Florida Reduces Its Training School Populations and Supports Some Innovative Community-Based Programs (From Good News About Juvenile Justice: The Movement Away From Large Institutions and Toward Community-Based Services, P 111-122, 1990, Steve Lerner - See NCJ-132601)

• NCJ Number: 132606
• Author(s): S Lerner
• Date Published: 1990
• Length: 12 pages
• Sale Source: Commonweal
• Publication Type: Program Description (Model)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

The partial transformation of the Florida juvenile justice system to community-based programs is described together with the political obstacles to these alternative options.

Abstract

Florida closed two training schools out of four and reduced the number of young people in the two remaining schools. Despite these reductions, Florida's juvenile justice system has a way to go in its development of community based programs. Adequate funding has not been committed for the development of alternate options, and the political climate has affected the transfer of large numbers of youth to adult courts and incarceration in adult prisons. In contrast to these less progressive features of Florida's juvenile justice system, the Juvenile Alternative Services program (JASP), a diversion from juvenile justice at the district levels, is the best in the country of school-based delinquency prevention programs. In addition, the Associated Marine Institutes exemplified by the Tampa Marine Institute and the Florida Environmental Institutes are the best know and respected networks of innovate community-based programs for adjudicated delinquents. Effective techniques were developed to include water-related recreational activities for young people as rewards for sustained academic work and good behavior. A priority of the program is to find school and job placements for clients after their completion of the program. 3 notes