Leadership Skills Development Institute - Module 4 - Session 2, Part B - Critical Issues Facing the Juvenile Justice System

• NCJ Number: 83301
• Author(s): K Wooden
• Date Published: Unknown
• Length: 0 pages
• Grant Number(s): 79-CA-AX-011
• Sponsoring Agency: US Dept of Justice; Ctr for Community Change
• Corporate Author: US Dept of Justice
• Publication Format: Film
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: *This document is currently unavailable from NCJRS. Videotape, 56 minutes, color, 1 inch - The Institute was held in Berkeley Springs, W. Va., May 4-10, 1980. For complete set of tapes for this event, see NCJ-83281-83304.

Annotation

A children's rights advocate suggests strategies for community groups to bring about change in juvenile institutions, as well as successful preventive programs to help juveniles avoid institutionalization. He emphasizes the need to advocate for children's legal rights and cites a recent case illustrating the consequences for one young girl of the failure to protect these rights.

Abstract

The threat of criminal indictment represents one effective way to reform juvenile facilities. However, this must be carefully orchestrated, using one of the following three sources of indictments: the local district attorney, the State's attorney general, or the U.S. district attorney. Successful preventive programs for juveniles in trouble include the Right to Read program in Minnesota, in which adolescents are paired on a one-to-one basis with a senior citizen, usually resulting in a close 'grandparent-grandchild' relationship and in greatly improved reading skills. Vocational education programs need to be emphasized for adolescents to learn critical job skills, and the arts can motivate children by enhancing their self-esteem, pride in their ethnic heritage, and interest in learning to read as a tool toward further enrichment. One 10-year-old girl's resistance during the Jonestown tragedy, in which hundreds of Reverend Jim Jones' followers (including children) committed suicide, illustrates the lax protection of children's rights and government ineptitude. The speaker emphasizes that money is the motivating factor in the brutality inflicted on incarcerated juveniles since the operators of juvenile 'treatment' institutions make millions of dollars at the expense of status offenders. Juvenile correction facilities should be devoted to the 10 percent of the juvenile offender population that requires incarceration; the other 90 percent should be in the community, either in their own homes or in foster homes. For discussion of juvenile institution conditions and reform efforts, see NCJ 83300.