...Juvenile Sentencing Alternatives to Incarceration David Schuster Oakland Community College Abstract There are many different ways to punish a juvenile for a crime that they have committed. The most common is incarceration, otherwise known as jail or prison. This option has many disadvantages. I will explore the different aspects of incarceration: how it affects the juveniles, and if, over all, it is an effective way to punish young criminals. I will then present several alternatives to incarceration, now being used, such as: community diversion, counseling, education, behavior management, probation, as well as other methods that not only punish the juvenile, but also provide an opportunity for rehabilitation. For this paper, when talking about incarceration and community alternatives as sentencing options, I intend for them to be applied to the not as serious juvenile crimes. Status offenses, minor in possession, breaking and entering, and minor burglary charges would fall into this category. However, I think for more serious, violent crimes there is less discretion as to punishment options, and therefore most community alternatives may not apply to them. Keywords: Incarceration, community alternatives, juvenile delinquents Juvenile Sentencing Alternatives to Incarceration Incarceration for juveniles in this country is largely based upon our criminal justice system for adults. As Jeffery Fagen (2010) states in his article, there are many similarities between...
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...Juvenile Incarceration Prevention It is estimated that roughly 500,000 juveniles are brought to detention centers every single year, which means that is 26,000 children being stripped from their families every day for a misuse of judgment, according to the Justice Policy Institute. To make these matters worse, it was also researched that as many as 70 percent of these crimes were not even violent misdemeanors which includes offenses that did not involve a weapon or cause injury to another person. The deterrence of juvenile incarceration can hold a plethora of benefits to the community, but it is important for communities to first understand how this is feasible. In order to help our youth stay out of the criminalistics world or help them turn their lives around, we must provide proper means of prevention such as education, recreation, bullying prevention programs, and functional family therapy. First of all, education plays one of the most vital roles in discouraging children from choosing the wrong path in life. When most people think of education, they automatically think of public or private schooling (pre-school through college); there are many other forms of information that can be found valuable when dealing with and preventing delinquent behavior. This can include programs for parents to teach them how to raise healthy, happy children into responsible adults as well as curriculums that cover the harmful effects of drugs, sex, weapons, and gangs, as stated on Lawyershop...
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...The Racial Disparities and Incarceration of Juvenile Delinquents Mario M. Tate University of Memphis Abstract The criminal justice system has had to enact harsher treatment due to the erratic and unpredictable nature of juvenile delinquents who refuse to follow the law. The age ranges for juveniles that are being considered in this study are 12-18 years old. I want to address the ever growing problems of racial disparity and incarceration of juvenile delinquents, who tend to not have any other options, but being arrested and are preyed upon because of their racial make-up. Single parent households, lack of education, supervision, and economics are some of the contributing factors which have lead many juveniles down the road to their deviant behavior. Data has been collected to try and understand the reasons for the defiant behavior of juveniles, so advocates may assist them in remaining with their families; through constant monitoring and evaluations of behavior and actions of our children they may stand a significant chance of growing up to be prosperous and productive adults. Also increased funding through the Juvenile Justice Prevention Act will help local state and county municipalities’ kick-start programs to assist today’s youth. Keywords: juvenile delinquents, incarceration, racial disparity, juvenile justice, racial discrimination, jail, juvenile courts The history of juvenile delinquency and racial disparity has gone hand in hand for a very long time and...
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...Lacrisha Lewis Patrick Anyanetu Eng.120 11/18/10 Research Paper “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” by Flannery O’Connor who is a Southern American novelist and short story writer, O’ Connor’s career expanded in the 1950sand early 60s, a time when the South was dominated by Protestant Christians.O’Connor was born and raised a Catholic. She was a fundamentalist and aChristian moralist whose powerful apocalyptic fiction is focused in the South.Flannery O’Connor was born March 25, 1925 in Savannah, Georgia. O’ Connorgrew up on a farm with her parents Regina and Edward O’ Connor. At the age offive, she taught a chicken to walk backwards. O’Connor attended Georgia StateCollege for women, now Georgia College, in Milledgeville, majoring in sociology.She had showed a gift for satirical writing, as well as cartooning since she wasa child. By the end of her undergraduate education, O’Connor knew that writingwas her true passion. She spent two years at the prestigious School for Writersat the State University of Iowa on scholarship. She received a master’s degree infine arts in 1947. In 1950, she had a near fatal attack of systemic lupus erythematosus, a chronic inflammatory connective tissue disorder that causes periods of joint pain and fatigue, and can attack the hearts, lungs, and kidneys. Her father died of the disease when she was fifteen. She would have to walk with crutches for the rest of her life. By her death at the age of 39, Flannery O’Connor won a prominent place in modern...
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...Isis Lee English 101 Livingston 3/4/13 Juvenile Reentry System "I believe that if you show people the problems and you show them the solutions they will be moved to act", Bill Gates. Recidivism is defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary as the tendency to relapse into a previous condition or mode of behavior. It is a term that is predominantly used when referring to criminal behavior. According to a study done by the Connecticut Department of Corrections in 2012, Out of 14,398 male inmates released from prison in 2005, 79% were re-arrested. These numbers begin to describe the continuing issue that the United States faces in regards to repeat offenders. In the article "Stopping The Madness: A New Reentry System For Juvenile Corrections." Author's Scott Sells, Irene Sullivan and Donald DeVore focus on some of the reasons that contribute to youth recidivism and programs that can help minimize this issue. Without first determining the causes of the issue we can not begin to address resolutions. This article focuses on an interview as well as studies and evidence based theories tto combat this issue that we are faced with. The artilce discusses issues that contribute to failing reentry programs which ultimately result in high recidivism in young offenders. Although they provide a strong logical argument, and sufficient evidence the authors do not go into detail the effects of implementing such facilities will have...
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...population in Texas and every other state. As of June 30, 2009 there are 2,297,500 people including women incarcerated in the United States of America (Sabol, 2009). The US is 5 percent of the world's population and shockingly has 25 percent of the world's prisoners. Over the last 30 years, the US criminal justice system experienced the second largest increase in government investment, health care being the first. Last year, as state budget shortfalls emerged, 31 states cut education budgets while increasing money for incarceration (Rooks, 2010). This causes problems for states including Texas at the local, state, and federal. Drugs are an issue in every country in the world, but here in the United States we make it a primary issue, which is why we have so many people incarcerated. Drug offenses, account for two-thirds of the federal inmate population. This is virtually affecting the poor and minorities in our society. Because of this, money for incarceration increases and cuts down education budgets, thus also affecting our students who will be the future of our country. Policy makers in Washington D.C. must address these issues if they want the future of America to be respectable, as it has always been. This problem has been brought into the public’s eye because of the monetary problems the United States has been facing in recent years. Many people around the states including teachers are losing jobs, wages are being cut, and the living expense is not getting any cheaper...
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...Juvenile Diversion vs. Probation Juvenile diversion and probation are methods to rehabilitate offenders. There are several differences between diversion and probation. The difference between juvenile diversion and probation is juvenile diversion seeks to avoid the burdensome consequences of formal processing (Clear, Cole, & Reisig, 2013, pg. 447). Probation is when the offender is convicted of an offense, but rather than being incarcerated, the offender is released and subject to supervision. Diversion can be in two forms which is stopping the process of the case or through specific programs. Diversion programs are private and confidential meetings that are not conducted in public. A diversion program allows the offender to go through treatment and other conditions to avoid conviction while still holding the offender accountable for their actions. Diversion programs are usually for first-time offenders who do not need to be rehabilitated by incarceration or strict supervision and can be expunged after completion. Probation is being monitored and reporting/checking-in. Probation is usually for offenders who need to be rehabilitated by strict supervision but do not need to be incarcerated. Probation includes additional programming with conviction ordered by a judge that includes halfway house programs and other transitional programs. In other words, diversion programs avoid imprisonment and conviction while probation is the punishment for a conviction of an offense and can be...
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...encouragement” along with his mentor being there every step of the way building his confidence. With this support Ernesto began getting great reports from the teacher and he went on to take the GED pre-test receiving a sixty-two in writing and a sixty-one on social studies, which is outstanding. After all the time and effort invested Ernesto graduated. (Lore, 2002). This one success story can speak for many and really paints that picture that many children need support, encouragement and motivation to empower them to want to succeed in the end. Ernesto is just one I speak of but, troubled young men are prevalent in countless communities and many households, which across the U.S. the low performance schools are located in areas with high incarceration rates. (MSNBC, 2015). “Men account for eight out of ten people cautioned by the police, and nearly nine out of ten people found guilty of indictable offences.” (James, 2014).These young men are the futures of America and should be groomed to fulfill the right path and not increase prison overcrowding. In order to decrease the...
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...As I drove to Mission Creek I had no idea what to expect. The closest I have been to a prison is driving down Route 53 in my home town and seeing Statesville maximum security prison for men. I have never been past the barbed wire; I have only seen the stark grey cement walls from afar. However, regardless of never knowing a single one, my opinions and beliefs of the people who live inside are abundant. However, by deciding to visit Mission Creek I decided to face my stereotypes head on, and see where they stood after I got a look for myself. My “observations” of the incarcerated began when I was about eight years old and was granted permission to use the TV remote. For some reason prison shows always interested me, of course not factual ones, just dramas. My personal favorite being Shawshank Redemption. Granted, from time to time I have watched “real” stories on the incarcerated, such as “Pregnant in Prison”, “Women Behind Bars” and various shows about serial killers in prison. I especially took the latter shows to heart, and these were “reality” so I believed this is how prison was. Stark grey walls, people in some color, most often orange, jumpsuits, walking around hand cuffed, steel bars everywhere. Prisoners sit in their cells all day every day, doing nothing but check books out of libraries so they can cut the pages out to smuggle contraband. While they are not doing this they are beating each other up, giving one another tattoos and trying to escape. I carried these ideas...
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...Site Visit to the Travis County Adult Probation SMART Program Tony Lee Merriwether HSCS/311 June 23, 2014 Sheri Meyer Site Visit to the Travis County Adult Probation SMART Program This paper is an overview of adult probation program designed to provide an alternative to incarceration. The Texas Criminal Justice Program designed the program as a diversionary mechanism to provide comprehensive treatment to offenders that require treatment for substance abuse and chemical dependency. The offenders must meet certain criteria to gain entrance into the program. The program is resident in nature to assist the offenders with re-socialization process. The counseling and intervention sessions are conducted by Licensed Chemical Dependency Counselors, (LCDC) which use cognitive behavioral therapies as a treatment tool. The SMART program is very structured in regard to the structure, its mission, and goals. There are strict eligibility requirements that offenders must meet to attend the 20-week program. The program is not gender specific and is available for male and female offenders. There are three levels of treatment provided at the treatment facility. Therapy is provided in the form of individual and group sessions. The writer visited the site while accompanied by LCDC Ms. Vicki Clark Merriwether; Ms. Merriwether gained her experience working with active duty Soldiers as an Alcohol and Drug counselor at several military locations in the United States and Europe. Ms. Merriwether...
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...Paternal incarceration creates a temporary single-parenting system, in which the mother acts as sole guardian, but imprisonment tends to produce far worse effects on children than do other causes of parent-child separation (Lowenstein, 1986). Separation due to death or similar causes disrupt the family, yet these happen to provide a “focal concern around which the remaining members can rally and mitigate the impact of their loss”; quite to the contrary, separation due to imprisonment rarely elicits any such response because of the stigma with which it is associated (Fritsch & Burkhead, 1981, p. 84). Typically, a child faced with the social stigma of paternal incarceration will often also encounter embarrassment and shame, which may in turn further inhibit the ability of the child to adequately adjust to the anxieties resulting from the separation through incarceration (Hannon et al., 1984; Lowenstein, 1986). The deleterious effects on child behavior, of course, are that prolonged periods of shame and embarrassment may promote depression or behavior typical of withdrawal, such as an unwillingness to engage in social interactions. Unlike other causes for paternal separation, paternal absence due to imprisonment is a multi-dimensional phenomenon, which takes on different meaning depending on the manner in which the particular cause for the incarceration is perceived—either as being “normatively approved” or as “bearing a stigma” (Lowenstein, 1984). While there is a correlation...
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...Community Corrections or Incarceration Are community corrections a better solution than incarceration? Michelle Brooks ITT Technical Institute Community Corrections or Incarceration Abstract In this research paper will read about different subjects and topics that pertain to incarceration and community corrections. The incarceration rate is going up in the United States while at the same time community corrections is slowly fading away because of limited support from the local communities and government officials within each state. In this research I hope to find out those community corrections has more to offer than incarceration. In conclusion incarceration is not the right way but community corrections will be. Community Corrections or Incarceration Table of Contents Abstract Introduction Background on Community Corrections Background on Incarceration Effectives of Community Corrections Effectives of Incarceration Programs dealing with Community Corrections Programs while Incarcerated Theory Interview with Mr. Sharron Wilson Result Reference Page Community Corrections or Incarceration Introduction Community Corrections is a better solution than incarceration because it offers many different alternative programs for several different types of offenders. Incarceration also offers similar programs...
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...state jurisdiction. There was an increase of 509 from 506 sentenced prisoners per 100,000 United States residents from yearend 2007. This was an overall increase of 0.8% from the previous yearend. This was however less than the average increase of 2.4% annually for the years 2000 to 2007. (1) These numbers show the growth of the United States inmate population which leads to problems with overcrowding. Within the next year the Federal Bureau of Prisons will open three federal correctional institutions which can hold an approximate 10,500 federal inmates at maximum capacity. (2) According to a national study in 2003 showed that seven out of ten male prisoners that were released will return to prison. (Viser) The question of how does incarceration effect recidivism seems to be obvious. It doesn’t have an impact on those who serve there sentences in prisons or jails. However there are factors that could influence those who serve time and thereby have an impact on recidivism. The dependant variable of the...
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...Silent Battle: The Effects of Parental Incarceration on Children and Families By: Jessica Stamper The loss of a parent has an overwhelming impact on a child. When a parent dies or there is a divorce, there are endless opportunities to discuss the loss, but what happens when the absence is due to incarceration? Incarceration is not met with the same understanding and sympathy death and divorce are, making it harder to cope, creating additional and often more severe emotional and psychological effects on children. The topic is often considered taboo and this inability to communicate creates more anxiety for the child. They often feel alone, leaving them to suffer in silence. The loss of parents to prison can cause depression and trauma to a child. It compounds the existing environmental stress, such as the violent neighborhoods, poverty and a poor school system. The trend for the incarcerated differs with race, age, gender and economic status. In the same way, the effects on children range from emotional, behavioral and economic aspects. When a parent goes to prison, leaving behind their children, it creates devastating and often lasting effects on the family, as a whole. Equally affected, are the parent or guardian left to care for the children. It is a growing epidemic and with the constant rise of prison population, so does the numbers of families left to suffer the consequences. This paper investigates the effect of incarceration of a parent can have on a family and...
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...Overcrowding in Prisons By Wendy Michaud PRES111 ~ Unit 2 IP American InterContinental University April 1, 2012 Abstract I think we are somewhat aware of the overcrowding in jails and prisons. There are more people incarcerated than we have room for in the United States. Although some states are far worse off than others this is a serious problem none the less. There are plans to fix this problem but not at the speed people would like. Topic: Overcrowded prisons are a problem for many different reasons. Most people are already aware of this problem, either they read it in a newspaper or saw it somewhere on the television. This is not just a local problem, it is almost everywhere. Are there reasons why this continues to happen, and has this situation improved through out the years? Are there things us as a society can do to change overcrowding in prisons? These are questions we should ask ourselves considering tax payers are the people that pay the most for food, shelter, and medical care for all the prisoners that are incarcerated. In the United States prisons the recidivism rate is amazingly high. In 1994, the biggest study of prisoner recidivism that has been ever been completed in the United States proved that, of nearly 300,000 adult prisoners who were released in 15 different states, 67.5 percent were arrested again within...
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