NCJ Number
215215
Journal
Journal of Offender Rehabilitation Volume: 42 Issue: 3 Dated: 2005 Pages: 1-22
Date Published
2005
Length
22 pages
Annotation
This study examined the adjustments and survival strategies of young offenders as they adapted to life inside one State's maximum-security training school.
Abstract
Although academic and vocational programs were provided for the residents, no continuum of care and assistance was provided to the juveniles when they re-entered their communities after their release. The training school's policy was to "cut the cord" and expect the youths to fend for themselves in the community. The youth entered the training school because of criminal behaviors that stemmed from their disadvantaged backgrounds. For many of the juveniles in the study, the inmate subculture was a perpetuation of the values of the criminal code they had learned in their community environments. They accepted their time in the training school and learned to say what the administrators and staff wanted to hear in order to gain release as soon as possible. Study data were obtained through on-site observations over a period of about 15 months in 1998-99. The researcher averaged approximately one visit per week, generally staying for 7 or 8 hours at a time. The visits were often on Saturdays and during afternoons and evenings when the boys would be out of school and spending unstructured time in the cottage. Time was spent in the cottage watching, listening, and interacting with the residents and the staff members. In the course of the visits the boys would increasingly share their life stories and their opinions with the researcher. 21 references