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25 Crim. Behav. & Mental Health 1 (2015)

handle is hein.journals/cbmh25 and id is 1 raw text is: 

Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health
25: 1-9 (2015)
Published online in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/cbm.1946

The incarceration of seriously

traumatised adolescents in the

USA: Limited progress and

significant harm






CHRISTOPHER A. MALLETT, Cleveland State University's School of Social
  Work,  Cleveland, OH, USA



The  incarceration of young offenders in the USA poses serious problems for
the juvenile justice system (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2012; Mallett, 2013).
While  recent reforms, state budgetary difficulties and litigation concerning
unconstitutional care and dangerous facilities have reduced the number of
incarcerations over the past decade, upwards of 70,000 adolescents are still
confined each day in juvenile facilities, with an additional 10,000 in adult jails
and prisons, many times more  per capita than any other country (National
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency  Prevention Coalition, 2013). The  most
common  placement - for up to 40% of these adolescents - is a locked, long-term
state or privately contracted prison-like facility that holds hundreds of young
offenders at any  one  time  and  provides minimal  rehabilitative services
(Sickmund, 2010; Mendel, 2012).
   The pace of incarceration reform in the USA remains geographically disparate.
While  some jurisdictions and states have made significant reductions in their
incarceration rates (California, Texas, Ohio, Alabama and Connecticut), many
others have not (Hockenberry et al., 2011). Certain groups - including judges,
advocates and reformers - deserve substantial credit for moving the juvenile justice
paradigm away from punishment  and toward rehabilitation, and yet, while the
number of young offender incarcerations has been declining over the past decade,
the rate of incarceration per arrest has been rising (National Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention Coalition, 2013). As a result, some postulate that the fall
in incarcerations is more because of falling crime rates among the young than
because of system reforms (Butts, 2013). It is unlikely, though, that falling crime
rates fully account for the changes.


Copyright t 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


  25: 1-9 (2015)
DOI: 10.1002/cbm

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