The Recidivism Rate of Juvenile offenders and Rehabilitation Failure

The Recidivism Rate of Juvenile Offenders and Rehabilitation Failure

Darlene Austin

Saint Leo University

I. The Problem.

               The juvenile recidivism rate in our society is disappointing, to say the least.  It is also increasing at a very rapid rate that is quite worrying and annoying. It is our responsibility as citizens, correctional officers, counselors, pastors, Christians, parents, teachers, school administrators, and law enforcement officers to teach, protect, and mentor our children.  Every struggle should be made to prevent our juvenile offenders from committing future crimes and becoming adult offenders. Juvenile detention and correction centers across America have incorporated programs to counsel, educate, and provide incarcerated juvenile offenders with work skills to assist them with reentry into their communities.  Substance abuse is also addressed while they are incarcerated.  The biggest challenge for juvenile offenders is implementing those skills once returned/released back into to their environment. Moreover, once they are returned to society in which crime is still prevalent, there is a high likelihood of recidivism.

II. Factors Bearing on the Problem

It is quite alarming to realize that regardless of the efforts being put in place to curb recidivism, it is still on the increase. Notably, several factors contribute to juvenile offender recidivism. Some of the main factors are demographic variables, excessive alcohol and substance abuse, mental health disorders, dysfunctional family background, and poor educational performance. Also, the lack of lack of residential (on-site) aftercare programs promotes recidivism. Moreover, identification of the recurrence characteristics can play an important role in assisting with implementing preventive control measures. This part of the paper will give a list of five major factors that largely contribute to recidivism in juveniles. The essence of the section is to highlight some of the commonest factors that cause increased juvenile recidivism.

1. Drug and Substance Abuse

It is apparent that excessive use of drugs and other substances is one of the primary causes of crime in any given society. The same is the case in recidivism in which despite what is done to put it to an end, if those affected are not discouraged from using drugs, the possibility of them reoffending is high.

1. Family and Social setting

The setting that a person grows in has the power to influence how they behave in their adult life. For a juvenile who comes from a background where criminal activities are highly practiced, it may be hard for them to resist reoffending once they are released back to the society.

1. Peer Pressure

It is no doubt that peer influence is one of the factors that highly contribute to recidivism amongst juveniles (Dodge et al. 2011) For example, if a juvenile is arrested and taken to correction centers and then returned to a place where peer delinquency is high, he/she might end up reoffending. This is due to them being affected by their peers who will not have undergone correction and counseling sessions.

1. Demographic factors

This encompasses age, gender, marital status, and race. However, for the purpose of this paper, the demographics that will be analyzed in depth are age and gender as they are somewhat related to the topic being discussed.

1. Mental and Psychological disorders.

Notably, juvenile recidivism can be as result of a person suffering from mental and psychological problems. To people with such complications, it is quite difficult task to end criminal traits in them completely. Hence, even when they undergo correction facility incarceration, they still go back to criminal ways.

For years, many assumptions on who is responsible for ensuring juvenile recidivism is ended have been developed. For example, there is an assumption that if parents were stricter to their children, juvenile crime rate could be reduced. This will in turn help end the challenge of recidivism since with no crimes being committed, there will be no juveniles being arrested for indulging in crime. It is also assumed that if parents spent more time with their children monitoring their behavior, juvenile delinquency could be reduced.

      III.  Discussion

As noted earlier, juvenile recidivism has been increasing at a very rapid rate over the years. Some people argue that the society as a whole is to blame for this increase while others are of the opinion that parents are to blame. From my perspective, I think that much as the community as a whole has the role in shaping the behavior of children, parents are the most significant figures in ensuring children grow as responsible individuals with good morals and behaviors. After all, parentages have the mandate of ensuring that they are well discipline and that they lead exemplary lives. However, with the drastic changes taking place in the world today, it has become almost impossible for some parents to spend time with their children.

They have neglected their duties to caregivers, teachers and day care organizations amongst others. Failure to constantly monitor children is one of the reasons as to why juvenile delinquency is prevalent today. Combined with other aspects such as the environment and family background they grow in, it becomes worse. With this in mind, in this section of the position paper, I will give a detailed critical analysis of recidivism rate of juvenile offenders and rehabilitation failure. In addition, all factors that contribute to the problem will be discussed in detail.

1. Drug and Substance Abuse

It is perceived that drugs and substance abuse are a noteworthy reason for recidivism in young people. The way of medication over dependence is to such an extent that an individual will over and again re-irritate keeping in mind the end goal to reinforce their propensity without respect of any outcome (Van der Put et al. 2014). To juveniles, they rarely give much thought of what will happen once they start reusing drugs after rehabilitation. Overly use of substances after criminals have gone through rehabilitation prompts them to readopt their old ways of life. This, in turn causes reoffending since it becomes difficult to let go of the deviant behaviors. The reason being, most people tend to act under their influence. It acts as a driving force to wrongdoing.

The commonest crimes committed by juveniles under the influence of drugs are robbery, sex abuse, bullying, and violence. In most Nations across the world, excessive use of alcohol and cigarettes in young people results in failed correction. That is; those who are rehabilitated indulge in criminal activities soon after they are released to the community. Moreover, the history of most juveniles arraigned in court for taking part in criminal activities shows that they are regular users of drugs and drugs (Van der Put et al. 2014). Also, those rearrested again for delinquency confess to having used either alcohol, marijuana, cocaine or cigarette. Thus, looking at things from this perspective, it is quite oblivious that drug and substance abuse has the power to cause recidivism and rehabilitation failure.

While in rehab, counselors sometimes focus more on ending the criminal behavior in juveniles (Cullen and Jonson 2011). They sometimes neglect to pay attention to the factors that could have driven someone to crime. This is one of the reasons as to why there are reported cases of failed rehabilitation and increased recidivism. Popular research carried out on the topic demonstrate that probationers with substance mishandle histories will possibly portray recidivism. They also tend to do it with more zeal and determination after being released from probation as compared to non-users. Probationers with a background marked by extreme substance abuse are more prone to be rearrested in the four years that follow the period after release from juvenile prisons or rehabilitation centers.

In addition, the likelihood of them being arrested for being disorderly while under drugs is higher to those who take those above as compared to those who don’t (Van der Put et al. 2014). Furthermore, culprits who serve the full rehabilitation term have lower chances of reoffending as compared to those who do not complete their sessions. Notably, investing in having substance abuse put to an end greatly plays an integral role in ensuring that recidivism is put to an end. More to this, studies show that drug and substance abuse develop in people deviant character traits that make it hard for someone to take control of their actions. This, in turn, results to recidivism to those who have undergone guidance and counseling since they are unable to control what the kind of characters to portray and those to avoid.

On the other hand, criminals who rarely use drugs easily cope up in the society after being released (Van der Put et al. 2014). Recidivism and failed rehabilitation are primarily caused by excessive usage of substances. They also aggravate the situation and makes it hard to monitor the rate at which they occur. Conversely, the number of recidivists being arrested on a daily basis is higher as compared to those arrested for the first time (Cullen and Jonson 2011). Also, the number of criminals facing charges in court in most countries have been arrested one or more times before. After digging deeper into their past, drug use has proved to be a causative for recidivism and failed rehabilitation. Specifically, this can be explained to be caused by failure to take juvenile criminals through a complete rehab process. Idleness again makes juveniles consume alcohol, cocaine and other substances that make them criminals (Van der Put et al. 2014). Given that those rehabilitated are released back to the same kind of life that promotes recidivism, the probability of them becoming recidivist is greater.