Juvenile Groups In Corrections

America, the country with the highest rate of incarceration in the world, has its fair share of issues with in the system made to rehabilitate its prisoners. The issues involved within this system run deep and are often found to be a direct issue with how the system is formed. Although it wasn’t always this way, juveniles are treated separate in the eyes of the court and receive separate services from the rest of the jail and prison population. This new system often referred to as the Juvenile system has faced a series of hardships and has become just as dangerous and tedious as the regular court systems. This paper will look at how groups have formed within these institutions, how detention for juveniles can affect their future and their
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This practice is just as if not more prevalent within juvenile correctional facilities. It has also been seen that with more serious offenders there have been a formation of subgroups of offenders, and these subgroups act as sort of social classifiers. In their research Mulder, Brand, Bullens, and van Marle classified these subgroups into six categories: the antisocial identity, frequent offenders, flat profile, sexual problems and weak social identity, sexual problems, and problematic family backgrounds. (Hillege, Brand, & Mulder, 2) During their study it was found that many juvenile offenders fell under one or more of these categories. By understanding that these factors often play off each other in the development of a deviant juvenile, one can try to implement system practices to combat this. Such as having a mentoring program with community leaders or officials from youth centers to help juveniles who exit the system, leave on their feet with connections to change their future. The research denotes many ways to address these issues, and the fact that any juvenile within the system can be experiencing anyone of these or multiple at once. Once one understands that their behavior stems from these issues, a plan can be developed to eliminate the causes of deviant behavior and to lower the risk of
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It has been found that three out of four juveniles who are detained by the courts, have a mental health issue, and of those 20 percent suffer from severe mental disorders that can impact their day to day lives. (The Mental Health) For any jail, prison, or detention center one of the major issues that needs to be addressed is mental and physical health issues and having the juvenile population within detention center have some form of these is a major issue. As a society it falls upon the community to protect and deal with these individuals in a manner that won’t restrict them from developing as individuals. By having them in these facilities it is having the opposite affect that is desired by this system. It was found in Holman and Ziedenberg research that in an Oregon detention facility that after a week in the facility, 24 percent of juveniles had suicide ideation and that 34 percent were suffering from a clinical level of depression. This is major especially for a place that is meant to rehabilitate individuals to become productive members of