Rehabilitation in the Juvenile Justice System

Written by Nora O’Neill-Newton Country Day, Adele Feldberg-Stone Ridge, and Ava Gueck-Villa Duchesne

Rehabilitation in the USA requires reform and attention. Many youth and young adults enter the juvenile justice system and subsequently return to a life of drugs, violence, and economic hardship. The purpose of rehabilitation is to prevent this recycled process and create a structure that offers the youth options for a stronger support system. Those working within the centers today notice that the rehabilitation and release forms are not written transparently for the youth depending on them. In other words, there is a lack of advocacy for the incarcerated teenagers, as most minors do not know how to interpret legal contracts. For the rehabilitation process to have a higher success rate and a beneficial impact on juveniles, workers are looking into creating stronger alternatives within the centers. Tamela Meehan, an attorney working with the juvenile court and probation, advocates for alternatives: evening reporting centers, home confinement with electronic monitoring, short-term shelter care, foster care, and clinical interventions division. Tamela emphasizes that offering teenagers a place away from the streets or violent home life helps not only redirect their attention to their education but also provides them with a healthy environment.

The Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice (IDJJ), created in 2006, was developed as a way to focus on juvenile rehabilitation rather than punishment. Due to lack of resources, the IDJJ has found it difficult to achieve this goal. Each year, nearly $130 million in tax dollars are spent on the IDJJ, as it costs immense amounts of money to imprison youth in Illinois. Even with this large number in tax dollars, the IDJJ fails to offer the incarcerated youth proper rehabilitation services. However, Redeploy Illinois, a state-funded program that places its focus on redirecting youth in participating communities, has a much higher success rate of reducing recidivism than the IDJJ. Through Redeploy, participating communities receive funds to offer youth rehabilitative opportunities within their communities, including services such as case management, court advocacy, education assistance, counseling, and crisis intervention. According to Redeploy Illinois, there ’ s a recorded 14.2% reincarceration rate for participants, while there ’ s a 57.4% reincarceration rate for non-participants. Research from Redeploy Illinois shows that youth who have committed nonviolent offenses are less likely to participate in criminal behavior again if they receive proper services while remaining in their home communities; this is exactly what Redeploy ensures. This program is seen as a model for other states in correcting ineffective juvenile justice systems and is praised as a successful way to prevent young people from future criminal behavior. Since 2006, the number of juvenile arrests for violent crimes has decreased fifty percent and arrests for property crimes has decreased seventy-three percent. While this is progress, there is still

work to be done on the post-detention center side. In a statistic provided by Emily Cortina, a staff member at the Kolbe House, it is said that nearly forty-three percent of adults will be re-arrested within three years of being discharged. The increased rearrest rate is a result of the ineffective rehabilitation offered to those formerly incarcerated. Within the Juvenile Justice System, the two most influential legislative acts are The Civil Rights ofInstitutionalizedPersons Actof1997and the ViolentCrime ControlandLaw Enforcement Actof1994 . The CivilRights ofInstitutionalizedPersons Actreviews the conditions and practices used on the youths in detention facilities and rehabilitation sites. While the ViolentCrime Control andLaw EnforcementActpermits the federal justice system to file a lawsuit against local or state governments regarding the safety of the youth within these centers. These pieces of legislation are a key component in creating a more fair system for incarcerated minors. They build boundaries within the system, protecting the lives and well-being of those living in the centers.

Rehabilitation implies many things in the justice system. It could consist of psychological assistance, therapy programs, medical assistance, educational programs, job opportunities, and probation rules and regulations. Rehabilitation is meant to restore the teenager or child facing time and prevent the continuation of crimes. As Northwestern's School of Law discusses in their Rehabilitative Release ofYouthFrom Illinois Prisons, the two most important resources teenagers deserve when leaving the system are access to an attorney and a release decision procedure provided to them that is “concise and timely. ”