Chapter Nine

Prevention and Diversion

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

1.      To be aware of the variety of past and current delinquency prevention programs.

2.      To know the link between the classical school of criminology and practices in punishing the offender, as well as the link between the positive school of criminology and prevention programs.

3.      To understand that theories of delinquency causation underlie the design of prevention programs.

4.      To know the major federal efforts that are pure prevention programs.

5.      To appreciate the extent to which research has informed us, or in some cases failed to inform us, of the effectiveness of various programs.

CHAPTER OUTLINE:

·        Every society requires a greater or lesser degree of conformity to its behavioral norms or laws.

·        In preliterate societies, a high degree of cooperation was required if the group was to survive.  Violations of the rituals, which included witchcraft and sacrilege as well as treason and poisoning, were responded to either by the annihilation or the banishment of the offending member.

·        Offenses against private individuals of different families, such as assault, murder, and theft, were avenged by the relatives of the victim in blood feuds and were not considered sufficiently grave to require societal response.

·        As societies became larger, more complex, and subject to central authority in the person of a king reactions to wrongs came to be viewed as collective or social, as offenses against the group as well as the victim.

·        It was not until the modern period, beginning roughly in the second half the seventeenth century that the inflicting of pain on an offender came to be regarded as having value in the deterrence of crime.

·        In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the prison, which up to that time had been used primarily for debtors, political prisoners, and criminals awaiting other dispositions, became the major correction vehicle.

·        Parole and probation can be viewed as modified extensions of imprisonment.

·        Prevention, as it is known today, is a relatively new concept, though it grew out of the positive school of criminology.

·        Prevention efforts rest on the assumption that the causes of delinquency, whether biological or sociological or psychological, can be identified and removed.

Delinquency Prevention

·        Early efforts at delinquency prevention and establishment of programs and strategies were usually local endeavors initiated by privately supported family-centered agencies and groups.

·        During the 1900’s, a wide variety of community, state, and national agencies became involved in delinquency prevention, control and treatment.  Most of these efforts, however, were independent and uncoordinated.

·        From the beginning, prevention programs suffered from a lack of interagency communication and the interprogram conflicts that resulted from the diverse disciplines.

·        There are generally two major categories of programs: pure prevention and rehabilitation.

·        Hawkins and his co-authors developed a detailed typology of twelve prevention program strategies.

·        The pure prevention and rehabilitation prevention dichotomy were selected to facilitate discussion; it is difficult to pigeonhole prevention efforts into such neat categories because many programs include youths varying considerably in the seriousness of their delinquency.

·        Most programs range in the continuum from prevention to rehabilitative prevention, and many use a combination of strategies.

·        Changes in program emphasis result from changes in political climate as well as current theories of delinquency causation.

Pure Prevention Programs

·        There are several general types of pure prevention programs, including national federal efforts to offer services to individual youths as well as local efforts to strengthen communities with high delinquency rates.

Early Community-Based Programs

·        The early community-oriented delinquency prevention programs are of considerable interest today for they attempted to change the environmental settings that are conductive to delinquency.

·        The Chicago Area Project was one of the earliest projects to deal with the problem of juvenile delinquency as well as other social problems; this project was based on the causation theories of Shaw and McKay.

·        This project concentrated its efforts in areas of high delinquency and crime in an attempt to mobilize the support of the community so that delinquency could be prevented and new opportunity structures provided for area residents.

·        Schlossman and Sedlak examined the historical archives of this project with an emphasis on the Russell Square committee; even through scholars have debated the degree to which the Russell Square committee reduced delinquency, the program is unique in its creative implementation of prevention efforts.

·        The Midcity Project was initiated in a lower-socioeconomic class district in Boston to reduce the amount of illegal activity engaged in by local adolescents.

·        This multifaceted program had as one of its major goals the improvement of coordination and cooperation between the existing social agencies of the community.

·        A summary of the findings and an evaluation of the project indicate that there was no significant measurable inhibition of either law violation or unethical behavior; however, the cooperation and communication between residents and agencies of the community.

·        The South Central Youth Project was established by the Community Welfare Council of Hennep in County, Minneapolis.  One of the major objectives of this project was to make community agencies more responsive to community residents’ needs.

·        The goal of the project was to detect the beginning stages of delinquency and to improve interagency communication and agency cooperation with community residents.

·        The project had not undergone rigorous evaluation; one of the conclusions reached as a result of this project was that agencies established to service community residents are often ineffective.

·        The Central Harlem Street Club Project was operated under the guidance of the Welfare Council of New York City.

·        The target population was four gangs, whose membership ranged from 35 to over 100; workers involved in the project contacted about 300 members and frequent contact was made with about half of this number.

·        Lack of resources hindered an intensive evaluation of the program, although there are some indications that some negative behavior was altered because of the youths’ relationships with the workers.

Community-Based Programs in the 1960’s

·        Under the influence of President John F. Kennedy, federal agencies were heavily involved in a “War on Poverty” during the 1960’s.

·        Four programs received support from the Office of Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Development; these programs were based on the assumption that social, structural, and environmental pathology were major causes of youthful deviance.

·        One of the main objectives of the Mobilization for Youth project was to overcome the apathy and defeatism of those living in poor conditions through a system of self-help programs which attempted to organize the unaffiliated residents of the target area.

·        There was little cooperation or open acceptance by many government units and public officials within the community, and an investigation of the program did turn up irregularities, such as administrative difficulties.

·        The United Planning Organization project focused on a high-delinquency area of Washington, D.C.

·        The development of self-help organizations and the involvement of citizens in community decision making were encouraged; citizen involvement in problem solving was felt to be one of the answers to developing awareness of the problems and fostering community participation.

·        One of the most interesting aspects of the program was the wide acceptance and use of a credit union owned and operated by community citizens who lived within the target area; the United Planning Organization did encounter some administrative difficulties.

·        The Action for Appalachian Youth program focused on an area near Charleston, West Virginia.  The basic premise was that value conflicts between urban and rural society were a source of much tension, strain, and frustration.

·        The project and the contact of the worker within the community facilitated communication, problem delineation, and in some cases problem solving.

·        The Harlem Youth Opportunities, Unlimited, Associated Community Teams (HARYOUACT) was initiated in Harlem, New York.

·        This program attempted to increase the changes for the youth in the comm8unity to lead productive lives and develop socially acceptable types of behavior.

·        Even though the goal of the program was commendable, it did encounter difficulties in administration, and pressures were exerted by various interest groups.

·        Many of the potential positive results of the previous four programs described were neutralized by inefficient administration, internal problems, and conflict between community interest groups.

Federal Prevention Effort

·        Since the 1980’s, there has been reduced federal support and a shift in focus has occurred; this shift is summed up in the phrase, “not social problems but justice.”

·        In 1974, the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act established the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP).

·        The act ensures a coordinated interagency and interdisciplinary approach to the delinquency problem; a coordinating council was established.  This council consists of representatives of various federal agencies and is chaired by the attorney general.

·        The coordinating council’s responsibilities were broadened through the 1992 amendment to the JJDP Act; subsequently, the attorney general called for a national agenda to focus on children.  This resulted in the Development of the National Juvenile Justice Action Plan.

·        OJJDP developed a Guide for implementing the Comprehensive Strategy.

·        OJJDP has continued to coordinate federal, state, and local efforts to address juvenile delinquency such as the Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders.

Contemporary Prevention Efforts

·        Through the Amended JJDP Act, the Juvenile Mentoring Program (JUMP) was established; the JUMP programs match an adult mentor with a juvenile who has been identified as an at-risk youth for delinquency.

·        A nationwide study of adult mentoring as a strategy for working with at-risk youth does have positive outcomes.

·        Boys & Girls Clubs of America is a national network of affiliated clubs which assists about 2.2 million boys and girls.

·        In 1987, there was a recognized need that youth living in public housing were exposed to, and at risk for, various problems; B&G Clubs set out to focus on these youth by establishing new clubs in public housing areas.

·        A major change in law enforcement has been to move from the traditional watchman policing and the professional-legalistic policing models to community-oriented policing.

·        Community-oriented policing emphasizes establishing and maintaining a cooperative relationship between police officers and the community.

·        The implications of community policing on juvenile crime was illustrated in the late 1970’s with the Flint Neighborhood Foot Patrol Program.

·        In 1992, the New Haven Police Department and the Child Study Center at the Yale University School of Medicine developed a police-mental health partnership-the Child Development-Community Policing (CD-CP) program.

·        The CD-CP program addressed the psychological affects of chronic exposure to community violence on children and their families.

·        The CD-CP model consists of interrelated training and consultative components; the results of the program’s first five years have indicated positive changes in the area of addressing violence experienced by children and their families.

Alternatives to Court Processing-Diversion

·        Diversion is when juveniles are processed through “noncourt” institutions.

·        Diversion can be either unconditional or conditional.

·        While diversion is as old as the juvenile court itself, the rapid expansion in the use of more complex diversion programs began in 1967.

·        This expansion was influenced by Lemert’s theory of the negative effects of labeling.

The Sacramento Diversion Project

·        The Sacramento, California, Diversion Project stands as an important early example of the programs that were encouraged at the federal level; it was designed to provide services for runaways, youths “beyond control” of their parents, and other troubled adolescents.

·        Youth participating in the project were referred by the police, family, or the schools, and immediately after the referral to the intake division, a family meeting was arranged.

·        Despite the uncertainty of the reasons for its success, the Sacramento program was replicated in many communities, including eleven in California.

Examples of Contemporary Diversion Programs

·        Teen courts typically work with first-time offenders charged with offenses such as theft, misdemeanor assault, disorderly conduct, and possession of alcohol.

·        There are various types of teen court models.  Two general models include trial models or peer jury models.

·        The overriding purpose of most teen courts does not determine whether a juvenile is guilty or innocent; rather, they provide the juvenile justice system with an alternative that is not traditionally available.

·        The “Home Run” Programs consists of multidisciplinary teams that are committed to improving the life of the individual, family, and the community by designing and implementing interventions that promote healthy, functioning, law abiding members of society.

·        The teams focus on high-risk juveniles that are likely to re-offend.

Questions about Diversion

·        Lemert was one of the earliest critics of diversion; he pointed out that diversion programs were intended to limit children’s contacts with the police and courts.  Some programs, however, bring more youths into frequent contact with the juvenile justice system, since they accept only the least serious offenders as clients.

·        This problem has been recognized by many people who describe it as a process of “widening the net” of official control over youths.

·        There are no due process protections and there is more involvement in the system than if there were no diversion.

Refining the Diversion Strategy

·        Binder, Geis, and Bruce distinguished between traditional diversion and new diversion.

·        Traditional diversion will continue to be one viable approach when working with juveniles; however, it should be modified by what has been learned over the years of the programmatic boom.

Classroom Discussion:

1.      Differentiate between pure and rehabilitative prevention.

2.      It is recognized that pure prevention is more effective in dealing with delinquency than rehabilitative prevention.  Why, then, are there not more pure prevention programs?

3.      Do the benefits of diversion programs outweigh the possible disadvantages?

4.      Consider the possible explanations for positive outcomes of prevention and diversion programs.  Given your understanding of the best supported theories to explain delinquency, which explanation(s) do you think are most feasible and why?  Explain how you would design a prevention or diversion program to avoid the criticisms but to provide any benefits.