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55 Prison J. 2 (1975)

handle is hein.journals/prsjrnl55 and id is 1 raw text is: Editorial JUVENILE JUSTICE: TIME FOR A DECISION We spend an enormous amount of money to incarcerate a youth. In the Greater Philadelphia area it can run from $15,000 per year at the Youth Study Center, to $45,000 per year per youngster at the Cornwells Heights Youth Development Center. Perhaps we could have afforded this luxury in the past, but with the present fiscal con- dition of our cities, counties and states, someone is soon going to take a hard look at this expenditure and call for a screeching halt. The argument for these expenditures, is of course, that children and young people are more prone to rehabilitation than adults. that if we can stop a child from treading a wayward path, we can divert him from a consistent pattern of crime for the rest of his life. In this regard, it is often noted that at least a majority of those in our adult correctional institutions have had juvenile records. from which we have inferred that we did not do enough with them at an early age. The assumptions here are that our programs are effective and/or that punishment acts as a deterrent, both of which have yet to be proven in any research. We have heard some administrators of youth and juvenile in- stitutions insist that those in their charge are not as amenable to treatment and rehabilitation as adults, that the delinquent sub-culture is more difficult to crack. and that youngsters are less rational than adults in coping with their problems. Others insist that since incar- ceration represses development. since removal from the community reverses the process of inter-personal maturity, we should abolish all institutions larger than group homes of 10-20 clients. Nevertheless, the time for rhetoric is rapidly drawing to an end. The economic realities are that unless we can divert more young peo- ple from institutions, cost-cutting will eliminate treatment efforts and juvenile institutions will revert to mere prisons. This. in turn, will even further accelerate the deterioration (moral and psychological) of those whom we incarcerate. The Prison Society. although always having had a concern for juvenile justice, feels that the crisis described here calls us to a deep- er and broader commitment to activity in this field. The Effectiveness Of Correctional Treatment The problems stated above lead us to the broader issue that is stirring the most controversy in correctional circles today. That re- volves around the paper which appeared in The Public Interest, Spring 1974, by Robert Martinson, entitled What Works? - Ques- tions and Answers About Prison Reform. The book authored by Douglas Lipton. Robert Martinson and Judith Wilks, has now been published and Carl Klockars of our Advisory Board was asked to review it. Since The Prison Journal is published only semi-annually, it seemed appropriate to give Martinson an opportunity to reply. which 2

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