Education while a youth is in the juvenile justice system can be challenging. First, one has to consider who is in charge of the child’s education. Generally, the education of youth in the juvenile system is either the responsibility of the juvenile justice system, the education system of the state, or a combination of both. Technically, the youth has a right to a comparable education while in custody as they would receive while attending a public school. However, there are several obstacles to achieving this.

Examples of some of the challenges that are found in general within juvenile education are unqualified teachers, reduced hours of study, the inability to make up credits, and the student’s background. Teaching juveniles is a unique calling for the professional. Unfortunately, this is a call that often goes unheeded by teachers. Children in the public system can often be unbearable and so one can imagine going into a classroom full of gang members, murderers, and drug dealers. It is an unattractive opportunity which is why juvenile probation departments often have to hire unqualified adults.

Another unique problem is that juvenile education often runs its schooling for 24 hours a week of study compared to 30 in public schools. What this means is that every week the child is in custody they are falling behind in their studies compared to peers. This becomes a serious problem when the youth is released.

A different challenge is the ability to make up credits. Youth who leave their school for weeks, months, or years can fall behind drastically in terms of acquiring credits. If this happens, the youth can become a dropout, which further disadvantages them in the working world.

The youth themselves bring unique needs. Often, they are special needs and such needs are hard to support in a public school setting let alone while in the juvenile justice system. In addition, juvenile youth are also already behind academically when they are placed in the system. When this is combined with the factors mentioned above it is safe to say that the educational experience is not the best situation a child wants to be in as a student.

There are several places a youth is sent when in custody and we will look at each below.

Juvenile Detention Center

A child who is either accused of a crime or is waiting to be transferred to another facility is often held in what is called detention. The challenge with education in the detention setting is the transitory nature of this experience. On average, a child is in detention for about 30 days. Therefore, you can see the difficulty of providing young people with a comparable education to what they would receive in public school when they are only going to be there for about one month.

In public school, the first few days of the year are spent on assessments to see where the child is academically. Following this, it takes another week or two to lay down classroom rules and procedures in a consistent manner. The point is that, unfortunately, there is minimal learning for the first 2 or 3 weeks of school in the best setting for a child. For a child in juvenile detention, by the time this initial experience is over, there may be a week or two left for learning. While all this is happening, the child is away from home, worried about their freedom, while navigating the stress of being confined to a cell.

While all this is taking place, other students are coming and going as well, which is additional chaos to the experience. Every student is at a different place in this timeline, which is a serious frustration for the teacher and all students involved. Furthermore, some kids may only be there for a few days, so they never really had an opportunity to learn while in juvenile detention.

Alternative Education

Another form of education that students face while being in the Juvenile Justice system is alternative education. Alternative education is for kids who have been suspended from school and or have been found guilty of a lesser offense that does not require confinement. Examples can include drug use or possession of a weapon.

Although it varies from state to state, students are generally at alternative education in blocks of semester suspension(s) or maybe 90 days. However, the challenge is that all the students do not come at the beginning of a semester but can come anytime during the school year. Due to the mandatory minimum length of stay, the educational experience is often much more stable compared to detention centers.

Another concern with alternative education is if the youth continues to cause problems. For example, if they commit another offense, which is possible because they do have a large amount of freedom, they could be placed in detention and moved to a facility. The longer the length of stay is generally better but there is a distinct risk of youth failure due to poor behavior as well.

Residential Facilities

Another place where a youth is educated while in the juvenile justice system is at the actual residential facility they are sent to after their stay in detention. The type of facility depends on the crime that was committed but what they all have in common is that the crime the youth was found guilty of was so serious that the child could no longer stay at home.

The length of stay here can vary. If the sentence was indeterminate the length of stay depends on the youth meeting certain requirements. If the sentence was determinate the youth must stay there for a certain length of time no matter what. As with the other examples, you have youth who are going to be there longer than what is expected in detention centers, but you have the continuous probability of turnover within the classroom setting. Students are coming and going all the time since they don’t all begin their sentence at the same time.

One advantage of the residential facilities is that it is designed to house students long-term. Therefore, it is common to have vocational training and other interesting programs available for youth. In addition, the students have more academic support because they are in the same place for a longer period.

Conclusion

The reality is that the juvenile justice system was developed first to deal with youth who have had missteps with the law. However, it quickly became apparent that children in this system also need an education. It has been difficult to provide this basic need due to the transitory nature of youth as they traverse this system.

There are times when a student’s behavior is beyond what the school can handle. When this happens, it is time to escalate the intervention of the student to another level of administrative support. One example of this is when students commit crimes that necessitate the involvement of law enforcement, THis is when a student goes from being disruptive and perhaps a troublemaker to being a juvenile delinquent. In this post, we will look at some common terms associated with law enforcement and terms uniquely associated with the juvenile justice system.

Crime

A crime is an illegal activity that leads to a student losing their freedom. Illegal activity is defined by lawmakers who pass bills at the federal or state level. For example, littering is illegal, but few people have lost their freedom overdoing this. Crime also involves mental capability, which means someone intends to do something. For example, walking out of a bank with one of the bank’s pens is not illegal unless a lawyer can prove that a person intends to take the pen.

Intention is a major difference between law and classroom management. Often, students do not think before they act, but they are held accountable for whatever their mental culpability is. In crime, culpability can be a major factor in determining what can of punishment or if a young person is even guilty.

Levels of Crime

All infractions of the law are not equal. Laws are broken down into two main categories. These categories are misdemeanors and felonies.

Misdemeanors are some of the least offensive crimes and usually can result in less than one year of jail time. Examples of common misdemeanors are theft, driving while intoxicated, and even prostitution in some places. Generally, suppose someone is a first-time offender, as most youths are. In that case, they will not face jail time unless they become habitual offenders.

There might be a lesson here for teachers. Often it seems as if classroom infractions are all treated the same. For example, talking out of turn and refusing to do schoolwork are treated equally. This may be appropriate, but perhaps thought should be given to differentiating the degree of the infraction as is done in the justice system. What gets kids into serious trouble is the habitual disregard of minor offenses in the classroom.

Types of Crime

Felonies are crimes considered much more serious and can lead someone to spend more than a year behind bars. Examples of felonies include murder, robbery, and sexual assault.

Crimes can also be divided by type. Examples include violent crimes and property crimes. Violent crimes generally hurt people and include murder, sexual acts, and robbery. Property crimes are crimes committed against things that belong to others, such as theft (taking someone else’s stuff) and arson (burning someone else’s stuff). Hurting people is taken more seriously than hurting people’s stuff, and thus the punishment for violent crimes is harsher than for property crimes.

Conclusion

Young people make mistakes that can involve some of the crimes above. Sometimes these mistakes can have a lasting impact on their lives and the people around them. Teachers may have to deal with students who make these kinds of mistakes and thus need to be prepared to understand their student’s situations.