Program Types
Academic Skills Enhancement programs use instructional methods designed to increase student engagement in the learning process and hence increase their academic performance and bonding to the school (e.g., cooperative learning techniques and "experiential learning" strategies).
Aftercare is a reintegrative service that prepares out-of-home placed juveniles for reentry into the community by establishing the necessary collaborative arrangements with the community to ensure the delivery of prescribed services and supervision. A comprehensive aftercare process typically begins after sentencing and continues through incarceration and an offender's release into the community.
Afterschool/Recreation programs offer rewarding, challenging, and age-appropriate activities in a safe, structured, and positive environment. They may reduce delinquency by way of a socializing effect through which youth learn positive virtues such as discipline or simply reduce the opportunity for youth to engage in delinquency.
Alcohol and Drug Therapy / Education seeks to reduce the use or abuse of illegal drugs or alcohol by educating youth about the effects of drugs/alcohol. Programs in this category may take many forms, including 12-step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous, school-based and community-based prevention programs targeting alcohol, tobacco, or other drug use, and national public awareness campaigns.
Alternative School are essentially specialized educational environments that place a great deal of emphasis on small classrooms, high teacher-to-student ratios, individualized instruction, noncompetitive performance assessments, and less structured classrooms. The purpose of these schools is to provide academic instruction to students expelled or suspended for disruptive behavior or weapons possession, or who are unable to succeed in the mainstream school environment.
Bullying Bullying is a form of youth violence and aggressive behavior that is intentional and that involves an imbalance of power or strength. Bullying usually includes attack or intimidation with the intention to cause fear, distress, or harm that is either physical (e.g., hitting, punching), verbal (e.g., name-calling, teasing), or psychological/relational (e.g., rumors, social exclusion). It may involve a real or perceived imbalance of power between the bully and victim and repeated attacks or intimidation between the same children over time. Bullying prevention programs include those with a focus on creating a school-wide environment or climate that builds connection and caring and discourages bullying and aggression, using classroom management techniques to detect and deal with bullying, training teachers, and using classroom rules against bullying that students were expected to follow.
Classroom Curricula are classroom-based instruction programs designed to teach students factual information; increase their awareness of social influences to engage in misbehavior; expand their repertoires for recognizing and appropriately responding to risky or potentially harmful situation (e.g., drug use, gang involvement, violence); increase their appreciation for diversity in society; improve their moral character; improve conflict resolution skills; and encourage accountability.
Cognitive Behavioral Treatment seeks to correct an individual's faulty perceptions of themselves and/or the world around them. This type of therapy provides skills individuals can use to monitor their thought patterns and correct their behavior as situations unfold around them. Treatment may also focus on relapse prevention by having juveniles evaluate situations that may lead to a relapse of delinquent behavior, and then plan for how to either avoid them or cope with them effectively.
Community and Problem-Oriented Policing involves policing strategies designed to prevent crime by reducing opportunities and increasing the risks for engaging in criminal behavior through mutually beneficial ties between police and community members.
Community Awareness / Mobilization includes a broad array of community strategies designed to increase the development of broad, community-based crime prevention partnerships; increase public awareness of and support for crime prevention; and increase the capacity of diverse communities to deal with crime and victimization.
Conflict Resolution / Interpersonal Skills building refers to a wide range of processes that encourage nonviolent dispute resolution. In general, these processes teach young people decision-making skills to better manage conflict in juvenile facilities, schools, and communities. Youth learn to identify their interests, express their views, and seek mutually acceptable solutions to disputes. Common forms of conflict resolution include: negotiation, mediation, arbitration, community conferencing, and peer mediation. Similarly, interpersonal skill building focuses on developing the social skills required for an individual to interact in a positive way with others. The basic skills model begins with an individual's goals, progresses to how these goals should be translated into appropriate and effective social behaviors, and concludes with the impact of the behavior on the social environment.
Correctional Facilities are public or private residential facilities with construction fixtures or staffing models designed to physically restrict the movements and activities of juveniles or other individuals. They are used for the placement, after adjudication and disposition, of any juvenile who has been adjudicated as having committed an offense, or of any other individual convicted of a criminal offense.
Day/Evening Reporting Center facilities (or day reporting centers) are highly structured, community-based, postadjudication, nonresidential programs for serious juvenile offenders. The goal of day treatment is to provide both intensive supervision to ensure community safety and a wide range of services to the offender to prevent future delinquent behavior. The intensive supervision is fulfilled by requiring the offender to report to the facility on a daily basis at specified times for a specified length of time. Generally, programs are provided at the facility during the day and/or evening at least 5 days a week. Special weekend activities may also be conducted.
Diversion is “an attempt to divert, or channel out, youthful offenders from the juvenile justice system” (Bynum and Thompson, 1996). The primary objective of diversion programs is to redirect youths away from formal processing in the juvenile justice system, while still holding them accountable for their actions.
Drug Court is a type of specialty court established within and supervised by juvenile courts to provide specialized services for eligible drug-involved youth and their families. In general, drug courts provide (1) intensive supervision over delinquency and status offense cases that involve substance-abusing juveniles and (2) coordinated and supervised delivery of an array of support services necessary to address the problems that contribute to juvenile involvement in the justice system. The services typically include: substance abuse treatment, mental health, primary care, family, and education.
Family Therapy focuses on improving maladaptive patterns of family interaction and communication. It is typically implemented with youth diagnosed with mild emotional and behavioral problems such as conduct disorder, depression, and school or social problems. The program is usually conducted by trained therapists in clinical settings with the parents and child.
Gang Prevention programs can be grouped into one of two categories. The first is gang membership prevention programs that try to prevent youth from joining gangs. The second is gang intervention programs that intercede with existing gang members during crisis conflict situations.
Gender-Specific Programming Gender-specific programming has recently emerged over the past decade as an increasingly important issue, in large part because the number of girls involved in the juvenile justice system has been growing over the past decade. Systems and practitioners are working to understand the phenomenon and to identify ways to address the issues this growing population of female delinquents face.
Group Home are residential placements for juveniles that operate in a homelike setting in which a number of unrelated children live for varying time periods. Group homes may have one set of house parents or may have a rotating staff. Some therapeutic or treatment group homes have specially-trained staff to assist children with emotional and behavioral difficulties.
Gun Court A gun court is a type of specialty court that intervenes with youth who have committed gun offenses that have not resulted in serious physical injury. Most juvenile gun courts are short-term programs that augment rather than replace normal juvenile court proceedings.
Home Confinement w/wo EM or house arrest with and without electronic monitoring (EM) is a community corrections program designed to restrict the activities of offenders in the community. This sanction allows offenders to remain in their homes, go to work, run errands, attend school, and maintain other responsibilities. However, their activities are closely monitored (either electronically and/or by frequent staff contacts) to ensure that they comply with the conditions set by the court. Offenders placed under home confinement are restricted to their residence for varying lengths of time and are required to maintain a strict schedule of daily activities.
Leadership and Youth Development programs prevent problems behaviors by preparing young people to meet the challenges of adolescence through a series of structured, progressive activities and experiences that help them obtain social, emotional, ethical, physical, and cognitive competencies. This approach views youth as resources and builds on their strengths and capabilities to develop within their own community. It focuses on the acquisition of adequate attitudes, behaviors, and skills.
Mental Health Court is a court with a specialized docket for certain defendants with mental illnesses (Almquist and Dodd 2009). Mental health courts divert select defendants away from the regular criminal courts into judicially supervised, community-based treatment to properly address their overwhelming health needs.
Mentoring involves a relationship over a prolonged period of time between two or more people where an older, caring, more experienced individual provides help to the younger person as he or she goes through life. The goal of mentoring is to support the development of healthy individuals by addressing the need for positive adult contact and, thereby, reducing risk factors and enhancing protective factors for problem behavior.
Parent Training programs involve educating parents on specific management skills. This highly structured approach generally includes parents only, in small groups led by a skilled trainer or clinician. The program typically follows a curriculum guide and often includes video presentations of effective and ineffective ways of parenting; short lectures and discussions to identify parenting principles; interactive exercises; role-plays of direct practice in the parenting behavior to be changed; charting and monitoring of parenting and children's behavior and assignment of homework.
Probation Services refer to a variety of probation oriented programs, including traditional probation, intensive supervision and school-based probation. Traditional probation is a disposition in which youth are placed on informal/voluntary or formal/court ordered supervision. Intensive supervision programs (ISPs) are community-based, postadjudication, nonresidential programs designed to provide restraints on offenders in the community. School-based probation is a program partnership between juvenile probation departments and local schools that places probation officers directly within the confines of the school.
Reentry Court is a specialized court that manages the return of the offender to the community after being released from a residential placement. The court manages reentry by using its authority to apply graduated sanctions and positive reinforcement as well as direct resources to support the offender's reintegration and promote positive behavior.
Residential Treatment Centers (RTCs) are residential treatment facilities offering a combination of substance abuse and mental health treatment programs and 24-hour supervision in a highly structured (often staff-secure) environment. They usually house youth with significant psychiatric or substance abuse problems who have proved too ill or unruly to be housed in foster care, day treatment programs, and other nonsecure environments, but who do not yet merit commitment to a psychiatric hospital or secure corrections facility. Although such treatment centers must be licensed by the State, they are frequently run by private, for-profit and nonprofit institutions, and the treatment approaches and admissions criteria used by RTCs vary widely from State to State and institution to institution.
Restorative Justice is a theory of justice that emphasizes repairing the harm caused or revealed by criminal behavior. Practices and programs reflecting restorative purposes will respond to crime by 1) identifying and taking steps to repair harm, 2) involving all stakeholders, and 3) transforming the traditional relationship between communities and government in responding to crime. Some of the programs typically associated with restorative justice include: victim offender mediation, conferencing, circles, victim assistance, ex-offender assistance, restitution, and community service.
School/Classroom Environment programs seek to reduce or eliminate problem behaviors by changing the overall context in which they occur. These strategies may include interventions to change the decision-making processes or authority structures (building school capacity); redefining norms for behavior and signaling appropriate behavior through the use of rules (setting norms for behavior); reorganizing classes or grades to create smaller units, continuing interaction, or different mixes of students, or to provide greater flexibility in instruction (classroom organization); and the use of rewards and punishments and the reduction of down time (classroom management).
Shelter Care provides nonsecure, residential placement to both delinquent juveniles and children temporarily in need of services. Youths can be placed in shelter care if they are awaiting adjudication, if they are unable to return home immediately, or if they are waiting to be placed in a more structured residential home.
Teen/Youth Court (or peer courts) are much like traditional courts in that there are prosecutors and defense attorneys, offenders and victims, and judges and juries, but young people rather than adults fill these roles and, most important, determine the disposition. The principal goal of a teen court is to hold young offenders accountable for their behavior by imposing sanctions that will repair some of the harm imposed on the victim and community.
Truancy Prevention is designed to promote regular school attendance through one or more strategies including an increase in parental involvement, the participation of law enforcement, the use of mentors, court alternatives, or other related strategies.
Vocational/Job Training programs address youth crime and unemployment by providing participants with social, personal, and vocational skills and employment opportunities to help them achieve economic success, avoid involvement in criminal activity, and subsequently increase social and educational functioning.
Wilderness Camps or challenge programs are generally residential placements that provide participants with a series of physically challenging activities, such as backpacking or rock climbing in an outdoor setting. These programs vary widely in terms of settings, types of activities, and therapeutic goals; but their treatment components are grounded in experiential learning which advocates "learning by doing" and facilitates opportunities for personal growth.
Wraparound / Case Management is a system of care that "wraps" a comprehensive array of individualized services and support around youth and their families to keep delinquent youth at home and out of institutions whenever possible. Treatment services are usually provided by multiple agencies working together as part of a collaborative interagency agreement, and each youth's treatment plan is determined by an interdisciplinary team consisting of a caseworker, family and community members, and several social services and mental health professionals. Individual case management is a less intense form of the wraparound approach where individual caseworkers guide youth through the existing social services or juvenile justice system and ensure that they receive appropriate services.