This paper presents a structured program proposal for juvenile offender reentry, targeting youth ages 10 to 17 in Miami-Dade County. It outlines the rationale for community-based reentry, describes a three-phase model — Protect and Prepare, Control and Restore, and Sustain and Support — and details intake criteria, referral sources, staffing requirements, and an annual operating budget of approximately $1,000,000. The proposal also addresses two community partnership models (church-based mediation and a Neighborhood Citizens Committee), licensing requirements, and the importance of individualized treatment planning. Finally, the paper examines the challenges of outcome evaluation in juvenile justice programs and advocates for a standardized evaluation tool to improve accountability and guide funding decisions.
The paper applies a policy proposal format that integrates empirical research citations with actionable program design. By grounding each structural component — intake, treatment, evaluation — in referenced literature, the author demonstrates how academic evidence can be translated directly into program planning, a technique central to applied criminal justice writing.
The paper opens by defining reentry and establishing its urgency, then presents the three-phase program model. It proceeds to specify the target population, intake procedures, referral sources, location, and two community partnership models. Operational considerations — staffing, budget, and licensing — follow before the paper closes with a critical discussion of outcome evaluation challenges and the need for standardized measurement tools.
The concept of offender reentry is beginning to take the corrections world by storm — a much overdue storm. Reentry is the process of prisoners returning to society after a period of incarceration in a prison, jail, or detention facility. But it does not simply mean "letting them go." It connotes that offenders are prepared to be released — that they are significantly better off at the time of release than at the time of their admission (Anderson, 1995).
Reentry also suggests that an offender's period of community supervision will contribute to a crime-free lifestyle. An estimated 100,000 youth are released from secure and residential facilities every year. Because the length of incarceration for juveniles is shorter than for adults, a relatively greater percentage of juveniles return to the community each year. Research also indicates that a small percentage of juvenile offenders commit the overwhelming majority of juvenile crime.
The program's purpose is to provide intensive treatment to rehabilitate those juveniles who need more attention than simple probation offers, but who do not require the structured environment of a training school or detention center. The community-based program seeks to provide education and treatment to help juveniles heal, while also allowing their families to work through underlying family issues.
Groups targeted by the program: Juvenile offenders, ages 10 to 17, ranging from first-time offenders through serious, chronic, and violent offenders.
The Reentry Initiative envisions the development of model reentry programs that begin in correctional institutions and continue throughout an offender's transition to and stabilization in the community. These programs will provide individual reentry plans that address the issues offenders face as they return to the community. The Initiative encompasses three phases, implemented through appropriate programs:
Phase 1 — Protect and Prepare: Institution-Based Programs. These programs are designed to prepare offenders to reenter society. Services provided in this phase include education, mental health and substance abuse treatment, job training, mentoring, and full diagnostic and risk assessment.
Phase 2 — Control and Restore: Community-Based Transition Programs. These programs work with offenders prior to and immediately following their release from correctional institutions. Services provided in this phase include, as appropriate, education, monitoring, mentoring, life skills training, assessment, job skills development, and mental health and substance abuse treatment.
Phase 3 — Sustain and Support: Community-Based Long-Term Support Programs. These programs connect individuals who have left the supervision of the justice system with a network of social services agencies and community-based organizations, providing ongoing services and mentoring relationships.
Examples of potential program elements include institution-based readiness programs, institutional and community assessment centers, reentry courts, supervised or electronically monitored boarding houses, mentoring programs, and community corrections centers.
The program provides a service to reduce placements for the Juvenile Court and Children and Youth Services through cost-effective intervention for youth considered "at risk" in the community. The program also provides aftercare for youth removed from costly institutional placements and returned to their homes and communities. Aftercare minimizes reentry problems for youth attempting to readjust to home life after leaving an institutional setting (Kurki, 1999).
Intake criteria include the following steps:
— Receiving a written referral from an agency;
— Receiving supporting data from the referral agency;
— Conducting an initial interview of the juvenile to determine program appropriateness and whether the juvenile should be admitted;
— Administering psychological tests, if necessary;
— Holding a treatment planning meeting with the professional treatment team, including setting short-term treatment goals, interventions, evaluation procedures, and a weekly activities schedule; and
— Administering additional psychological tests, if needed.
Juveniles are referred through the courts, probation offices, children and youth services, schools, prisons, churches, hospitals, and businesses, or they may be referred by their family or be self-referred. The average stay of a juvenile in the program is six months. The proposed location for the program center is Miami-Dade County.
Two types of community groups can partner with the program:
Church-related and community-based social services agencies. Before bringing a victim and offender together, a mediator meets separately with each party, listens to his or her story, and explains the mediation process. Both parties are then invited to participate in a joint mediation session, during which the victim and offender discuss the crime and its impact on their lives and devise a plan for the offender to make amends. This approach reflects the principles of restorative justice.
Neighborhood Citizens Committees. Community volunteers on this committee are dedicated to helping youth who have committed minor offenses. Volunteers listen to the youth and his or her family, give individual attention to the juvenile, and supervise community service that emphasizes responsibility, contributes to society, and helps the youth develop an awareness of the community through exposure to new people, places, and events.
Because the average stay of a juvenile is six months, the centers would need a maximum annual capacity of 130 juveniles. A total of 60 full-time and 11 part-time employees would be needed (Piehl, 1998).
The total annual operating budget of the Program Center would be approximately $1,000,000. The counties where the center is located normally fund the entire budget. The per diem rate per offender for current programs is $47. Additionally, the program is partially reimbursed by the state for the services it provides, as demonstrated in operational centers.
Prior to operating, the center would need to obtain the following Department of Public Welfare licenses: a day treatment license, an administrative license, a foster care license, and a drug and alcohol program license. Additionally, prior to starting the program, it would need to comply with incorporation requirements and select a board of directors (Andrews & Bonta, 1994).
The most important factors in the success of the program are three elements: intensive daily contact, the behavior management model, and the family-healing model.
Approaching each juvenile with an individual treatment plan allows staff to manage each juvenile's behaviors effectively. The juvenile's needs should be assessed initially and again every three months. The continuous examination of each juvenile's changing needs allows staff to craft a treatment plan that will be most effective for that individual (Wilkinson, 1998).
Evaluating outcomes is critical to knowing "what works" in determining whether a program is successful. Yet few programs for juvenile offenders provide outcome evaluations. The reasons range from lack of funding and resources to lack of time and expertise. Moreover, even among programs that are evaluated, most rely on nonexperimental methods. Further complicating the situation is the disparity in consensus on key points such as definitions of recidivism, common instruments for testing, and the appropriate length of tracking periods. A standard evaluation tool that measures effectiveness, efficiency, and program outcomes does not yet exist. Accurate methods of evaluating local programs and comparing them with programs nationwide are not currently available.
Currently, the state of Florida provides basic outcome information on all residential treatment programs serving juvenile offenders. Florida is expanding its information system to include the collection and reporting of outcome evaluation data on community-based programs serving juvenile offenders. While states with system-wide tracking may be increasing their data collection to include tracking juveniles after release, others are still working out how to capture more than just participant completion numbers.
The information provided by a standard evaluation tool will be useful to a broad range of stakeholders in the juvenile justice system at the local, state, and federal levels. The tool will make it easier to evaluate local programs and compare them with programs nationwide. It will provide reliable information for program and correctional system development and foster responsible funding decisions. Information needed to establish accountability for both programs and the correctional system will be more readily obtainable. As an added benefit, the results of this initial project could potentially reduce the need for federally funded individual non-experimental evaluation projects (Wilson, Gallagher, & MacKenzie, 2000).
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