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Keywords

juvenile rehabilitation, incarceration, juvenile delinquency, multisystemic therapy

Abstract

Abstract

While juvenile crime has dropped over the past 20 years, tens of thousands of juvenile offenders are still incarcerated around the country, many of whom are nonviolent offenders. Researchers have found that detention centers, sometimes indistinguishable from adult prisons, do little to reduce recidivism and rehabilitate the offender. Rather, detention brings about more adverse effects than it does benefits. If incarceration isn’t working, how are the United States and other countries to deal with and deter juvenile crime? Community-based programs are a promising alternative to incarceration; instead of jumpsuits and cramped cells, community-based programs rely on community resources and social networks to rehabilitate juvenile offenders, often using some kind of therapeutic or educational approach. These programs have shown positive results in reducing recidivism and improving behavior. While most of these studies relied on small samples, they call on researchers and policymakers to change the way they think about juvenile crime—not as a youth problem, but as a societal problem.

Keywords: juvenile delinquency, incarceration, community-based programs, multisystemic therapy

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