influences and experiences and works to help juveniles become more self-aware and gain control of their lives and their coping strategies.

Introduction

For over a decade, researchers have recognized program models as well as intervention strategies that reduce law-breaking while encouraging pro-social development. Preventing delinquency and rehabilitating juvenile offenders not only safeguards the public, but also keeps youth from wasting time in detention facilities or jails that do not help them, but instead typically create scenarios leading to youth committing more crimes as the age into adults. Prevention and rehabilitative efforts are key in inhibiting chances for future crime and diminishing the strain of crime on its sufferers and the public at large.

Not only do rehabilitative and preventative efforts help reduce crime overall, but also helps to reduce money taxpayers ordinarily spend on the arrest, prosecution, imprisonment, and later, treatment of criminal offenders. If the end-goal is to reduce or prevent criminal offense/re-offense, programs aimed towards dealing with the reasons behind committing a crime may be more beneficial than those that vie for traditional methods. If programs become available that enable prevention of juvenile offenders from re-offending thus not becoming adult criminals, they could potentially save taxpayers 7-10 dollars for each dollar financed, chiefly in the form of reduced expenditure on prisons and the justice system overall (Baglivio, Wolff, Piquero & Epps, 2015, p. 229).

Such programs should take into consideration for any preventative or rehabilitative approaches, antisocial potential theory (Steinberg & Scott, 2010). Farrington's integrated cognitive antisocial potential theory helps summarize decades of research that shows the development of at-risk working-class London boys and how their documented behaviors provide context into juvenile delinquent behavior and motivations (Borduin, Dopp & Taylor, 2013, p. 194). Delinquent development is complex and involves an understanding of various different scenarios and contexts in order to understand why a juvenile offends and what could be prompting a juvenile to behave in such a destructive manner. This prospectus will highlight antisocial potential theory, evidence-based practices that are effective in preventing juvenile delinquency, and programs that are and are not helping juvenile offenders during the critical rehabilitation process.

Review of the Research

Often times offender programs follow the traditional route and do not consider fully the psychosocial factors that influence individual engagement in intervention settings. While factors related to offending behavior are known throughout the research community, their influence on what causes the behavior or motivational engagement remains unclear. Studies like the (Brooks & Khan (2015) study attempted to examine such impact by interviewing and monitoring 109 juvenile offenders within a non-custodial community intervention and explored antisocial behavior, influence of aggression, and disruptive and problematic behavior during school hours. They also monitored and explored self-esteem and parental bonding as possible influences and reported motivation to engage in such situations.

Their results revealed relationships among these variables plus four subtypes of motivation. These subtypes are amotivation, identified regulation, and extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Results gathered concerning self-esteem were decidedly mixed and did not reveal any new information. The results suggest the nature of motivation is complex and for intervention strategies to work, they must provide the person with a sense of competence and self-autonomy. "The findings highlight the multidimensional and complex nature of motivation, and support the need to internalize extrinsic motivations through the promotion of self-autonomy and competence within intervention programs in order to maximize engagement" (Brooks & Khan, 2015, p. 351).

This was also seen in another article that highlighted the need for intervention strategies to take into consideration what will motivate adolescents to engage in positive behaviors that will prevent further conflicts with the justice system. What was found, was that juveniles tend to find intervention methods that encourage participation and self-autonomy more interesting and influential than those that merely addressed the "base needs" of an adolescent (Cooper, 2015, p. 285). For example, if an rehabilitation program sought to enable positive coping mechanisms for juvenile offenders, by engaging in thoughtful discussion with them concerning their lives and how they wish to see themselves in the future, this may be more helpful than treating these juvenile offenders as all the same. They need some level of attention and individualization in order to feel motivated enough to follow through the protocol of the program and learn.

Feelings, motivation, they are tied together and if someone does not feel positive towards a program intervention strategy, most likely it will not be effective. A 2014 article by DeLisi & Vaughn show that temperament has been connected to behavior for hundreds of years. However, it has not been clearly discussed and used within a crime theory. This study incorporated research and theory from over three hundred studies in various fields of interest such as genetics, psychiatry, neuroscience, and criminology in order to introduce a criminal justice system implicated, temperament-based theory of antisocial behavior to help discover temperamental constructs that could help identify previously unrecognized connections.

They discovered negative emotionality and effortful control, two temperamental constructs that are major indicators for behavioral problems and self-regulation deficits in infancy all the way to adolescence, as well as across adulthood. "Two temperamental constructs -- effortful control and negative emotionality -- are significantly predictive of self-regulation deficits and behavioral problems in infancy, in toddlerhood, in childhood, in adolescence, and across adulthood" (DeLisi & Vaughn, 2014, p. 10). If these constructs are identified in prevention programs and help to make up assessments of juveniles and juvenile offenders, this may contribute to a more effective intervention strategy.

A theory that may contribute significantly to identifying motivations behind criminal behavior, especially for adolescents, is Farrington's Integrated Cognitive Antisocial Potential Theory. Farrington's antisocial potential, unlike antisocial propensity, suggests antisocial potential has less to do with biological factors and more to do with environment and nurturing. Also, there is long-term AP and short-term AP components to antisocial potential. Meaning, the two components are influenced by different things. For example, long-term AP from Farrington's perspective is influenced by individual characteristics and childhood socialization. Short-term AP is influenced by short-term energizers like being intoxicated or angry (Farrington, 2014, p. 2560).

By examining long-term AP characteristics that are not influenced by outside events like unemployment and loss, Farrington saw that long-term AP was not much of an indicator or delinquency versus short-term AP which is affected by social interaction and environment. By mixing innate characteristics with interaction and environment, Farrington developed a theory that could explain some of the reasons why some youths were more prone to juvenile delinquency than others. He also connected long-term AP with short-term AP (high short-term AP suggests higher incidence of delinquency) by stating long-term AP could contribute to the pervasiveness of short-term energizing factors like ongoing anger issues and repeated drinking, that could cause offenders to seek out the kind of social settings where chances for crime and delinquency are far more common (Junger-Tas & Decker, 2008, p. 305).

For example, black male youths are more likely to get arrested than other population groups. This has nothing to do with race, but merely location and environment and availability of potentially harmful influences. By engaging in street or gang-related activities and following a youth culture that promotes drug use and violence, these at-risk youths could be more likely to engage in criminal activities than those who do not seek such settings (Haegerich, Salerno & Bottoms, 2013, p. 86). "Research shows that the most disadvantaged members of society have the highest risk of spending time in prison. One in nine African-American men is imprisoned, and over a third of young, Black, male high-school dropouts are in prison or jail on any given day" (Sykes, Gioviano & Piquero, 2015, p. 123). While characteristics related to oppression and inequality may be seen since development, it is the avenues of expression that perpetuate potential criminal offenses.

In a 2014 qualitative study, frontline viewpoints were explored in order to address the challenge of meeting the criminogenic needs of youths in a RNR or risk-need-responsivity-based case management framework. Semi-structured interviews provided that setting to examine twenty-nine probation officers in Toronto, Canada. Some emergent themes found during the study were the significance of targeting was can be categorized as "high impact" criminogenic needs, the lack of evidence-based programming, the salience of particular responsivity factors within case management, and respondents' doubt in regards to their role in meeting the youths' criminogenic needs. Results demonstrate the need for research probing the connection between explicit responsivity factors, criminogenic needs, and educational effects of youth on probation. "Findings also support recent initiatives that provide concrete training to probation officers around implementation of the need and responsivity principles in effective case management of justice-involved youth" (Haqanee, Peterson-Badali & Skilling, 2014, p. 37).

This study also helped reveal several things that were indicative of a need to explore other avenues of research in regards to juvenile offenders. A 2006 study explored targeting the self-esteem of youth offenders in order to effectively treat them (Hubbard, 2006, p. 40). This kind of thinking was also adopted by a 2011 study that sought to understand youth offender's expectations for success in rehabilitation type programs/interventions (Iselin, Mulvey, Loughran, Chung & Schubert, 2011, p. 239). While neither studies were able to come up with definitive results. They did bring into the forefront the need to address the expectations for success youth offenders have in these kinds of interventions and their self-esteem as a result of participation in such efforts. By addressing the real concerns and needs of juvenile offenders during intervention phases, it may help in alleviating some of the risk that juvenile offenders have to reoffend in the future.

While examining some of the needs youth offenders have can help understand how to cultivate successful intervention strategies, it is also important to assess the overall success of these kinds of programs. A 2013 study noted that correctional boot camps often do not have a high success rate and do not lessen the re-offense rates of those that participate in such boot camps. However, the study suggests boot camps that include major rehabilitative components like HIT or High Intensity Training may prove beneficial. "High Intensity Training (HIT) for offenders aged 18-21 at Thorn Cross Young Offender Institution in England was followed by a significant reduction in the number of reconvictions in a 2-year follow up" (Jolliffe, Farrington & Howard, 2013, p. 515). While benefits were seen two years after the initial study, researchers did a ten-year follow-up and saw even after a decade, offenders who received HIT has significantly lower frequency and prevalence of reconvictions with some lessening of superiority after four years.

Not only did the cumulative number of convictions prevented steadily climbed over time, but also the cumulative cost saved savings. This shows that HIT may be a worthwhile addition to any type of rehabilitative program for juvenile offenders. A 2012 review also highlighted the benefits of HIT among other successful intervention strategies (Koehler, Losel, Akoensi & Humphreys, 2012, p. 30). By highlighting evidence-based practices that have been proven successful and adapting these practices into rehabilitation and prevention programs, the numbers of juvenile reoffenders and reoffenders in general may decrease, saving time and money for the government, tax payers, and helping offenders lead productive, crime-free lives.

Rehabilitative programs are much more useful and lead to more positive outcomes than the other alternative, incarceration, especially in adult facilities. " ... suggests that incarceration fails to meet the developmental and criminogenic needs of youth offenders and is limited in its ability to provide appropriate rehabilitation. Incarceration often results in negative behavioral and mental health consequences, including ongoing engagement in offending behaviors" (Lambie & Randell, 2013, p. 448). When youths face incarceration, they face immersion in a prison culture that may exacerbate their already unstable perspective on the world and their inability to cope could be reinforced with negative behaviors witnessed while incarcerated. Many youth offenders have severe behavioral problems and are a consequence of interactive and complex individual as well as environmental factors that maintain and elicit offending behavior.

Another aspect of incarceration that may also play a role in increasing the potential for re-offense among juvenile offender populations is improper maturation (Leverso, Bielby & Hoelter, 2015, p. 70). When youth develop their identities and interests while incarcerated and are then released, they will seek acceptance and community with people they identify with, leading to a higher chance of re-offense. This leads into policies affecting reoffenders and what is being done to handle re-offense.

The study of serious offending involves examination of policy and whether such policies offer inclusion of protective to help balance effects of risk factors (Loeber & Ahonen, 2014, p. 117). Several research articles suggest serious offending must be quelled in order to minimize the financial burden such activity places on society, especially at the juvenile level (Maschi, Schwalbe & Ristow, 2013). When looking at community programs that attempt to ease the burden offenders have of living outside of the structured life of prison and other criminal facilities, evidence suggests these kinds of intervention may not be so effective due to lack of existing evidence on proven, effective ways of treatment (Lupton & Kintrea, 2011, p. 325).

One such example is victim empathy and sexual offenders. While programs seek to increase victim empathy among sexual offenders to help avoid re-offense, evidence suggests such approaches do little to stop such individuals from reoffending. "The authors conclude that the enthusiasm for victim empathy work as a rehabilitative endeavor is disproportionate given the weak evidence base and the lack of a coherent theoretical model of change" (Mann & Barnett, 2012, p. 282). Evidence-based practice should take precedent over traditional models of intervention (MEARS et al., 2014) (Mears, Pickett & Mancini, 2014).

Psychological evaluations may prove useful much like other assessments in helping to identify the needs and intervention strategies for offenders (Morin, Cruise, Hinz, Holloway & Chapman, 2015, p. 895). Things like impulsive sensation seeking should be included in psychological assessment since impulsive sensation seeking contributes to criminal behavior, especially sexual crimes (PORTNOY et al., 2014). If juvenile reform does not take into consideration the psychosocial aspect of criminal behavior, intervention strategies will not work (Rajah, Kramer & Sung, 2014). They will merely waste tax payer money and burnout people within the criminal justice system like probation officers (Salyers, Hood, Schwartz, Alexander & Aalsma, 2015, p. 175).

Research suggests the positive role evidence-based practice has on juvenile offender rehabilitation. "The intervention had a beneficial impact on antisocial influence potential of adolescents' friendship networks, with p < .05 for both of the primary composite measures.

Current evidence-based preventive interventions can alter adolescents' friendship networks in ways that reduce the potential for peer influence toward antisocial behavior" (Osgood et al., 2013, p. 174). Diversion programs and preventative programs can also benefit from evidence-based practice (Schwalbe, Gearing, MacKenzie, Brewer & Ibrahim, 2012, p. 28). This is because research examines reasons why juveniles offend or could offend and take into consideration various factors and influences that lead to juvenile crime (Sim, 2014).