Troubled Youth in Residential Programs

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that the express purpose of all juvenile independent living programs is the avoidance of a negative external situation because the offender's problems will be exacerbated by re-exposure to the conditions that caused them. The author points out that, rather than replacing the teen's freedom with a wholly regimented prison lifestyle, programs, such as Fresh Start, give youths responsibility for their own actions based upon their willingness to adhere voluntarily to the program's guidelines. The paper relates that most juvenile offenders see no use for schooling; however, hands-on activities, in programs such as the Gulf Coast Trades Center, transform education from something theoretical into something practical as these troubled youths discover that they have skills and interests they never knew existed. The paper includes a data table.

From the Paper:

"First and foremost is the cost to society-at-large of troubled youth, specifically the problem of persons under the age of eighteen who become involved in criminal activity. Juvenile courts in the United States processed nearly 1.8 million cases in 1996 alone, an astonishing figure that represented an increase of forty-nine percent over the previous nine years. Of the huge numbers of young people passing through the juvenile court system, only a portion of them are currently accommodated in residential treatment and detention facilities. In 1999, this figure represented some 109,000 minors in a wide range of different programs."

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