Essay About Reducing Juvenile Recidivism

Carney and Buttell (2003) present the Wraparound Services Model as a substitute system in order to address the difficulties in changing juvenile delinquent behavior as well as the shortcomings of the current juvenile detention techniques. According to the authors, jail merely addresses the person and ignores the complicating variables that increase the likelihood of other young people engaging in criminal activity and encourage juvenile recidivism. The suggested Wraparound Services Model is praised as an effective strategy for removing youths from the juvenile justice system, breaking the cycle of recidivism, and giving them the chance to mature into productive members of society (Carney & Buttell, 2003). The authors conducted a comparative models assessment involving randomly assigned youth offenders obtained from the Juvenile Delinquency Task Force Implementation Committee in assessing the effectiveness of the proposed model. A total of 141 youths were engaged of which 73 were randomly assigned the Wraparound Services while 68 were maintained at the conventional services as prescribed by the juvenile court system (Carney & Buttell, 2003). The 18 months study determined that juvenile delinquency is multi-determined based on factors such as peers, schools, family, and neighborhood and appropriate interventions are those that address any challenges among the identified factors. The authors found that the Wraparound model was better positioned to address factors contributing to delinquent behavior but lacked evidence supporting its superiority over conventional measures to produce fewer subsequent criminal offenses.

Based on the Carney and Buttell’s (2003) findings, both the Wraparound and conventional justice systems are not effective interventions in preventing further criminal behavior. Juvenile recidivism remains a social problem in the contemporary society. Measures should focus on structural factors that contribute to delinquent behavior which would further limit the possibilities of re-offending. The wraparound approach can only offer the opportunity for youths to alter their behavior based on the socialization and circumstances prevailing within their respective neighborhoods and contributions from their family.



Reference

Carney, M. M., & Buttell, F. (2003). Reducing juvenile recidivism: Evaluating the wraparound services model. Research on social work practice, 13(5), 551-568.