Juvenile Offenders and Rehabilitation Research Proposal

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Juvenile offenders have grown to become a serious problem in many countries, especially the United States. Like adult offenders, juvenile offenders are more likely to reoffend, especially without the proper guidance and assistance they need in order to live a law abiding life. Research within the last five years has led to identification of specific program models as well theory-based intervention approaches that not only assist juvenile offenders in leading productive lives but also keeps them from potentially re-offending. This paper will focus on rehabilitation programs for juvenile offenders and prevention programs that help in lessening the number of potential juvenile offenders by proposing alternative means of coping with hardship and stress.

Farrington's Integrated Cognitive Antisocial Potential Theory will be examined within the context of juvenile offenders and how this framework may be applied to understanding Juvenile motivations for engaging in criminal activities Importance of rehabilitation will be emphasized because juvenile offenders that are not rehabilitated and are not given the tools to overcome their mistakes will often re-offend and sometimes commit a more serious crime. This research paper will show information from thirty-five articles that explain the advantages of intervention programs, prevention programs, as well as the type of intervention most benefitting for juvenile offenders.

In the last decade, evidence-based practice has been widely acknowledged as the best method for creating effective rehabilitation programs. Of the programs currently available, many frequently ignore evidence-based practices and choose traditional approaches refraining from modification of treatment. This leads to a low-rate of successful rehabilitations of juvenile offenders and a higher than desired re-offense rate among juvenile offenders and those that later offend into adulthood. Research suggests that negative childhood experiences, mental health problems, and psychosocial influences may create an environment where juveniles are more likely to engage in criminal behavior. Evidence-based practice recognizes these potential influences and experiences and works to help juveniles become more self-aware and gain control of their lives and their coping strategies.

Introduction

For over a decade, researchers have recognized program models as well as intervention strategies that reduce law-breaking while encouraging pro-social development. Preventing delinquency and rehabilitating juvenile offenders not only safeguards the public, but also keeps youth from wasting time in detention facilities or jails that do not help them, but instead typically create scenarios leading to youth committing more crimes as the age into adults. Prevention and rehabilitative efforts are key in inhibiting chances for future crime and diminishing the strain of crime on its sufferers and the public at large.

Not only do rehabilitative and preventative efforts help reduce crime overall, but also helps to reduce money taxpayers ordinarily spend on the arrest, prosecution, imprisonment, and later, treatment of criminal offenders. If the end-goal is to reduce or prevent criminal offense/re-offense, programs aimed towards dealing with the reasons behind committing a crime may be more beneficial than those that vie for traditional methods. If programs become available that enable prevention of juvenile offenders from re-offending thus not becoming adult criminals, they could potentially save taxpayers 7-10 dollars for each dollar financed, chiefly in the form of reduced expenditure on prisons and the justice system overall (Baglivio, Wolff, Piquero & Epps, 2015, p. 229).

Such programs should take into consideration for any preventative or rehabilitative approaches, antisocial potential theory (Steinberg & Scott, 2010). Farrington's integrated cognitive antisocial potential theory helps summarize decades of research that shows the development of at-risk working-class London boys and how their documented behaviors provide context into juvenile delinquent behavior and motivations (Borduin, Dopp & Taylor, 2013, p. 194). Delinquent development is complex and involves an understanding of various different scenarios and contexts in order to understand why a juvenile offends and what could be prompting a juvenile to behave in such a destructive manner. This prospectus will highlight antisocial potential theory, evidence-based practices that are effective in preventing juvenile delinquency, and programs that are and are not helping juvenile offenders during the critical rehabilitation process.

Review of the Research

Often times offender programs follow the traditional route and do not consider fully the psychosocial factors that influence individual engagement in intervention settings. While factors related to offending behavior are known throughout the research community, their influence on what causes the behavior or motivational engagement remains unclear. Studies like the (Brooks & Khan (2015) study attempted to examine such impact by interviewing and monitoring 109 juvenile offenders within a non-custodial community intervention and explored antisocial behavior, influence of aggression, and disruptive and problematic behavior during school hours.

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They also monitored and explored self-esteem and parental bonding as possible influences and reported motivation to engage in such situations.

Their results revealed relationships among these variables plus four subtypes of motivation. These subtypes are amotivation, identified regulation, and extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Results gathered concerning self-esteem were decidedly mixed and did not reveal any new information. The results suggest the nature of motivation is complex and for intervention strategies to work, they must provide the person with a sense of competence and self-autonomy. "The findings highlight the multidimensional and complex nature of motivation, and support the need to internalize extrinsic motivations through the promotion of self-autonomy and competence within intervention programs in order to maximize engagement" (Brooks & Khan, 2015, p. 351).

This was also seen in another article that highlighted the need for intervention strategies to take into consideration what will motivate adolescents to engage in positive behaviors that will prevent further conflicts with the justice system. What was found, was that juveniles tend to find intervention methods that encourage participation and self-autonomy more interesting and influential than those that merely addressed the "base needs" of an adolescent (Cooper, 2015, p. 285). For example, if an rehabilitation program sought to enable positive coping mechanisms for juvenile offenders, by engaging in thoughtful discussion with them concerning their lives and how they wish to see themselves in the future, this may be more helpful than treating these juvenile offenders as all the same. They need some level of attention and individualization in order to feel motivated enough to follow through the protocol of the program and learn.

Feelings, motivation, they are tied together and if someone does not feel positive towards a program intervention strategy, most likely it will not be effective. A 2014 article by DeLisi & Vaughn show that temperament has been connected to behavior for hundreds of years. However, it has not been clearly discussed and used within a crime theory. This study incorporated research and theory from over three hundred studies in various fields of interest such as genetics, psychiatry, neuroscience, and criminology in order to introduce a criminal justice system implicated, temperament-based theory of antisocial behavior to help discover temperamental constructs that could help identify previously unrecognized connections.

They discovered negative emotionality and effortful control, two temperamental constructs that are major indicators for behavioral problems and self-regulation deficits in infancy all the way to adolescence, as well as across adulthood. "Two temperamental constructs -- effortful control and negative emotionality -- are significantly predictive of self-regulation deficits and behavioral problems in infancy, in toddlerhood, in childhood, in adolescence, and across adulthood" (DeLisi & Vaughn, 2014, p. 10). If these constructs are identified in prevention programs and help to make up assessments of juveniles and juvenile offenders, this may contribute to a more effective intervention strategy.

A theory that may contribute significantly to identifying motivations behind criminal behavior, especially for adolescents, is Farrington's Integrated Cognitive Antisocial Potential Theory. Farrington's antisocial potential, unlike antisocial propensity, suggests antisocial potential has less to do with biological factors and more to do with environment and nurturing. Also, there is long-term AP and short-term AP components to antisocial potential. Meaning, the two components are influenced by different things. For example, long-term AP from Farrington's perspective is influenced by individual characteristics and childhood socialization. Short-term AP is influenced by short-term energizers like being intoxicated or angry (Farrington, 2014, p. 2560).

By examining long-term AP characteristics that are not influenced by outside events like unemployment and loss, Farrington saw that long-term AP was not much of an indicator or delinquency versus short-term AP which is affected by social interaction and environment. By mixing innate characteristics with interaction and environment, Farrington developed a theory that could explain some of the reasons why some youths were more prone to juvenile delinquency than others. He also connected long-term AP with short-term AP (high short-term AP suggests higher incidence of delinquency) by stating long-term AP could contribute to the pervasiveness of short-term energizing factors like ongoing anger issues and repeated drinking, that could cause offenders to seek out the kind of social settings where chances for crime and delinquency are far more common (Junger-Tas & Decker, 2008, p. 305).

For example, black male youths are more likely to get arrested than other population groups. This has nothing to do with race, but merely location and environment and availability of potentially harmful influences. By engaging in street or gang-related activities and.....

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