Juvenile Recidivism

Juvenile Recidivism

Introduction

Recidivism is a relapse into criminal activity and is generally measured by the return of former inmates in prison for another crime. Recurrence rates reflect the degree to which the released prisoners were exonerated and the role of correctional programs plays in the reintegration of prisoners into society (Katz, 2003). The level of recidivism in the U.S., estimated at about two-thirds, which means that two-thirds of released prisoners will be re-housed in a period of three years. The high rate of relapse as a result of the enormous costs in terms of public safety and tax dollars spent to arrest, prosecution and imprisonment of recidivism. The high level of recidivism can also lead to devastating social costs to communities and families of offenders, and personal expenses of the criminals themselves (O'Flaherty, 1996). Due to the enormous costs of the program for prisoners and released prisoners, reducing recidivism can be profitable, even those with modest success rates.

During the period of 1900's the nature of sentence were undetermined so, prisons made the usage of provision of rehabilitation. The parole boards used to make decisions about when to release an inmate on the basis of the extent to which they are ready to be part of the normal society again. During the past ten years, the nature of sentence returned to the determinate sentencing. As a result, of these determinate sentences the inmates have often been restricted in the amount of a good time that they can get from their sentences.

Discussion

Punishment is given to the criminals and offenders of law so that they do not repeat this action again. But, there are people who even after getting the punishment repeat the mistake. Whenever, an inmate is released from the prison, it is expected that he or she would not indulge in any activities of criminal law offense. But there are few people who seek constant guidance, mentoring and support to overcome their ability to say no to such activities. In order to address this issue the concept of re-entry program came into existence. The topic of this research is also revolves around the same phenomenon of re-entry program. In re-entry program, various training and counselling programs are provided to the inmate to prepare them to re-enter in the society so that they do not indulge in any activities of criminal law offense. Such programs are prevalent in the society of United States (Rhine, 1997).

Whereas, homelessness has changed on many different aspects before it was recognized as a main problem in our society. For example, the number and the face of the homeless have quite altered. The number of homeless began to rise in the late 1980s and continued in the 1990s. Only in Toronto during the early 1980s, shelter systems accommodated about 1,200 people. However, in 1996, the number of shelter beds increased to 4,000 and by 1998, it reached 7,000 per night. This illustrates that with time shelters become busier because of the overload of homeless to take care ...