Corrections Concepts, Inc.

We are faced with a crisis in America. Throughout the country, communities are confronted with an ever increasing problem of what to do about juvenile crime. As so-called experts rationally discuss options, the public is forced to pick up the costs for ineffective community-based programs, all the while, waiting for “the solution”. Nothing has yet appeared on the scene to act as a deterrent toward stemming the tide of increases in juvenile arrest, incarceration, and recidivism. This cycle is perpetuated due not to lack of effort, but rather to a lack of focus.

We spend excessive amounts of public funds in a futile attempt to modify behavior of troubled youths in warehouse settings. These well meaning attempts to change behavioral responses are in essence, fighting against odds that are tremendously stacked against success.
Behavioral modification programming in the juvenile justice system may be effective in specialized individual cases, but on the whole, it does not do the job for two reasons.

First, the system is rarely conducive toward effective cognitive restructuring, that is to say, changing the basic belief systems of the juvenile offender.
Noted experts in the field of juvenile anti-social behavior, Dr. Stanton Samenow (Inside The Criminal Mind and Before It’s Too Late) and Dr. Vittorio Guidano (Complexity of the Self), recognize the importance of behavioral modification but only for its stabilizing effect which facilitates the environment for cognitive change. These experts recognize that there are two identifiable levels of change: superficial change and deep change. The superficial change coincides with the reorganization of the client’s attitude toward reality without revising his or her personal identity. This level of change may allow improvement in the juvenile’s adaptation to the environment, which is the focus of most behavioral modification programs. On the other hand, deep change involves a reorganization of the patterns of attitude and beliefs. Only until this process of cognitive restructuring is enacted, does real change take place. This healing process can be best explained as “self-image habilitation”.

The second reason the existing juvenile system is not working is that it has few elements of preventative intervention. Few existing programs are structured in such a way that the family unit is effectively reached. Parents of juvenile offenders must become better educated in their roles as parents. Society today, is in many cases, into its third or fourth generation of dysfunctional family systems. Effective programming must include strategic intervention with parents and other family members. Only until programs successfully include family members into the cognitive restructuring process, will there be noticeable changes in the products of the juvenile systems.

The redirection of focus, in combination with strong educational and community-based work programs, emphasis on moral ethics, and development of social responsibility through positive peer relationship programs, will have a dramatic influence in the immediate and future lives of juvenile offenders and in turn, greatly impact society as corresponding decreases in the rate of juvenile crime become evident.