Juvenile Offenders with Disabilities: Challenges and Promises

Dalun Zhang, Ph.D.

Texas A&M University

College Station, TX

Lost in the Maze of Transition?

The Numbers

• Each year, state juvenile justice departments in the United States process the cases of more than 2.5 million juveniles; over a million are arrested for violence.

• Between 40-70% of all incarcerated juvenile offenders have some type of disabling condition, compared to about 11% in the general population (Wolford, 2000; Cruise et al., 2011).

• Longitudinal studies suggest that many youth displaying criminal behavior will manifest continuing problems – at least to some degree – in their work, school, and family endeavors as adults (e.g., McCord, 1992; Wolfgang et al., 1987).

The Numbers – Cont’d

• Youth involved in the juvenile justice system often struggle with academics and behavior while in school (Cauffman, Steinberg & Piquero, 2005) and personal life after school (Basch, 2011).

• Youth engaged in delinquency face increasing risk for substance abuse, mental health problems, marital issues, unemployment and welfare dependence, and they are more likely to be rearrested later in their lives (Chung, Little, Steinberg, & Altschuler, 2005; Windle & Wiesner, 2004).

Costs

• Juvenile offenders are incredibly costly to our society in terms of the monetary expenditures from the legal system, victims’ personal costs, and incarceration.

• Costs are also associated with reduced employment opportunities as these young people mature into adults.

Money Can Be Saved

• By altering the juvenile offenders’ typical community reintegration trajectory, these significant costs to society can be reduced.

• Cohen (2009) estimated the present value of reducing a high-risk 14-year old adolescent’s propensity to continue crime ranges between $2.6 million to $5.3 million dollars of society costs.

• PEW (2011) estimates that if states could reduce recidivism by 10 percent they could save more than $635 million combined in one year alone in averted prison costs.

The Challenges

• Adolescents with disabilities involved in the juvenile justice system face additional challenges to positively reaching adulthood.

• Longitudinal studies suggest that many youth displaying criminal behavior will manifest continuing problems – at least to some degree – in their work, school, and family endeavors as adults (e.g., McCord, 1992; Wolfgang et al., 1987).

• Community reentry outcomes for formerly incarcerated youth are abysmal (Zhang, et al., 2011; Bullis et al, 2004)

Challenges – Cont’d

• One of the most pressing challenges in juvenile delinquency is repeat offending.

• Repeat offending or recidivism is very common among delinquents.

• A frequently cited assertion is that a small minority of delinquents (usually estimated at about 10%) commit a large percentage (two thirds) of all juvenile crimes (Steinberg, 2008; Yoshikawa, 1994).

Factors Associated with Juvenile Delinquency and

Recidivism

Academic Factors Associated with Juvenile Delinquency

• Researchers have long reported a strong inverse relation between delinquency and intelligence, and recognized that delinquent youth experience significant intellectual and/or academic deficiencies in relation to their non-delinquent peers.

• Delinquent youth performed significantly poorer academically across subject areas, and that this performance gap appears to increase with age Meltzer and colleagues (1984).

Academic Factors Associated with Juvenile Delinquency-cont’d

• Researchers have also reported delinquent youth – Earn significantly lower course grades in

school than their non-delinquent peers (Davis, Sanger & Morris-Friehe, 1991; Finn, Scott & Zarichny, 1988; Laird, 1980; Lawrence, 1985), and

– Score lower on standardized academic achievement tests (Hirschi & Hindelang, 1977; Rutter & Madge, 1976).

Academic Factors Associated with Juvenile Delinquency-cont’d

• When comparing delinquent and non-delinquent youth in early grades (kindergarten through second grade), significantly higher percentages of delinquent youth experienced difficulties than their non-delinquent peers in reading (45% to 14%), spelling (38% to 8%), math (25% to 4%), and handwriting (36% to 14%).

• By middle school, an even larger percentage of delinquent youth had fallen behind across all of these academic subject areas, including: reading (66% to 12%), spelling (59% to 8%), math (50% to 16%), and handwriting (46% to 14%) than their peers.

Academic Factors Associated with Juvenile Delinquency-cont’d

• Beebe and Mueller (1993) purported the severity of academic deficiency may be a determinant of the severity of offense a youth commits. They found individuals who committed more serious felonies (e.g., manslaughter, rape) showed more severe deficits in math and reading than delinquents who had committed lesser felony offenses (e.g., property crimes) or misdemeanors and status offenses (e.g., violation of curfew).

Factors Leading to Recidivism

• The repeat offenders who are responsible for the majority of crimes tend to be:– Early starting offenders, – With weaker ties to social institutions

(Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990), – Hostile and/or disorganized family

environments (Keiley, Howe, Dodge, Bates & Pettit, 2001), and

– Histories of school failure (Henry, Capsi, Moffitt, Harrington, & Silva, 1999).

Factors Leading to Recidivism – Cont’d

• Age at first arrest has been found to be one of the strongest predictors of recidivism (Barrett, Katsiyannis, & Zhang, 2006; Barrett, Katsiyannis, & Zhang, in press).– Youth with foster care experience are four times

more likely to be early starting delinquents.– Youth with a family member convicted of a

felony are two times more likely to be early starting delinquents than youth with no family felony (Alltucker, Bullis, Close, & Yovanoff , 2006)

Factors Leading to Recidivism – Cont’d

• Family Characteristics:

– Family criminal history and family dynamics have also been associated directly with recidivism.

– Family problems, ineffective use of leisure time, and a delinquent peer group.

– Neglectful parenting was associated with more serious delinquency.

– Father absence has also been found to predict repeat offending.

Factors Leading to Recidivism – Cont’d

• Child personal and academic variables appear to be related to recidivism– Youth who had a high need for cognitive and

environmental structuring were more likely to be recidivists (Katsiyannis, Barrett, Zhang, & Flaska, 2004).

– Younger adolescents whose behavior remained seriously antisocial into later adolescence show higher levels of interpersonal withdrawal, serious alcohol use, and antisocial personality.

– Academic factors discriminating recidivists from non-recidivists include deficits in basic skills and special education background (Katsiyannis & Archwamety, 1997; Archwamety & Katsiyannis, 1998).

Gender, Race and Recidivism

• There are well established gender differences in recidivism with males more likely than females to engage in repeat offending (Barrett et al., 2012).

• There is evidence also for race differences in repeat offending with higher recidivism among African Americans (Gavazzi, Yarcheck, Sullivan, Jones, & Khurana, 2008; Ryan & Yang, 2005).

• African American youth face life challenges and academic problems that are to some extent culture-specific, including limited economic opportunity, family conflict, and stress accentuated by racism (Cherry et al., 1998; Myner, Santman, Cappelletty & Perlmutter, 1998).

Interventions

School Responses: Wrong View

• Schools have historically taken the wrong approach in responding to students who display delinquent behavior

– For many years the prevailing authoritative view of delinquency and academic achievement was that the poor school performance of juvenile delinquents was not the result of individual academic deficiency, but rather a voluntary rebellion against authority.

– Hence, academic deficiencies were commonly attributed to laziness and an overall lack of effort (Meltzer et al., 1984).

The Wrong Approach – Cont’d

• Lawrence (1985) found that students who performed poorly in school often suffer stricter punishments than those that were passing their academic coursework. This punitive response to students experiencing school failure does not effectively address their academic deficiencies.

School Response: Positive Approaches

• Research indicates that a more promising approach to delinquent youth may be through the use of instructional approaches rather than punitive consequences (Archwamety & Katsiyannis, 2000).

• Successful academic remediation and school success have resulted in reduced rates of recidivism with juvenile delinquents (Archwamety & Katsiyannis, 2000).

Positive Approaches – Cont’d

• Malmgren and Leone (2000) examined the academic achievement of 45 incarcerated youth who received an intensive, 6-week summer reading program. They found these individuals achieved significant gains in reading skills.

• Drakeford (2002) also demonstrated that an intensive 8 week direct instruction program for 611 incarcerated youth demonstrated a one year gain in reading skills and a 3.5% decrease in recidivism.

Positive Approaches – Cont’d

• Coulter (2004) implemented a direct instruction reading program with a dozen youth, most were qualified with an IDEA disability (i.e., 5 ED, 4 LD, 1 MR). This month long DI intervention resulted in a 9 month performance gain in reading scores.

Interventions with Positive Results

• Williams (1996) reported reduced rates of recidivism as the result of implementing a project targeted individuals with deficient functional literacy levels and provided a minimum of 15 hours of weekly instruction, including a minimum of five hours of computer assisted instruction (CAI) and 10 hours of classroom instruction, life-skills sessions and individual academic tutoring.

“Team Child” Program

• Complementing academic interventions with other services has also been promising in reducing recidivism.

• A program in Florida, “Team Child,” designed to provide civil legal representation for high risk delinquents to improve their access to needed education programs, mental health services, and family services, was effective in reducing arrest rate (reduction rates ranged from of 11% to 23%) for repeat offenders (Norrbin, Rasmussen & Von-Frank, 2004).

Wraparound Services

• Carney and Buttell (2003) reported that juveniles who received wraparound services were less likely to engage in subsequent at-risk and delinquent behavior (e.g., did not miss school unexcused, get expelled or suspended from school, run away from home, or get picked up by the police) versus the youth who received the juvenile court conventional services.

Post-Release Intervention

• The importance of post-release variables, particularly school attendance, was underscored in a 5-year longitudinal study that examined the facility-to-community transition of 531 youths released from the Oregon juvenile correctional system.

• Youths who were in school or working 6 months after release tended to be involved in these activities at 12 months and did not return to the facility.

Employment Related Social Skills

• Researchers at the University of Oregon has developed a curriculum to offer classroom-based intervention focused on improving the employment-related social skills of young offenders with disabilities.

• The curriculum consists of 33 lessons to be implemented in 50 minutes per lesson (class period).

• The four primary constructs were (a) locus of control, (b) problem-solving, (c) teamwork, and (d) communication.

Start Transition Service Early

• Research has found that juvenile offenders tend to live a life without appropriate goals and purpose.

• Start transition planning early can reduce juveniles’ involvement in delinquent behaviors.

Teach Self-Determination Skills

• Teach self-determination skills to juvenile offenders increases their engagement in positive behaviors and decreases their involvement in crimes.