Locking Kids Up Is A Flawed Strategy

Residential Care and Detention for Youth Offenders Cannot Succeed

 Many Western jurisdictions continue to lock up young people who offend in secure sterile concrete warehouses. They may have the short-term effect of getting offenders out of the community but appear to be totally ineffectual in turning their lives around and reducing the risk they will continue to offend.

 In fact, the current Youth Justice Residential Custodial Model cannot succeed because it is inherently flawed. There are many reasons for this but here I explore one of the fundamental problems, it has intrinsic instability.

Instability is ‘Built In’

We all know that it is difficult to construct anything sustainable and durable on a foundation that is unstable but that is precisely what we are trying to do with our residential custodial system. It is unstable because of the way it is set up and the three key causes of this are found in the clustering of young people with problems, the way those clusters are supervised, and the quality of the resources who provide that supervision.

Clustering Young People with High and Complex Needs is Unsafe

Residences are often used when no other option is available. This means they end up housing a concentration of those who pose the highest risk and have the most complex needs. This is problematic.

·         The client group is not a ‘group’ for the purposes of treatment, it is a cluster for the purpose of detention

·         Mixing clients with diverse serious behavioural issues inevitably creates a volatile environment that is not safe for the young people and staff

·         Clients with complex needs require complex treatment regimens. Residences are not a consistent, informed and supportive environment

·         Properly managing individualised client plans presents a management challenge in a group context

·         Group dynamics continually change because the client group is transitory

·         Group management needs override individual treatment needs

·         Supporting individualised treatment regimens requires high levels of skill, often not found or trained in the custodial staffing group

·         Clustering provides the conditions for contagion, the spreading of antisocial ideas, values and behaviours

The Structure of Rotating Shifts is not Conducive to Stability  

Providing 24/7 supervision requires a system of rotating shifts. This model means built-in variations in practice, for example:

·         Consistent application of the rules is difficult when teams are continually changing

·         Shift teams don’t work together so it is hard to see how other teams practice

·         Rigid rules found in legislation and regulation can be complex to apply, creating opportunities for individuals and teams to have their own interpretations

·         In volatile and demanding environments each team has a primary interest in getting through its own shift, i.e. reducing risk and increasing safety (sometimes just surviving)

·         Shift teams develop their own cultures and become loyal to, and supportive of, these with new members being subsumed

·         Young people learn about different team behaviours and adapt accordingly

·         Challenging behaviours are often reserved for the team where client groups or individuals like their chances of getting away with it

·         Teams accommodate and manage to their weakest link

·         Team consistency relies on the continuity of membership but often may use large numbers of temporary staff

Appropriately Skilled Staff are Hard to Get and Harder to Keep

Residential custodial environments are complex, pressurized and demanding workplaces. This leads to significant staffing challenges including :

·         They tend not to be appealing workplaces so it is hard to attract the highly skilled staff they need

·         The relentless nature of working long hours shift after shift creates retention problems

·         This often leads to high turnover

·         High turnover has implications for retaining institutional and growing practice knowledge

·         Where staff tend to stay long-term, undesirable institutionalised behaviours may be perpetuated

·         The demand to fill positions on the floor often influences the recruiting process

·         Operational needs reduce opportunities for staff to update their practice

·         There is often high use of temporary staff

·         The nature of the work brings a high risk of burnout

·         Operational demands reduce staff support systems like professional supervision 

·         Where professional practitioners (e.g. psychologists) interface with custodial staff, there can be significant diversity of practice and priorities which can create tensions and impact the effectiveness of treatment

·         Staff members are influenced by their own values, attitudes and beliefs which may at times be divergent from those of their organisation

·         Individual and team values can fill the void when the organisation's values are not clearly articulated and monitored

The Issues Exist in a Dynamic Relationship

Not all of the issues above will be present in every custodial model, but most will in some form or other. The relationship between meeting individualised client needs, while managing a diverse group, and using a staffing structure that requires the personnel to act as a cohesive team, is complex. Also critically important is all three elements are interdependent, so exist in a dynamic relationship from which instability is the almost inevitable consequence.

The Solution

So what is the solution? The obvious and simplest strategy is to get rid of the current models of bigger institutions and increase the number of alternative, smaller community-based options. Smaller groups mean:

·         Young people are more likely to get the appropriate treatment in a supportive environment

·         Recruitment, retention, and training, of suitable staff will be enhanced

·         The risk of contagion can be better monitored and hence significantly reduced

·         The risk of collective disruptions such as riots will be reduced

·         The risk of young people being re-victimised will be reduced

·         Environments will be safer

·         Dynamics between young people can be better managed

What Prevents this Happening?

There are two primary reasons why smaller community-based residential models are not utilised; financial issues and lack of public support.

Cost

The perception is that it will cost more. This can be for a variety of reasons.

·         There is an economy in cohabiting as many young people as possible under one set of security measures (e.g. walls, fences, cameras etc.)

·         Alternatively, it is perceived there is an additional significant cost in creating smaller secure residences 

·         Many jurisdictions have already invested significant capital in larger institutions with lifespans extending for multiple decades

However, the cost/benefit equation is not as clear-cut as that.

·         It costs significant ongoing funding to operate a residence, far more than the original building costs. That funding could be repurposed to support community-based options

·         Smaller, more intensively supported models, will allow for more specialised interventions which can be better targeted to meet particular needs

·         Small community-based facilities will produce better results, I.e. reduce offending rates. This will lead to cost savings within the adult justice system, (Police, Court and Prison resources) or allow for reinvestment to improve services

·         Improvements in working conditions will increase retention and produce human resource cost benefits

·         Measuring the impact on victims is difficult, but reduced victimisation would enable resources to be used to strengthen existing support systems for victims

 

Lack of Community Support

Major reasons why community-based models are not supported are;

·         No one wants young people who offend in their communities, the ‘nimby’ (not in my backyard) syndrome

·         There is a disproportionate fear of youth crime, often fuelled by politicians who want to gain political mileage, and interest groups that want more access to resources

·         There is ignorance of what would work best to change young people’s offending behaviour

·         There is a prevailing mythology that kids just need a ‘good kick in the butt’ and they will come right, often translated into a ‘short sharp shock’

 

Changing Attitudes is Not Easy

Many of those who work with disaffected youth try to get informative messages across but the counter-narratives are more visible and perpetuate the fear of juvenile crime.  Two key players who could make a difference are the media and politicians.

It’s hard to see media organisations doing anything different because sensationalism sells and youth crime is great for that. However, there are a couple of things they could do. When reporting youth crime they could provide more factual context about the causes of the behaviour and about why community approaches are more likely to be effective. They could also run more informative programmes highlighting the successes of community-based agencies. 

It is also true that changing political behaviour is difficult.  Crime is such an easy and visible opportunity to garner political mileage. What is needed is a bi-partisan approach that:

·         treats managing youth offending as an investment

·         requires Government Agencies to work together towards shared outcomes

·         is not subject to political whim

·         is based on known best practices

·         is grown using a cycle of evaluation and improvement rather than constant reform

In the end, this will result in safer communities, something that we all want.

Chris Polaschek

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