The paper is half research and half opinion. Speak about the problem but what you will do if you were able to change it? How and why it should be changed? What will that change do for the criminal justice profession?
Random ideas I was thinking about was the major issue that the criminal justice system is the lack of proper treatment for juvenile inmates.
Issues such as
-Psychology effects on teens from jail
– Family impact – Mental health concerns
-Increased likelihood of recidivism
– The lack of job opportunities
– juvenile facilities not really being effective.
Criminal Justice System
The purpose of the juvenile justice system, as has been historically believed, is to rehabilitate the young offenders (usually eighteen years and below), who offend before they reach this majority age. The rationale behind the system is to provide support and the right direction for youth who commit a crime by offering a chance for behavioral change and an opportunity to get out of crime. Hence, juveniles who commit crimes require developmentally appropriate help and rehabilitation to recover and potentially become productive members of their societies. Therefore, they should have the right measures, including adequate mental health assessments and treatment to provide resilience to affected youth as they recover from the underlying causes of their delinquency (Underwood & Washington, 2016). While treatment and rehabilitation, as opposed to punishment, are the core of the juvenile justice system, the available facilities have not managed to provide adequate treatment to help juveniles to overcome delinquency and prevent recidivism.
The Juvenile Justice Principle
The juvenile justice system is a part of the criminal justice system that meets juvenile offenders’ needs. Although the system might vary from one state to another, it is a blend of law enforcement officers’ decisions and actions, the court, and various human service agencies in response to the youth who violate the law. The system developed from the need to have a justice system that would separate adult from minor offenders to meet their needs more effectively. In the legal system, the person’s age is used to determine whether an offender is a juvenile. Most state laws place the age of majority as 18, which means that any person who commits a crime before the 18th birthday is a juvenile. Juvenile offenders are committed into the system for crimes and even behaviors that would not amount to a crime among adults. They need to provide them with adequate support to develop positively. Such behaviors areBottom of Form “status offenses,” not necessarily delinquent acts since they apply to violations committed by juveniles. For instance, some offenses regarded “status” may entail running away from home, general disobedience, curfew violations, and truancy among other wrongdoings. They can also be arrested and committed to the juvenile system due to offenses, such as smoking tobacco, underage drinking, and underage consensual sex. Regardless of the violation, evidence suggests a connection between delinquency and mental health issues.
The juvenile justice system is intended to improve youth’s welfare instead of punishing them for a crime. Regardless of the current controversy regarding the need to institute more stringent measures against crime since young people are committing serious offenses, including murder, the system’s basic principle is rehabilitation and treatment. The rehabilitation principle receives significant focus in the juvenile system than in the adult criminal justice system. The system is based on the assumption of a lack of capacity and comprehension required for a person to commit a crime due to their age. The welfare model prevails over the need to punish criminals to discourage them from committing more crime (Young et al., 2017). Supporters of the juvenile system argue that young people can age out of crime with the right measures to rehabilitate them after the initial offense. Overall, they need help to overcome underlying issues that place them at the risk of crime, such as psychological disorders.
Mental Health Treatment Issues
The rate of mental health problems is more significant among youth offenders than the general public, especially their peers who do not commit crimes. Psychiatric disorders are common among juveniles arrested for a crime. According to Young et al. (2017), two-thirds of male youth arrested for a crime in the United States meet the criteria for one or more mental disorders. Furthermore, about one out of five of the delinquents have severe functional impairments related to a psychological disorder. Regardless of the serious mental problems associated with criminal behavior, their needs are usually unmet in the juvenile system. For instance, they are expected to receive adequate treatment to prevent further offending. Regardless of the evidence of a high rate of contact with professionals for treatment, they do not receive as much care and support they require in the juvenile system. While mental health issues should be the target for treatment in the juvenile system, there is adequate evidence to suggest that they are inadequate and leave incarcerated youth at a greater risk than the original offense.
Mental Health Treatment in Juvenile Facilities
The basic idea behind rehabilitation in the juvenile justice system is to provide treatment for underlying issues, such as mental disorders, that place them at the risk of offending. The juvenile system is rehabilitative instead of punitive to give the youth a chance to change and become productive. The system includes mental health services and providers expected to conduct assessments to determine the mental and emotional risk factors of offending. Higher risk juveniles should receive adequate support to overcome the factors that encourage them to offend and prevent them from committing more crime when they leave the system and become re-integrated into society (Mallett, 2014). Policymakers ensure that all juvenile facilities have adequate psychological support to prevent other adverse outcomes, such as suicide. However, research reveals that the current mental health treatment programs are ineffective as they do not meet the at-risk needs of the youths. Treatment in the juvenile justice system is proven to be less effective than alternatives, such as rehabilitation in community settings (Underwood & Washington, 2016). Thus, the current criminal justice system should improve treatment and address further challenges, such as recidivism.
Psychology Effects on Teens from Jail
Mental health is necessary for the juvenile justice system, but its effectiveness is questionable since many individuals leaving the system have the same or even worse psychological challenges. Instead of providing effective treatment to overcome the underlying mental health problems among the youth who enter the juvenile system, the issues become worse after their arrest and commitment into the facilities. Hence, mental problems become worse in the system due to the lack of effective treatment. Kates et al. (2014) reveal a high rate of behavioral and emotional problems among incarcerated youth, indicating a lack of effective treatment to overcome the interplay between delinquency and mental health issues. Young people may commit a crime, mostly due to mental health issues that should be addressed when entering the system. Thus, ineffectiveness in addressing the underlying issues places them at the risk of continued psychological challenges or new ones that develop during incarceration.
The current juvenile justice system is ill-equipped to address mental problems among incarcerated youth. Some of the confined youths develop worse mental challenges, such as depression and anxiety disorders during incarceration. Furthermore, some with the underlying risk of mental health develop during imprisonment due to the lack of adequate support to overcome the causal risk. Although the system includes mental health and substance use treatment programs, they are not as effective as they should be to help juveniles change their behavior, overcome psychological problems, and re-integrate into the community as law-abiding citizens. The services are ineffective in preventing the youth with behavioral health conditions from becoming worse offenders when they leave the facility. The system is also inefficient in promoting positive emotional development to build resilience among the affected youth. Inadequate funding is one factor behind mental health treatment’s inefficiency in the country’s juvenile justice system. As a result, children enter the system and leave with the same or worse psychological and behavioral problems.
When children are incarcerated in the juvenile justice system, they undergo an assessment to support their treatment by identifying the actual mental health issue that places them at the risk of committing a crime. While such an evaluation is conducted, current evidence suggests that the results are not used to inform the most suitable treatment (Kates et al., 2014). Mental health practitioners and other stakeholders in the system have failed to intervene appropriately to protect them from harming themselves and others due to mental health and behavioral issues. As a result, incarceration is causing more harm than good for the youth who commit a crime and are incarcerated (Young et al., 2017). Hence, the system fails to provide developmentally-appropriate and trauma-informed support to help the youth to become productive members of society. Overall, the arrangement is counterproductive since it is meant to care for the youths to overcome the problems that caused them to commit a crime in the first place.
Increased Suicide Rates
Juvenile offenders within the justice system have a higher risk of committing suicide. Concerns have been raised regarding the connection between psychological health issues and mortality among incarcerated youth. Current research reveals that juvenile offenders are dying at a considerably high rate due to their mental health problems, such as depression and anxiety disorders (Young et al., 2017). Male offenders are at a higher risk of suicide than their non-offending peers. Hovey et al. (2017) support the findings, suggesting that suicide and suicidal ideation are among the leading mental health issues evident in the juvenile justice system. Therefore, instead of helping the youth to overcome mental health and behavioral problems, incarceration becomes a risk factor for suicide. Potentially, due to unaddressed psychological issues, it is not surprising that suicidal behavior and suicidal ideation are worse in the juvenile justice system than in the general population. Suicidal ideation and behavior are common among youth with underlying mental health problems coming into contact with the system, indicating that the current services are not effective in dealing with the challenge.
Although many youth today are at risk of committing suicide, the problem is worse when incarcerated in the juvenile justice system. One of the earliest suicide-related national surveys among incarcerated youth in the juvenile system revealed that about 57 per 100,000 individuals in the juvenile system committed suicide (Stokes et al., 2015). Besides, the rate of suicide among the incarcerated youth was 4.6 times higher than the rate in the general population. Recent reports indicate that 21.9 per 100,000 children in the system commit suicide (Stokes et al., 015). The high risk of suicide among incarcerated youth reveals that the risk factors are worse within the system than in the general population. Most of those who commit suicide while incarcerated have one or more mental or substance use disorder, which leaves unaddressed during their contact with the system. The high rate of suicide among the youth in the justice system reveals some weaknesses in the programs and services that are supposed to help them overcome the underlying risk factors.
Family Impact: Mental Health Concerns
The juvenile justice system is expected to consider the youth’s needs, such as separation from the family when incarcerated. Considering that family is part of a child or an adolescent’s development, it is crucial to integrate the family unit in the rehabilitation and treatment process. For instance, Functional Family therapy (FFT) should be considered to help the affected youth and their family (Underwood & Washington, 2016). Although the approach is necessary for multi-need youth and families, the juvenile system is yet to integrate it. The support needed for delinquency, substance use, violence, oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder, or disruptive behavior involving the family is limited in the juvenile system. When a juvenile is arrested, the involvement of family members is limited to occasional visits. The separation has a worse impact on their mental health than the arrest itself. Apart from the affected youth, the lack of a family component in the treatment process also affects other family members’ mental well-being. Unfortunately, the system lacks the kind of support they would require to overcome the separation and the impact of isolation.
Increased Likelihood of Recidivism
Youth who commit a crime are incarcerated in the juvenile system to receive treatment and rehabilitation to help them grow out of crime. However, the effect of incarceration on the tendency to commit a repeated crime is an important research area to establish the impact of the treatment programs. Common wisdom suggests that imprisonment lowers the risk of further offending for fear of being incarcerated again. Furthermore, treatment programs in the juvenile system should help juveniles from further offending after they are re-integrated into the community setting. Nonetheless, the programs have failed to achieve the objective because they fail to help them to overcome the underlying risk of committing a crime, such as psychological disorders. After all, the risk of crime is as a result of a person’s life circumstances and social factors more than a rational decision to offend. Thus, failure to address the risk factors remains an issue in the risk to continue offending after incarceration (Walker & Herting, 2020). Therefore, confinement in the juvenile system holds a little promise in addressing recidivism among juveniles.
Failure to address the underlying psychological risk factors that cause juvenile offences through effective treatment programs is one of the major causes of recidivism. Hay et al. (2018) argue that incarceration is a risk factor for recidivism because it worsens the psychological and behavioral risk factors instead of addressing them. Besides, instead of providing rehabilitation and treatment, some people believe that incarceration facilities are “schools for criminals” where juveniles are taught worse criminal behaviors due to a lack of effective protective factors. Together with the behavioral and psychological risk factors that place them at the risk of offending in the first place, the juvenile system encourages the development of a delinquent identity and the opportunity to learn more sophisticated criminal methods. Research reveals a high rate of recidivism among the youth who have been in contact with the juvenile system (Hay et al., 2018). The high rate of recidivism underlies the inability of the system to address psychological and risk factors while improving protective factors for the at-risk youth.
The Lack of Job Opportunities
Effective reintegration is necessary for juveniles after completing their term in the system and provided the opportunity to rebuild their lives. One of the ways they can achieve this is by accessing jobs opportunity to improve their lives. As part of the rehabilitation, the system should provide mental and other skills to become productive society members upon reintegration. However, the lack of adequate mental health treatment in the juvenile system impends their ability to develop the resilience and other skills necessary to access meaningful employment (Apel & Ramakers, 2019). Besides, when they join the community and get a second chance, they fail to embrace it, affecting the trust of those who are willing to give them another chance. For example, it is common for youth arrested for a drug-related crime to return to the behavior immediately after they are released from the juvenile system. The community fails to trust juveniles who have been in contact with the justice system because the system does not provide them with adequate resources to age out of crime and become productive members of society.
The juvenile is failing the youth, who are already disadvantaged by their socio-economic situations. For instance, most of the at-risk youth are from low socio-economic, marginalized communities, which place them at the risk of committing crimes due to the lack of legitimate opportunities. Some of the youths lacks protective factors since their parents are already in prison, neglected them or are drug and substance abusers. Most notably, they easily commit a crime to meet their needs and might end up in the juvenile system. For the youth, the system should not be seen as a punishment but an opportunity for them to access treatment and training. However, the juvenile system has failed in this role and re-integrates back into society, individuals who are unable to get or maintain proper jobs and earn an honest living (Clark et al., 2020). As a result, members of society may support the stigma that makes reintegration a challenge. Juveniles who have a criminal history find it challenging to avoid crime after their release due to the failure of the system to provide adequate psychological support.
Factors behind the Challenge
Various factors are responsible for the failure of the juvenile justice system to provide adequate mental health care to help them age out of crime and become productive members of society when they are re-integrated. Such factors include systematic failure, insufficient budget, inadequately trained mental health service providers, and ineffective current treatment model. Systematic failure is the lack of policies that would support the effective treatment and rehabilitation of youth who commit a crime during their developmental stage. The failure is also associated with poor leadership because the environment is unsuitable for accountability and responsibility in helping juveniles change behavior. The current leaders in the system lack the incentive to provide quality support to other staff and incarcerated juveniles. As a result, even the available personnel do not take accountability in providing rehabilitation and treatment to juveniles, giving them the chance to develop worse criminal behavior when in the system.
Besides, the current budget set aside for the treatment and rehabilitation of juvenile offenders is not adequate to meet the increasing demand for services. As a result, it is difficult to have adequate human and other resources to provide psychological services necessary to support juveniles to re-integrate as responsible members of society. Without necessary resources, it is challenging for the service to meet the needs of the juveniles in the system optimally. Furthermore, the problematic nature of the system due to youth with psychological and behavioral problems and inadequate resources discourages mental health personnel from working in the system. Finally, the criminal justice system lacks an effective model to inform treatment and rehabilitation in a crime-based environment. The current model is conflicted between punishment for crime and treatment for mental health risk factors. While the policymakers are conflicted about rehabilitating youth or punishing them for their crime, the dilemma has left juveniles at the risk of a broken juvenile system.
Recommendations
While some youth offenders grow up to become criminals, the majority are expected to age out of crime because delinquent behavior is common in adolescence. Therefore, the juvenile system should have effective treatment programs to help them in aging-out-of crime and become productive members of their community when they re-integrate. One of the necessary steps towards creating an effective treatment program is ensuring that the system has enough finances to support the programs and ensure adequate resources to support treatment. Policymakers should increase the budget for the treatment and rehabilitation of juveniles in the system. However, transparent use of the resources is necessary to ensure that they are used for the right purpose to meet the needs of juvenile inmates. Improper use of finances and other material resources is a major factor in the ineffectiveness of the treatment and rehabilitation in the juvenile system.
Another recommendation is to attract and train mental health professionals to rehabilitate affected youth to develop resilience and skills necessary to become productive once re-integrated. Although it is usually challenging to work with the problematic youth, well-trained mental health personnel are qualified to provide necessary services. Current and new mental health practitioners should be trained regularly to continue developing the skills and experience they require to navigate mental health challenges in the juvenile system. They should also be compensated and rewarded adequately to motivate them to join and remain in the profession.
Therefore, part of the increased budget should be used to pay and motivate mental health service providers in the juvenile system. Improved personnel development includes ensuring effective leadership in the facilities to implement effective programs and systems to improve mental health treatment.
Research is necessary for the juvenile system to establish practical measures in the treatment and rehabilitation of juveniles. Clearly, the current treatment model and approaches are no longer working, considering the problems associated with mental health in the juvenile system. For example, policymakers and justice scholars should explore a mode that will integrate the treatment and rehabilitation component with the need to ensure justice when juveniles commit a crime, especially in the modern-day when youth are committing serious crimes, such as homicide. The system cannot afford to disregard the fact that although the youths commit delinquent acts in the course of their development, some of the crimes are difficult to ignore because they are heinous. The system has witnessed an increase in homicides committed by juveniles as opposed to simple acts, such as running away from home. Thus, more research is necessary to find a model that will integrate rehabilitation, treatment, and punishment for crimes.
Conclusion
As is evident from the discussion, the juvenile incarceration facilities are part of the criminal justice system that caters to the needs of youth who commit a crime before their 18th birthday in most jurisdictions. Research supports that most juveniles commit a crime during adolescence with the potential to “age-out” of crime as they develop as long as they have effective measures to return them in the right direction. Mental health treatment is one of the mechanisms necessary to help the youth to overcome the psychological and behavioral factors that place them at the risk of offending. However, the juvenile system’s mental health service provision is not effective, considering the high number of youth who leave the system only to re-offend and get arrested immediately after reintegration. Systematic failure, insufficient budget, inadequate trained mental health service providers, and ineffectiveness of the current treatment model are among the factors that should be addressed by policymakers in the justice system to address the challenges in the treatment and rehabilitation of juveniles. Further research is necessary to create an effective psychological support system in the country’s juvenile justice system.
References
Apel, R., & Ramakers, A. (2019). Impact of incarceration on employment prospects. Handbook of the Consequences of Sentencing and Punishment Decisions.
Clark, H. G., Mathur, S. R., Ott, M., & McTier Jr, T. S. (2020). Employer Perceptions of Hiring Juveniles With Criminal Records. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 0093854820919914.
Hay, C., Widdowson, A., & Young, B. C. (2018). Self-control stability and change for incarcerated juvenile offenders. Journal of Criminal Justice, 56, 50-59.
Hovey, K. A., Zolkoski, S. M., & Bullock, L. M. (2017). Mental Health and the Juvenile Justice System: Issues Related to Treatment and Rehabilitation. World Journal of Education, 7(3), 1-13.
Kates, E., Gerber, E. B., & Casey, S. (2014). Prior service utilization in detained youth with mental health needs. Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research, 41(1), 86-92
Mallett, C. A. (2014). Youthful offending and delinquency: The comorbid impact of maltreatment, mental health problems, and learning disabilities. Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal, 31(4), 369-392.
Stokes, M. L., McCoy, K. P., Abram, K. M., Byck, G. R., & Teplin, L. A. (2015). Suicidal ideation and behavior in youth in the juvenile justice system: a review of the literature. Journal of correctional health care, 21(3), 222-242.
Underwood, L. A., & Washington, A. (2016). Mental illness and juvenile offenders. International journal of environmental research and public health, 13(2), 228.
Walker, S. C., & Herting, J. R. (2020). The Impact of Pretrial Juvenile Detention on 12-Month Recidivism: A Matched Comparison Study. Crime & Delinquency, 0011128720926115.
Young, S., Greer, B., & Church, R. (2017). Juvenile delinquency, welfare, justice and therapeutic interventions: a global perspective. BJPsych Bulletin, 41(1), 21-29.
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