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The World BankCriminal Justice, Education, Health
Survey of Youth in Residential Placement: Needs and Services
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Research Findings
The early lives of youth in custody in the United States are often marked by experiences with trauma, substance abuse and mental health problems. From detention and correction facilities to camps and community-based programs, the institutions that deal with such youth must address a wide variety of underlying health and wellness issues in order to help rehabilitate and properly serve them.
A report by the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Deliquency Prevention and U.S. Department of Justice, “Survey of Youth in Residential Placement: Youth’s Needs and Services” (PDF), used data from more than 7,000 youth in custody gathered during interviews.
The report’s findings include:
- 70% of youth in custody reported that they had “had something very bad or terrifying” happen to them in their lives. 67% reported having seen someone severely injured or killed.
- 26% of those surveyed said felt as if “life was not worth living.” 22% reported having tried to commit suicide at some point in their lives.
- 84% of the youth surveyed said they had used marijuana, compared to a rate of 30% among their peers in the general population; 30% reported having used crack or cocaine, compared with only 6% in the general population.
- On many questions, there was a notable split between males and females, with girls often reporting more pronounced difficulties: 63% of girls reported having problems with anger, whereas 47% of boys did; 49% of girls reported having hallucinatory experiences, whereas only 16% of boys did; 37% of girls reported having suicidal thoughts and feelings, whereas only 18% of boys did.
- Among youth who have many emotional problems, 75% said that the counseling they received was either “somewhat helpful” or “very helpful.”
- Among those who reported four or more recent substance-related problems, only about 60% said they had been provided with substance abuse counseling in their current facility.
- Many youth in custody reported having attention problems and difficulties in school. Once in custody, only 45% report spending 6 hours a day or more in school. For the general population, a typical school day is 6 to 7 hours.
The report also provides insights into the types of facilities and programs for youth in custody, and details recommendations to increase effectiveness in areas such as counseling, education and health.
Tags: children, crime, law, race, safety
delinquent
Teaching Notes
Note to instructor: The suggested assignments are designed for flexibility. They can be used in whole or part and can be adapted to a particular task -- for example, the newswriting assignments could be applied to the writing of the headline, the lead, the nut graph or the full story. Material from the assignments could also be combined with other material, for example, in the writing of a background, feature or local-angle story.
Analysis assignments
Read the Office of Juvenile Justice and Deliquency Prevention and U.S. Department of Justice study "Survey of Youth in Residential Placement: Youth’s Needs and Services" (PDF).
- Summarize the study in fewer than 40 words.
- Express the study's key term(s) in language a lay audience can understand.
- Evaluate the study's limitations. (For example: Do the results conflict with those of other reliable studies? Are there weaknesses in the study's data or research design?)
Read the issue-related Associated Press article "State Closes Controversial Panhandle Reform School."
- If you were to an article about a facility in your state and include background from the article and study, how might you use this contextual information in your story?
Newswriting assignments
- Write a lead (or headline or nut graph) based on the study.
- Spend 60 minutes exploring the issue by accessing sources of information other than the study. Write a lead (or headline or nut graph) based on the study but informed by the new information. Does the new information significantly change what one would write based on the study alone?
- Interview two sources with a stake in or knowledge of the issue. Be prepared to provide them with a short summary of the study in order to get their response to it. Write a 400-word article about the study incorporating material from the interviews.
- Spend additional time exploring the issue and then write a 1,200-word background article, focusing on major aspects of the issue.
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[...] average in 2009.) For some additional information on this topic you might want to check out “Survey of Youth in Residential Placement: Needs and Services“. I’m not talking about those core values and beliefs that one learns at home, [...]