Health and Justice for Youth

Alternatives to Detention

Detention and Incarceration

Most secure juvenile facilities are neither designed nor equipped to provide the entire range of services needed to address the complex mental, physical and emotional needs of young people.

Although incarceration is intended only for juvenile offenders who are a threat to themselves or others, the majority of incarcerated youth are held for non-violent offenses that could successfully be addressed through community-based services.

Indiscriminately incarcerating youth tends to increase their health risks and make them more likely to commit future crimes.

Poor Conditions

Over-reliance on incarceration has led to severe overcrowding in juvenile institutions. Youth are “warehoused” in harmful and unhealthy conditions, exposed to high rates of violence, abuse and inhumane practices to control behavior.

Read about the health risks associated with detention and incarceration (link to Health Risks)

Incarceration of Status Offenders

The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 2002 has prioritized deinstitutionalization of status offenders. It states that children who have committed an offense that would not be criminal if committed by an adult (status offenses), such as truancy or running away, should not be placed in secure detention facilities or secure correctional facilities.

Alternatives to Detention and Incarceration

Because adolescence is a period of constant developmental growth, rehabilitative services and community-based alternatives can work particularly well. A growing body of evidence documents a number of positive outcomes for youth in such programs, including greater access to health and mental health services, reduced rates of recidivism, and improved community re-integration.

Diversion is an alternative primarily offered to first-time offenders that allowed them to avoid being formally processed in the juvenile court. This provides an opportunity for youth to receive services at the earliest intervention point in their delinquency as well as avoid the stigma associated with court involvement. In this process, youth are allowed to stay in their home communities and family involved in encouraged.

Alternatives to Detention and Incarceration are options that allow youth to receive services prior to or upon adjudication that avoid inappropriate detention or incarceration. Local detention centers are used to hold youth as they await a hearing, to prevent them from re-offending prior to adjudication or as a response to probation violation. Incarceration involves placing a youth in a secure facility as a disposition (sentencing option) and is intended only as a last resort and for the shortest possible time.

Since the majority of youth have committed non-violent offenses, there are a number of alternatives that improve positive youth behavior, increase public safety and are more cost-effective. Community-based services are better able to address individualized needs of youth through developmentally-appropriate, family-focused, strength-based and culturally competent services without exposing them to unnecessarily restrictive, and often traumatizing, settings.

Transitional Services and Aftercare are supports that help youth transition from living in an out-of-home placement back into their home communities. This transition can often be very difficult, especially after being incarcerated, because the youth moves from a highly structured setting to an often chaotic environment surrounded by the same family, peers and pressures that caused the initial delinquency.

Promising Practices in Rehabilitation

Numerous reviews have consistently found positive outcomes associated with the use of new practices and models of working with youth in the juvenile justice system, including:

Evidence-based practices: interventions that have been shown through controlled research to result in improved outcomes;

Psychosocial therapies: processes of self-exploration facilitated by a therapist;

Service delivery models: methods that integrate the family and community into the treatment process.

Among the positive outcomes:

• Reduced long-term rates of re-arrest
• Improved family functioning and school performance
• Decreased substance use and psychiatric symptoms
• Reduced rates of out-of-home placements
• Significant cost savings