Delinquency Prevention Program

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Delinquency Prevention Program in the state of California

Youthful offenders in California up to the age of twenty five years are provided with treatment and education by the Division of Juvenile Justice. The program concerns itself with juvenile offenders with intense and criminal backgrounds, and who have extreme treatment needs. In the modern society, youth offenders are taken to various faculties in their communities in order to be close to their family. Also, the youth offenders need to access social and local services that will help them when being rehabilitated. The population represented by DJJ is quite low at one percent despite the fact that last year 225000 youth were arrested last year in California.

Treatment, vocational and academic programs are provided by the Division of Juvenile Justice. Furthermore it addresses medical care, mental health programs, substance abuse, sex offender behavior, criminogenic and violent behavior. The activities takes place in a secure and safe environment that is quite conducive for learning. The Alameda Superior Court is responsible for guiding the treatment plans as a result of the Farrell lawsuit settlement agreement. The youth offenders are assigned to live in houses based upon their specialized treatment needs, risk of institutional violence, gender and age. The youth in the different living units are housed in few numbers because of the limited staffing levels. This ensures that the youth receive effective rehabilitative and attention programming.

The DJJ has a framework that focuses on the Integrated Behavior Treatment Model. It has been specifically designed to reduce future criminal behavior as well institutional violence. It is intended to provide the youth with personal skills that will assist them in managing their environment much better. The staff at DJJ is from various professional fields and they work as teams to be fully aware of the youth’s needs. This in turn assists them to come up with a treatment program that is individualized to address the problems facing the youth offenders. The team collaborates with the youth in order to deliver a case plan that will take full advantage of the personal strength of the youth. Lastly, it seeks to administer treatment in the other areas in the life of the youth offender in order to ensure that they do not become repeat offenders.

The program being offered at DJJ has proven to be extremely successful in many ways. It has been able to operate as a school district that is fully accredited and provided the youth with high school education. Most of the youth have attended the education program and in turn some of them have become eligible for parole. In fact, since the year 2004, as many as 5632 youth offenders have achieved academic success. The education program aimed at the high school students has seen a 300 percent increase in the number of enrolled youth. At the same time, this has been taking place while the population at DJJ declined by at least 56 percent. The DJJ has also come up with a program whereby the youth raise butterflies in a habitat garden. This project has been effective in restoring the belief that the youth can change and have better lives.

In conclusion, the program at Division of Juvenile Justice is quite effective in many aspects. However, if there were some things that I would change about it would be increase the number and variety of activities the youth can participate in. Also, I would provide the youth with jobs that they would do while in the detention center. This would make them more productive once they are out of the program and in society.

Reference

California department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. (2013). Division of Juvenile Justice. Retrieved from HYPERLINK “http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/Juvenile_Justice/index.html” http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/Juvenile_Justice/index.html.