Adolescent Diversion Program Analysis

I am doing my field placement at the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit Court in the Juvenile Diversion Program (JDP). The JDP works with first time misdemeanor juvenile offenders between the ages of 8 and 17. In fact, the Florida Statute 985.12 gives law enforcement the authority to issue a Civil Citation instead of arresting the youth. The premise of the diversion program is to direct the juvenile’s path away from jail. When first entering the JDP the child will receive an assessment and may be referred to mental health counseling. In the first place, the case workers interviews the youth and their parent/guardian and form a contract. Next, the case worker will assign the defendant sanctions for the defendant to complete. The perpetrator will

As a whole, according to the General Strain Theory, adolescents are more vulnerable than either younger children or adults to the strains that are a normal part of life. Without strong, fully-developed coping mechanisms, the loss of a close friend or family member, the perceived inability to reach a desired goal, or the introduction of a negative stimulus in life can motivate an adolescent toward a life of delinquency. There is hope, however. It is up to communities, and particularly schools (which for many adolescents are the one “safety net” within the community) to be observant and to offer opportunities for mentoring, for success, and for intervention before youths feel like the only option for success or healing is

This program was geared towards helping the children of incarcerated individuals as well as giving parents time with their kids. The project involved a twelve week course put together by the Oregon Social Learning Center (OSLC) and DOC teaching people effective parenting from zero to adulthood. Their goal was to get the parents to see their role in their children’s lives. Once the course is completed, parents get to see their kids and a therapist will provide feedback if necessary (DOC n.d.). As mentioned previously, the goal of the program is to improve relationships between incarcerated parents and their children. In the long run, they hope that the good relationship will help influence the kids to stay out of

Rehabilitation for at risk teens has been an ongoing issue that runs deep in certain communities. When kids at young ages are exposed to stress and have to cope early on with dysfunction they are denied the opportunity to mature and conditioned to commit thinking errors that perpetuate a young offender into an adult offender. To find ways to break this cycle John Hubner accounts his time on the Giddings State School Capital Offenders Program and how a group of counselors are able to combine many strategies in rehabilitating young offenders who have committed serious crimes. Young people convicted of serious crimes are often transferred to adult prisons that institutionalize young people to prison life only increasing the likely hood of

Personally, I don’t know anyone who was ever involved in a diversion program. However, I have watched the show “Beyond Scared Straight” which focused on teens placed in a diversion program that showed them what jail will be like. The juveniles were given a specific date/time to appear at their state’s prison, in which they were accompanied by their parents and/or guardians. They were given orange prison jumpsuits to wear the entire day. They then went through the process of being admitted to the prison and spent the whole day being treated as an inmate. At the end, the parents had the final say, if they wanted to take them home or let them stay at the prison overnight. This program affected majority of the juveniles, a lot of their tough exterior

As I mentioned in my reflection last week, I attended a Juvenile Court Diversion meeting on Thursday. Four trained volunteers from the Dover community make up the “Diversion Committee”. The committee members meet with first-time offenders of non-violent crimes who under the age of 18 who live in Dover. After asking the offender to describe what they did and to take responsibility for their actions, the committee talks privately about how to best hold this individual accountable. After coming to an agreement, the offender and the committee members form a contract that outlines tasks and/or expectations for the offender to meet. The creator of this program and director for the Dover Teen Center, Steve, also attends.

Upon my research I found out that there are many justices related programs from a restorative or community framework that are being offered and available to people all ages, from 0 to 4 and even 55+, races and genders. In order to determine what program I want to look deeper into and examine, I turned to the Office of Justice Programs website which lists over 400 programs available. The website points out what programs work and where tested and those that where deemed as failed researches and programs, more specifically 90 effective programs, 272 as promising, and 81 as no effect. One particular program that I was interested in and is listed as one of the effective programs and applies to my set of principles is Adolescent Diversion Project (ADP) or another name they use is Michigan State University Adolescent Project (MSUAP) which was founded and is practiced at Michigan State University. The set of principles that I found Adolescent Diversion Project (ADP) program relevant to are: restorative justice should not be mandated in a top-down authoritarian process, no single road map or blueprint for every individual involved, all persons involved must be prepared to make mistakes, assistance provided should help people involved in the long run, crime involves disruptions in a three dimensional relationship of victim, community, and offender, the primary goals should be to repair the harm, heal the victim and the community, and rehabilitate offenders.

Juvenile institutions and programs have changed over time. There are also juvenile programs that necessarily do not punish juvenile’s delinquents but instead help modify their behavior to avoid recidivism. Certain treatments and methods regarding how to deal with these dangerous young offenders were fixed and improved to make these institutions and programs more effective in changing the lives of these young

As mentioned within the paper, there are benefits to having services provided by both public and private entities; however, there are also concerns. The public sector, which was portrayed by services offered by TJJD, are required to provide yearly reports. In many ways these reports keep the system accountable for the money they are spending and the services they provide or require for juvenile offenders. The reports are open to the public and are easily accessible. As it relates to research, these reports allow people to critically assess juvenile programs, while challenging the government to refine or create programs superior to the ones offered in the past. Reports like these are harder to find regarding services offered by private entities and is a concern. Programs in which juvenile offenders are required to successfully complete, should never be determined by trial and error; however, this is often the case. On a positive note, private entities and community resources typically target the specific needs of a juvenile and include mental health components. Programs which do not offer mental health services should be critically assessed, as they are less likely to succeed. It is important that continued research is applied to the programs offered by both the public and private sectors. As it stands today, treatment services offered

The utilization of evidence based programs have proven to have positive outcomes for youth such as; reduced anxieties, and depression, academic success, support systems and skills for employment. Characteristically, juvenile delinquency follows a route comparable to that of usual adolescent development. Delinquent behavior is a path followed and not just something that children randomly engage in and therefore, through the understanding of the developmental paths of at-risk youth, researchers believe that early interventions can help to increase positive outcomes (Youth.Gov, 2017).

All programs have limitations to them and they are not all perfect. Downs, Robertson and Harrison did a study on the diversion program and the effectiveness it had in helping drug abusers. They observed 127 clients total, ages 13-17. They found that the diversion program they used with these adolescents was not effective and led to negative self-labels and more deviant behavior. They found that some adolescents that were sent to this program were not heavy drug users and had family issues, but due to the program being drug based it led to the negative self-label of drug abuser. This program didn’t have many restorative aspects to it. Diversion programs for juveniles should be separate from juveniles who need support to fix a drug addiction

The goals of juvenile corrections are too deter, rehabilitate and reintegrate, prevent, punish and reattribute, as well as isolate and control youth offenders and offenses. Each different goal comes with its own challenges. The goal of deterrence has its limits; because rules and former sanctions, as well anti-criminal modeling and reinforcement are met with young rebellious minds. Traditional counseling and diversion which are integral aspects of community corrections can sometimes be ineffective, and studies have shown that sometimes a natural self intervention can take place as the youth grows older; resulting in the youth outgrowing delinquency.

Program recommendations included a therapeutic approach rather than that of a correctional approach to juvenile justice issues; leaning more toward

When a juvenile commits a crime, many suggest that they are placed in a detention center for the crime committed. Placing juvenile offenders on probation has proved to be a more disciplined procedure rather than placing him or her in an institution. People’s view of juvenile offenders’ placement on probation feel that it does not deter crime. Placing juvenile offenders on probation rather than sending them to a juvenile detention center is a more effective way of working with juveniles and preventing future crimes. Juveniles placed in a detention center with adults are at risk to commit other offenses. Juvenile probation officers provide counseling services, may assign the juvenile offender community service hours, make sure that the probationer has no contact with the victim, and maintain close contact with their probationers to make sure that they are staying out of trouble. Placing juveniles on probation reduces the rates of juvenile delinquents committing future crimes. While juveniles are on probation their officer will monitor the probationer closely making sure that he or she abides by the contract made between both. If violated, there will be consequences to follow. Placing juveniles on probation not only allows the juvenile to remain within their community, but also when completing community service hours within their community they are learning to become responsible for their crime and are working to pay off their debt.

Diversion programs are informal way of punishment provided by outside agencies to give the opportunity to minors to avoid criminal charges and criminal records. Youth who complete a diversion program successfully have significantly lower recidivism rate compare to youth referred to juvenile detention center. This study was conducted to identify factors associated with success after the Programa SHORTSTOP diversion program. Programa SHORTSTOP is a diversion program targeting at-risk Hispanic youth in Orange county. The sample in this study consisted of 66 youths, 13 reoffended minors reported by the Orange County probation department, 3 reoffend minors reported by the Orange County Bar Foundation, and 50 minors who passed the program and did