NCJ Number
140005
Date Published
1984
Length
54 pages
Annotation
This study examined how the general shortage of community-based treatment programs and other support services for troubled adolescents in rural Alaska has affected placement decisions.
Abstract
The study anticipated that the institutionalization of juveniles in Alaska may be in part contingent on the availability of local alternatives to placement in State facilities. To assess the effects of resource availability on delinquency dispositions, the research team examined court reports and other available records for all juveniles (113) confined on June 30, 1983, in residential treatment programs at the three institutions maintained by the Youth Services Section of the State's Division of Family and Youth Services. Data indicate that the decision to institutionalize a rural child in one of the three State facilities is apparently unbiased by considerations of expedience; absent a viable local community corrections option, rural youth are generally either returned to the parental home or are placed in a nonsecure, privately- operated facility elsewhere in the State rather than in the more restrictive State facilities. These findings should not be taken as evidence that Alaska serves its rural clients well, however. To the extent that removal of delinquent children from their communities to facilities in other areas is counterproductive to rehabilitation and to family and community stability, rural juveniles are not receiving the treatment benefits in the community that youth in more populated areas receive. 6 tables, 18 notes, and 37 references