Youth authorities

SIGNIFICANCE: Within the criminal justice system, state youth authorities are delegated the responsibility of dealing with juvenile offenders in matters ranging from juvenile probation and parole to incarceration, education, and many other areas.

State youth authorities (SYA) are a relatively new development within the criminal justice system, as many were not created until after the 1940’s. Originally, their primary responsibility was management and operation of state reformatories, as well as provision of job training and education to their juvenile charges.

After courts commit them to the care of SYAs, youths are provided services ranging from receiving educational assistance and psychological treatment for interpersonal problems to job training for specific occupations. Most youths handled by SYAs are referred by juvenile courts and criminal courts; however youths committed by criminal courts are transferred to the state corrections departments on their eighteenth birthday, if their sentences are not already completed.

Goals

An important difference between adult and juvenile offenders is that adults are placed in correctional facilities for the primary purpose of being punished, with rehabilitation a distant secondary goal, while the first goal for juvenile offenders is rehabilitation. The youth authorities believe that if young offenders are caught early enough, major life changes are possible for them. Hence, rehabilitation and education are primary focuses for youth authorities.

In addition to managing and administering youth correction facilities, youth authorities are also in charge of state parole and probation services for juveniles and are responsible for the care and upkeep of youth offenders remanded in their custody. Their other functions include providing improvements and any construction needed for the day-to-day running of correctional facilities.

Youth authorities are also often involved at state and local levels in efforts to prevent crime and juvenile delinquency. Youth authority officials visit schools and provide delinquency prevention advice to teachers and students, and they often address community service organizations and religious groups. In many states, youth authorities provide shelters for children aged six through seventeen, with services provided for runaways, homeless minors, and abused and neglected children. The primary goal for most of these shelters is survival—meeting the immediate needs of the children and their families for food, clothes, and safe places to sleep.

Within major urban areas such as New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago, youth authorities work with other state agencies to combat gang violence. One strategy in this effort has been the construction of youth centers, where juveniles can receive help in job training, health, fitness, citizenship skills, pregnancy prevention, and counseling.

The philosophy behind youth centers is the belief that children need structured environments. Busy youths are expected to be less likely to experiment with drugs and alcohol, less likely to become pregnant, and less likely to get into trouble with the law. These benefits, in turn, increase youths’ chances of finishing high school. Youth centers provide structured activities during nonschool hours, offering juveniles opportunities to become involved in positive activities. Other youth center services include mentoring and training in music, arts and crafts, and the culinary arts, as well as other potentially enjoyable activities.

Shortcomings

While youth authorities strive to maintain decent living conditions for the youths in their custody, problems often arise. For example, increases in the number of juvenile arrests during the first two decades of the twenty-first century have made overcrowding an issue. Old facilities are forced to house more youths than they are designed to accommodate. In some places, as many as three to four juveniles share rooms designed for only one person.

Another major issue has been punitive living conditions. In one center, male youths were routinely locked in bare cells for as many as eighteen hours per day. They were not allowed to keep anything of a personal nature beyond the clothes on their backs and Bibles. In addition, personal hygiene products and common items like toothpaste and soap were forbidden.

Other problems have included the use of abusive discipline without due process of law. Many facilities operate without offering any positive incentives for good behavior, instead relying on negative disciplinary procedures. Guards, whose own educations are often only marginally better than those of their wards, routinely administer inappropriate punishments, ranging from verbal threats to physical force. Sexual harassment and assault are also areas needing attention. Moreover, many institutions lack sufficient numbers of trained women guards for their female wards. As a result, there have been reports of sexual assaults against girls by male staff members.

Although youth authorities assert that hiring qualified teachers for their wards is a priority, many institutions have too few educators to provide adequate schooling. This is an especially serious problem, as the wards of youth authorities have a much higher than average rate of learning disabilities.

The federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 provideed for youths with learning disabilities in correctional facilities with special education and related services. However, providing appropriate services for these students is a challenge. Issues having an impact on the provision of appropriate special education include the transience of the student population, conflicting goals for security and rehabilitation, shortages of adequately prepared personnel, and limited interagency coordination.

Bibliography

Hubner, John, and Jill Wolfson. "Ain’t No Place Anybody Would Want to Be: Conditions of Confinement for Youth." Office of Justice Programs, 1999, www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/aint-no-place-anybody-would-want-be-conditions-confinement-youth. Accessed 11 July 2024.

Jonson-Reid, M. “Child Welfare Services and Delinquency: The Need to Know More.” Child Welfare 83, no. 2 (2004): 157-174.

Shoemaker, D. J. Theories of Delinquency: An Examination of Explanations of Delinquent Behavior. 6th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Siegel, L. J., Brandon C. Welsh, and Joseph J. Senna. Juvenile Delinquency: Theory, Practice, and Law. 9th ed. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth/Thomson, 2005.

Tanenhaus, David S. Juvenile Justice in the Making. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Whitehead, J. T., and S. P. Lab. Juvenile Justice: An Introduction, 10th ed. Routledge, 2022.

"Youth in the Justice System: An Overview." Juvenile Law Center, 2024, jlc.org/youth-justice-system-overview. Accessed 11 July 2024.