Options for Treatment of Juvenile Offenders
Children may exhibit problem behaviors before they even start school, which can manifest as verbal and physical aggression, running away from home, truancy, conflict with authority, and criminal behaviors. Underlying issues may further contribute to negative behaviors, including depression, attention deficit disorder and learning disabilities. Several options to treat juvenile offenders can provide the needed interventions to help children turn their lives around.
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Diversion
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Diversion programs address criminal juvenile behaviors, such as truancy, drinking and driving, or theft, through an educational program aimed at the specific crime. A drinking and driving diversion program might require the juvenile to attend eight, two-hour sessions once a week. Diversion programs offer the advantage of focused intervention in the specific area of need.
Probation
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Probation supervises juvenile offenders in the community while providing them with a variety of resources to address their specific needs. Probation officers monitor juvenile behavior and direct them to appropriate community services, such as education, work order hours, vocational training, gang-related counseling, or substance abuse treatment. Intensive juvenile probation, similar to home arrest, means the offender may not leave his home without permission. He must comply with strict curfew, education, work and treatment sanctions.
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Treatment Programs
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The courts order a wide variety of treatment programs apart from, or in conjunction with, probation. Sometimes parents and guardians voluntarily send juvenile offenders to wilderness programs that encourage teens to work with others to survive. Private, residential-treatment or therapeutic boarding schools offer personal attention, smaller class sizes, and structured environments for juveniles, along with a strong academic component. Group home treatment programs offer a safe environment for juveniles who need to address specific issues, usually substance abuse.
Multistystemic Therapy
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Multisystemic therapy incorporates the use of home visits from trained therapists with on-call availability 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The program, which originated in 1992, had expanded to 31 states and several countries as of 2010. Participants between the ages of 12 and 17 learn to cope in their own environments. Therapists have caseloads of five families and also address family-related issues affecting the juveniles.
Prison
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Prison, a last resort for juvenile offenders, also offers treatment services. Most juveniles "cycle out" of prison automatically at age 18, so law enforcement and government officials see the value in providing education, vocational services, life skills classes, and substance abuse treatment classes to prepare juveniles for their release.
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