Each year almost 100,000 children are sent to juvenile detention centers across the U.S. "Whether those young offenders are actually 'corrected,' seems to depend a lot on where they’re confined," says Robert Siegel of National Public Radio's All Things Considered.Recidivism rates vary from facility to facility. Texas, for example, houses kids in adult-style prisons. Their recidivism rate is over 50 percent. California's rate has been in the 70 and 80 percents. Missouri has taken a different approach. At the Northwest Regional Youth Center in Kansas City, young offenders are treated like kids. They're housed in facilities that resemble college dorms; they attend school classes each day, attend group therapy, and receive counseling. The results are impressive—the Missouri facility's recidivism rate is 7.3 percent.
Barry Krisberg, president of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency in Oakland, California, believes other states could learn from Missouri's success. "The basic logic of youth corrections is that if you treat young people like inmates, they'll act like prisoners," Krisberg says. "If you treat them like young people capable of being citizens, they'll much more likely act like citizens" ("Missouri Sees Teen Offenders As Kids, Not Inmates," text and podcast, October 30, 2007).
Missouri's approach illustrates that doing the right thing is also the right thing to do from an economic standpoint. Providing kids who wind up in juvenile facilities with education, therapy, and room to grow costs more money up front. But considering the average prison inmate costs taxpayers a minimum of $23,000 each year, investing up front just makes economic sense.
(The NPR article link above includes a 5-minute podcast. Jason Beaubien reports on Missouri’s success and talks with one of the boys at the center. It's well worth a listen.)
Our expert, Laura Berk,Ph.D., professor of developmental psychology, Illinois State University, weighs in:
Research confirms that the longer youths spend in prison, the more likely they are to strengthen their antisocial identities and peer networks. Keeping young offenders locked up for many months or years disrupts their educational and vocational lives and access to social support during a crucial period of development.
Missouri’s youth centers, in contrast, provide antisocial adolescents with multiple environmental pressures to alter their life course: school classes tailored to their educational and vocational needs, therapy that focuses on their emotional and behavioral problems, and dorm-like living quarters that provide predictable meals, comfortable living quarters, and regular adult supervision—basic needs that often are not met by offenders’ homes and communities.
At the heart of Missouri’s approach is an especially powerful motivating force for change: the opportunity to form bonds with ethical, responsible adults who believe in the young person’s capacity to become a productive citizen. A relationship with a competent, caring adult is one of the most consistent predictors of resilience—the ability to bounce back from adversity. Such adults also serve as sources of positive self-fulfilling prophecies: Their optimistic views of the young person rub off, and soon he or she internalizes those beliefs and starts to live up to them.
Missouri’s program for youth offenders demonstrates the importance of a fresh look at youth corrections and is an inspiring model for the nation.
Click here for a story that reminds us how much power one caring adult has to change the life of a troubled child.
