Everyone seems to have an opinion about our correctional system today: how it should be run, who should be in it, and how the people inside are dealt with. What many do not realize now is that juveniles are greatly affected by this system as well. If a child somehow finds their way into the correctional system, what happens from there can greatly affect their future and whether or not they stay in the system or are able to find their way out. Certain aspects such as education can greatly benefit them in the latter while other pieces such as mental health issues arising before entering the system, worsening within, or evolving while an inmate may put an end to them knowing life outside of prison causing it to become their permanent home. How juvenile offenders are treated from the moment that they enter a youth detention facility to what happens while they are inside to the moment they are uncuffed and walk back outside into freedom has a great consequence on the way they are able to carry on with the rest of their life.
One of the biggest concerns when a child enters the correctional system is that they will fall behind in school. While an education can be difficult depending on how much the child is in and out as well as how willing they are to participate in school, there are education programs inside juvenile facilities to help them keep up with their studies while they are away from the classroom. This is not to say that the programming is better than what they would be receiving outside of corrections. In fact, there are many examples across the country in which education is shown to be a lower priority in juvenile correctional facilities than they should be when looking at state standards and the No Child Left Behind Act from 2001 (Leone & Cutting, 2004). Depending on where the detention center is and who it is run by can determine how the programs operate. Educational programs can be run differently based on where the curriculum comes from such as the state, public schools in the area, or a private operation (Southern Education Foundation, 2014). In the Ada County Juvenile Detention Center, they hire school teachers which operate on the same curriculum as the public schools in Boise, Idaho. When possible, those teachers will try to get homework from certain children’s regular school teachers for them to work on while in the detention facility. If the length of stay is relatively short and the child goes to a nearby school, this can sometimes be a possibility. Since the average length of stay is only about a week, a small amount of school work to help keep them involved with their classmates outside the jail can be extremely helpful. For those who have a longer length of stay, both in Ada County and other jurisdictions across the country, juvenile offenders have the opportunity to work on their GED program to try and complete school and get them involved in the community when they are no longer being held in the detention center.
It is important for the juveniles in the criminal justice system to maintain their education even while away from their home school. However, it is also important for the education programs inside detention facilities to keep up with appropriate curriculum. This can include taking measures such as overhauling their services and obtaining teachers who are proficient of doing the job so that the students may succeed. Many states have had to do this in recent years after realizing they have struggled or failed to provide an adequate education to those in their facility in the past (Leone &Wruble, 2015). This programming alone could make or break what happens to these kids after they leave the detention facility; some children will return a short time later for another crime while others will have the tools to help stay out of the criminal justice system for good. “While these steps will not deter all youths from further troubles, well-developed education programs for youths…and other students in juvenile corrections will ensure that fewer youths persist in delinquent behavior” (Leone &Cutting, 2004, p.264).
When their stay is over, and the juveniles leave the detention center, most of them will go back to school and link back in with the other regular students. This can be hard for certain youth depending on how long they were incarcerated for. If it was only a few days, then the make-up work, if any, should be relatively easy for them to do. On the other hand, if they have been out for multiple months, in can be hard to pick up with the other students and will end up dropping out rather than trying to keep up with things they have not been taught (Balfanz, Spiridakis, Neild, Legters, 2003). After dropping out, these children may end up committing more crimes and end up back in the system or rapidly decline in mental health. Both of these can cause a multitude of other problems that will lead to a less successful future.
Adolescents and young adults are increasingly becoming the age group with the most mental health issues in the United States. This becomes even more true for those who have been incarcerated as a youth. Those who have been in the juvenile correction system are twice as likely to need mental health services than those who have not and live their life among the general population (Underwood, Phillips, Dresner and Knight, 2006). For this reason, juvenile detention centers must have much better programs to help with those that come in already experiencing symptoms of mental health as well as those who may experience it from the shock of being in jail or prison for the first time. Along with this, correctional facilities must also ensure that their facility and staff is properly trained and equipped to make sure they are ready for any scenario that could occur with the young inmates. For many facilities this involves group and individual counseling and preparing staff for life or death scenarios. Ada County’s juvenile detention center provides these services along with family counseling, a drug and alcohol program for those who can relate these issues to the cause for their mental health deterioration, observation rooms for those at high risk that can be monitored by camera and in person around the clock, and a risk level system to evaluate each child as they are booked into the facility. However, in a training survey issued to detention staff in early 2018, half of the correctional officers that took the survey responded that they felt undertrained in this area and would feel uncomfortable if in a situation that required such training. Since this survey, there have been some new trainings issued to cover this issue and hopefully instill some comfort to those who previously may have avoided such situations.
“Youth in the juvenile justice system run a high risk for future development of problems that may lead to further emotional deterioration and delinquency” (Underwood, Phillips, Dresner and Knight, 2006, p.131). This being said, it is obvious that what happens to a juvenile while in the system will drastically affect how they live the rest of their life. If they come out of jail or prison worse mentally, physically or emotionally, they may not have the opportunity to regain the sense of self they once had before entering the facility they were housed. While correctional staff do their best to protect the children under their supervision, not all facilities are able to keep up with the staff to prevent every terrible situation. As much as the public would like to think things like rape (which has diminished greatly since the implementation of the Prison Rape Elimination Act, also known as PREA), bullying and even solitary confinement are still situations occurring to juveniles while in custody. In some places, solitary confinement can be considered cruel and unusual punishment which would be breaking the Eighth Amendment; for those with previous mental health conditions and children this should be considered even more true. As many know, solitary confinement has been shown to lead to mental health problems for those confined for an extended period of time. If a juvenile is placed in a situation where they are not allowed human contact or even exercise time, the public is foolish to believe we are helping them or their future. While in solitary confinement, not only are mental health illnesses likely to arise in youth, but recidivism is also likely to increase (Rademacher, 2016). Due to this, many different states are taking measures to try and avoid solitary confinement when possible.
When juveniles commit horrendous crimes, they are often knocked straight into adult court and often have to stay in an adult facility unless the judge on their case decides otherwise. When this happens juveniles must, as required by law, be separated by both sight and sound from the adults that are also held in the facility. This is required by the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Act (JJDPA) which is a law to help guarantee that youths in custody of the juvenile criminal justice system are properly cared for (Act4JJ, 2014). Juveniles are at high risk of all the dreadful things the general public imagines happen in prisons and jails. Because of this, putting them in solitary confinement while in adult facilities essentially may be the best option at the moment. While some jurisdictions are physically unable to house adults and juveniles in different facilities, usually because the town is so small there may only be one jail or prison, some states and counties are able to keeps children with children until they legally become adults (Wood, 2012). In Ada County, even when a juvenile is waived to adult court and thus the adult jail down the street, there are usually cases where they can be moved back to the juvenile detention center or Department of Juvenile Corrections (DJC, the juvenile equivalent to “prison”) to serve their sentence. The child customarily waits in the juvenile detention center to be arraigned, is waived to adult court and moved to the adult jail where they are kept separately from the adults, then sent back to the juvenile detention center so they have more adequate help for their age and finally moved to DJC, if their sentence is longer than a year, at least until their eighteenth birthday.
The treatment of juveniles while in the care of the criminal justice system, more specifically while under the care of correctional facilities, can often be the determining factor for whether or not they decide to turn their life around and not commit any more crimes or become a habitual offender continuously popping in and out of jail for the remainder of their life. For many young adults, juvenile detention is often the last place for them to figure this out for themselves and truly get a fresh start should they need one. If they are mentally abused through their housing situations and not given an opportunity to do well in building their future through an education while in the system, it is likely they will resort to the same kind of behavior that put them in the criminal justice system in the first place: criminal. Education, proper housing, and training for mental health programs is more than crucial to these kids, especially while they are only kids. Helping them at such a young age could be truly life changing.
