Recidivism Definition

The number of women incarcerated is growing at a rapid pace. This calls for a reevaluation of our correction institutions to deal with women’s involvement in crime. Increasing numbers of arrests for property crime and public order offenses are outpacing that of men. The “War on Drugs” has a big influence on why our prisons have become overcrowded in the last 25 years. Women are impacted more than ever because they are being convicted equally for drug and other offenses. Female criminal behavior has always been identified as minor compared to Male’s criminal behavior. Over the years women have made up only small part of the offender populations. There is still only a small

Very little work has focused on studying recidivism by offenders after punishment and how prevention measures may improve recidivism rates and affect cooperation. “National recidivism rates are at an estimated amount of 73% and of the whole jail population 42.5% are women” (Berenji, 2014, p.131). As you can see about half of the inhabitants of the jails are women; so recidivism is an ongoing issue that needs to be solved. Recidivism is a growing distress in the U.S today, not only with men but women as well. Not many studies have been steered towards women reverting back to crime as there are men, but it is a concern. It is impossible to make this issue disappear fully, but with fundamental changes the

This study revealed that 32% of males and 22% of female juveniles reoffended within 12 months (Conrad, Tolou-Shams, Rizzo, Placella, & Brown, 2014). Besides rates of recidivism, there were also factors that separated the sexes. Males tended to have more issues with drugs or alcohol and prior offenses while females experienced more childhood sexual

Mass incarceration not only takes a toll on adults but on children as well. Along with the men, women are also being incarcerated, in the last ten years the rates of women being put behind bars has increased. According to Court Services and Offender Supervision

In beginning my research on females in the juvenile justice system, I was shocked to see how many of the new female juvenile statistics had increased and were gradually catching up on the juvenile male statistics. The numbers have been growing every year, and may soon surpass the numbers the boys have held for so many years. It makes me sit back and wonder what in the world is going on with our female youth in today’s society to cause such a slight, in some cases, to drastic increase depending on the offense. In this research paper, I want to examine the statistics for female youth over the last ten years to discuss what offenses are increasing over others, investigate the reasoning behind this increase in order to try and understand where these teens are “coming from”, and if there is a way for our society to be proactive in our female youths lives in order to prevent them from entering the juvenile justice system and one day adult prison.

It was discovered that the states which did not participate in the transfer of juveniles to adult courts had lower reports in regards to their juvenile violet crime rates (Slowikowski, 2010). This was mostly because they were not sentencing children to adult prisons for non-violent crimes, and the percentage of juveniles that were committing violent crimes was low enough that the overall juvenile violent crime rate was relatively low between 1982-1986 (Slowikowski, 2010). Other studies have shown that trying juveniles as adults has a moderate effect on keeping juveniles from engaging in activities that would cause them to be incarcerated. (Slowikowski, 2010). This does not seem to apply to youths that had already been convicted and who had spent time in an adult correctional facility.

In order to answer the research question it is necessary to survey women offenders who are in one type of program or the other. That can help to determine their thoughts about the issue and encourage further research that will allow women offenders to get into the right kind of program that will benefit them properly and allow them to have success in the future. These women will be surveyed at their place of incarceration within the next month, and this will be done through

According to Ruddell and Thomas (2009), in 2006 it was estimated that there was 93,000 juveniles in either a detention center or juvenile correctional facility; however, the arrest rates have decreased at least by 2,000 since 1993. Many juveniles on release are reoffending quickly since most of them have been locked up throughout their developmental years and their brain did not get the right cognitive development it needed to help make the right decision. Many different states and correctional institutions have started their own different programs to help decrease recidivism rate in juveniles. Two programs that will be examined further are the Capital Offender Group that was implemented by Giddings State School in Texas, and the Juvenile Cognitive Intervention Program that was implemented by the State of Wisconsin Department of Corrections.

There are approximately 7,700 girls in confinement, which is about 14.3 percent of the total youth population in residential placement. Fortunately, rates of confinement for boys and girls have decreased since 2001 (The Sentencing Project). Still, girls are more present in the juvenile justice system than they had been in the past, which is bringing more attention to girls’ behaviors, sentences, and treatments. The gender disparity faced in the adult criminal justice system carries over to the juvenile justice system. Similarly, the gap in arrests has narrowed within the past thirty years, with girls being arrested almost half as much as boys, up from about one quarter (Cauffman 5). This can be both positive and negative. The decline in violent

Introduction: Recidivism or, habitual relapses into crime, has time and time again proven to be an issue among delinquents, which thereby increases the overall juvenile prison population. This issue has become more prevalent than what we realize. Unless a unit for measuring a juvenile’s risk of recidivism is enacted and used to determine a system to promote effective prevention, than the juvenile prison population will continue to increase. Our court system should not only focus on punishing the said juvenile but also enforce a program or policy that will allow for prevention of recidivism. So the question remains, how can recidivism in the juvenile prison population be prevented so that it is no longer the central cause for increased

Females are increasingly becoming more active in the juvenile justice system and this is said to be happening at alarming rates. It is important to learn more about why and how girls commit crimes so that we may also attempt intervention in an effective manner to prevent potential offenders and rehabilitate the girls who have already committed offenses. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention has produced a report that includes a review of how these girls are getting into these situations, how states are dealing with this population of offenders, the national efforts that have taken place to attempt to address the needs of the adolescent female offender including training for individuals who work with these females and

Chapter 17 discusses female offenders, the major crimes they commit, and the issues that come with females in the prison population. Statistics show that the number of women incarcerated has grown rapidly and has only recently started to level off. Most of the women who end up incarcerated share common characteristics; usually unemployed, failure to complete high school, may be addicted to drugs (female inmates are more likely than males to be drug offenders), already have children and receive no help from the father, etc…

“The Indiana Department of Correction (IDOC) defines recidivism as a return to incarceration within three years of the offender’s date of release from a state correctional institution.” (Schelle, 2012) The 2011 recidivism rate for all juvenile offenders was 36.7%. The recidivism rate for African American juvenile offenders was 43.8%. Eighty-two percent of the juveniles who recidivated did so with a new crime, and the other 18% returned because of technical violations. “Of all juveniles released in 2008, 40.9% of males returned to IDOC, while only 15.8% of females returned,” (Schelle, 2012). Surprisingly, juvenile sex offenders had the lowest recidivism rate at 13.6%. (Schelle, 2012)

Evidence-based interventions have proven to be an effective measure to decrease recidivism for incarcerated female inmates’ despite over the past years the incarceration rate had drastically increased. In-prison treatment programs are tailored to reduce risk of recidivism when released and to reduce disruptive behavior within (Bonta, Pang, & Wallace-Capretta, 1995). The risk-reduction model focus on recidivism; it identifies risk factors that causes the behavior and empirically shown to predict reoccurrences; whereas, the enhancement model focus on the psychological and physical well-being of the inmate; “it identifies improvement matters such as coping with physical or sexual abuse, parenting, and HIV risk (Schram & Morash, 2002), with the assumption that improved psychosocial well-being will ultimately reduce women’s likelihood of criminal behavior” (Sorbello, Eccleston, Ward, & Jones, 2002, p. 15).

Juvenile delinquent has different terms, but many may see it as groups of young boys and men standing on a street corner, wearing baggy outfits, and boasting defiant attitudes. Many will be surprised to learn that the juvenile delinquent is slowly changing. The boys are more responsible for the majority of the crimes overall, the number of juvenile females involved with the justice system has been steadily increasing over the past three decades (Gross 84). There has been a growth in the number of detention, arrest, cases processed, and subsequent long-term incarceration rates among females, but since research about female’s offenders are generally lacking, no one knows the clear understanding of the causes. In the juvenile system, girls have