Prevention of Recidivism in Juveniles
It is appalling and a cause of concern when juveniles go back to commit crimes after release from state institutions that are meant to rehabilitate them. According to Ramchand, Morral & Becker, (2009)’s study, majority of respondents were still criminally active 7 years after entering a group home, and almost half had spent time in jail or prison in the 90 days before the 87-month assessment. This is an indication that the state institutions meant to steer the juvenile offenders from a life in crime to a better life are making them recidivist which is undesirable. This paper explores the causes of recidivism among juvenile offenders, and how crime prevention and also rehabilitation for prevents it.
One of the causes of recidivism is incarceration. According to Abrams, Terry & Franke, (2011), 50 % of incarcerated youth will have repeat contact with the juvenile justice system and between 75% –90 % of incarcerated juveniles are subsequently arrested as adults. When a child is incarcerated, the only people they have to look up to are adult criminals. Therefore, they are likely to adopt the behaviour of the adults, especially criminal behaviour (Shukla, n.d.). These effects are likely to make the child become recidivist. It is notable that the methods used for the rehabilitation for adults are not likely to work as was determined by (Mitchell & Palmer, 2004)’s study where a rehabilitation programme meant for adults was used on juveniles.
Another cause is trying of adolescent offenders as adults. This usually happens in cases where the juveniles have committed serious offence that requires a retributive punishment or is a recidivist (Loughran et al., 2010). They are likely to be affected substantially by the trial process in the adult court system. (Loughran et al., 2010) posits that adolescents who are tried in the adult system are more likely to recidivate, even at a higher rate than those tried in the juvenile system. When an adolescent offender is tried as an adult, people will know about this and may label them according to the crime they committed (Loughran et al., 2010).
Drug and alcohol abuse is another cause of recidivism. According to (Ramchand, Morral & Becker, 2009)’s study, almost two thirds reported illegal drug use in the previous year of the study, and more than half of this number acknowledged the use of hard drugs. It is not easy to infer how many of those who took drugs committed crimes but one can infer that a substantial number of them are the same ones who did so.
Interruption of mental healthcare for the juvenile offenders that require it is another cause of recidivism. This is because the health benefits that these adolescents were enjoying are taken away from them once they are taken into the juvenile justice system (Ramchand, Morral & Becker, 2009). Once the mental health care is taken away, these juvenile offenders revert to even worse behavior and may go back to committing crime once again.
Probation officers and residential officers lack proper training that is important in the care of the adolescents. A great majority of them do not know how to employ treatment and counselling training, behavioural or mental health training (Esq, 2001). This illustrates the inability of most of them to identify the problems that the juvenile offenders may be going through or even help them by way of counselling thus causing recidivism.
The number of psychiatrists and psychologists in the juvenile justice system is limited. These professionals are usually able to spend no more than 15 minutes with a juvenile offender (Esq, 2001). This is an indication that the mental issues they have will manifest themselves in negative ways in their day-to-day lives, thus they are likely to become recidivists if they do not get
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