analysis for the reasons why youth are place in at-risk programs

Analysis of Reasons for Youth Placed

In At-Risk Programs

Cameron C. Crowson

Keiser University

Reasons for Youth Placed in At-Risk Programs 2

Abstract

This paper will examine in detail the Florida Department of Education’s policy on truancy and

how it relates to the intake of juveniles into the Department of Juvenile Justice System. The

research published on the topic of truancy explains the different specificities of how and why

adolescents, teens, and pre-adults succumb to truant behavior early in life. Other research looked

into an alternative pilot program that could help prevent juvenile delinquency and help increase

student’s academic knowledge by way of program delivery and explaining the concept of

fairness in the juvenile justice system; different courts around the country understood that these

programs help prevent at-risk youth from further progressing in life with truant and

criminological behaviors. This research paper will examine programs for at-risk youth and how

these programs have implemented a solution that in-turn decreased the number of youth

violations. Therefore, this paper will examine the reasons why youth are placed in at-risk

programs and how these at-risk programs can help decrease the rate of criminological behavior

in adolescents.


Analysis of Reasons for Youth Placed

In At-Risk Programs

The Florida Department of Education states that any child 6 years of age to the age of 16

is by law required to attend school regularly. If the child reaches the age of 16 and would like to

terminate their enrollment they must legally attain a “formal declaration of intent…” (FLDOE,

2016). In other words, a student is legally not allowed to drop out of school until he/she reaches

the age of 16. If a student does not attend school for 15 out of a 90-calendar day period, they

become what the state calls truant; this attendance violation holds both the child and adult

responsible. Much research has been conducted in the past few months on reviewing and

analyzing reasons for truant behaviors exhibited by youth. One such report, by Emily B. Nichols,

Ann B. Loper, and J. Patrick Meyer (2016), titled Promoting Educational Resiliency in Youth

with Incarcerated Parents: The Impact of Parental Incarceration, School Characteristics, and

Connectedness on School Outcomes, considers the effects underlying truancy to fall back on

adolescents whose parents have been incarerated sometime in their life. Another article, by

Lauren Nichol Gase, Amelia DeFosset, Raymond Perry, and Tony Kuo (2016), called Youths’

Perspectives on the Reasons Underlying School Truancy, goes into great detail trying to figure

out the base-line reasons for school truancy by communicating with 39 truant students and

attempting to resolve the issue by “…a more effective school response to address truancy; and

further involvement and engagement of parents” (Gase, DeFosset, Perry, & Kuo, 2016, p. 2).

In an article by the Centers for Disease Control (2014) titled Youth Risk Behavior

Surveillance — United States, 2013, goes into detail on the behaviors that could lead to

“morbidity and mortality in young teens and adults” (Kann, et al., 2014, p. 1). Some of these


behaviors including those of basic care and proper security to violent actions exhibited by teens

in result of carrying weapons.

In regards to truant and criminological behaviors, at-risk youth programs have been

implemented as a solution by the many individual Departments of Juvenile Justice across the

United States to help reduce youth violations and incarceration. In addition, individual state court

systems have funded programs over the past few years to help treat youth in danger of

progressing toward more violent criminological behaviors. In hopes of creating these different

at-risk youth programs the states, courts, and the individual Departments of Juvenile Justice hope

to see the decrease in the rate of recidivism and incarceration at the adult age. Therefore, this

paper will examine several different sources and their research on how these programs have

helped to reduce youth recidivism and the impact they have had on the reducing rates of juvenile

detention.

According to research, truancy is the number one reason why students are entered into

the Juvenile Justice System. By Florida statute 1003.26, an individual student, in grades K-12,

may become truant if he/she exhibits excessive absenteeism in such a way it warrants five

unexcused absences, – for which the reasons are not reported – “within a calendar month or 10

unexcused absences…within a 90-calendar-day period” (Legislature, 2015). This attendance

violation by the state of Florida holds both the child and parent responsible. This research will

explain how the Florida Department of Education’s policies on truancy relates to the increased

intake of Juveniles in the Juvenile Justice System; the research will also explain how this affects

students, parents, and educators when truancy has been issued; and after the youth has been

deemed at-risk, this paper will look at and explain how at-risk programs have contributed to the

effects of decreased criminological and truant behavior in youth. Therefore, the research


provided in this paper will examine the reasons for the youth’s negative behavior and multiple

ways in which youth can receive help when dealing with truant and criminological behavior.

Literature Review

This literature review will be broken into two separate sections: reasons for truancy and

the effects of at-risk programs on the youth. The section labeled reasons for truancy will explain

the student reasons why they did not attend school and motivations for wanting to attend school;

the second section, labeled the effects of at-risk programs on the youth will explain how

programs sponsored by the state educational system and Department of Juvenile Justice can help

to treat criminological and truant behaviors in youth – under the age of 18.

Reasons for Truancy

There are many reasons for a youth’s truant and/or criminological behavior. Many

researchers, discussed below, have suggested that these reasons point to factors dealing with the

adolescent’s home life and educational needs.

In addition, Gase et al.’s (2016) article on the youth’s perspectives underlying the

reasons for truant behaviors, it was found that the major contributors to truant behaviors relate to

three components of education: school factors, spectrum of school response, and family support

and engagement; from these three components, the authors list more specific details: school

curriculum, teaching style of the instructor, conflict or positive relationship with instructor, class

size being too large, very little contact with school counselors, unsafe learning environment, no

reaction from staff regarding absences and tardies, too many notifications from the school, staff

calling home, teacher-parent meetings, detention or suspension, legal problems, expulsion, and

very little engagement with the student (Gase, DeFosset, Perry, & Kuo, 2016). Similarly, Nichols

et al. (2016) explained that there is yet another factor that contributed to truant behaviors in


youth – parental incarceration: “our results revealed small but significant risks associated with

parental incarceration for all outcomes…” (Nichols, Loper, & Meyer, 2016).

Additionally, Gase et al. (2016) also discusses the school response to truancy varying in

ways that include a discussion with the youth of why he/she decided to skip school, giving out

detentions, and legal consequences discussed with the youth. Above all, “youths described being

motivated by fear to change their behavior” (Gase, DeFosset, Perry, & Kuo, 2016, p. 15) and

from this response the youth were observed to feeling behaviors that ranged from engagement

academically, a feeling that an individual school cared, and lastly, a perception of severe action

(Gase, DeFosset, Perry, & Kuo, 2016). What this means is that school truancy is not necessarily

treated the same way between each individual and each school.

Furthermore, Laura Kann’s et al. (2014) discussed more in-depth reasons regarding teen

and young adult activities that lead to criminological acts and/or result in death: “results…

indicated that many high school students are engaged in priority health-risk behaviors associated

with the leading causes of death among persons aged 10–24 years…” (Kann, et al., 2014, p. 1).

The study was carried out through careful observation and surveillance of teens and young adults

in the United States.

However, these are just a few of the reasons of why youth became truant and/or exhibit

criminological behavior. But these reasons alone count for much of why teens fall out of line and

into an at-risk day or residential program.

Effects of At-Risk Programs on Youth. Much research suggests that due to the

delinquent behavior of the youth, necessary actions by the Department of Juvenile Justice and

the state educational board had to be taken in placing youth in either a day program or residential


detention program; because of this placement youth can now receive the intensive treatment

needed to modify existing criminological behaviors.

To further explain, Sarah Hockenberry’s (2016) article, titled Juveniles in Residential

Placement, 2013, explained that the number of juveniles in residential placement continued to

decline from 1997 to 2013 by way of statistically showing how the key factors for juvenile

placement, from the lowest of crimes like theft to larger crimes like homicide, how have

descreased and was at an all time low in 2013. Although numbers of residentially placed youth

have decreased since 1997, one factor still remained the same and that is the profiles of those

committing crimes: “the number of residents in placement decreased across census years, but

profiles remained similar” (Hockenberry, 2016, p. 3). In other words, crime has decreased but

certain types of individuals are still exhibiting criminological behavior(s).

To add, data has been collected from many sources showing the importance of at-risk

youth programs. One such source by Karen Miner-Romanoff (2015), titled Juvenile Justice

Education For At-risk High School Youth: A Pilot Program, explained the outcome of a pilot at-

risk high school program: “descriptive statistics showed substantial knowledge gains for the

intervention group, from 14.2 to 35.7% in all subdomains, and −7.2 to 21.4% gains for the

control group” (Miner-Romanoff, 2015, p. 22). In other words, the at-risk program showed

increased growth academically. Because of their substantial progress with this at-risk group this

group can serve as a model for others to research and attempt to portray.

In result, the biggest part Karen Miner-Romanoff’s research was in explaining several

different bits of information regarding the juvenile justice program to the at-risk youth: (1)

existence of a separate juvenile justice system, (2) why a separate juvenile system exists, (3)

juvenile penalties, (4) Juvenile transfer to adult court, (5) basis of laws and criminal sentences,


and (6) fairness of juvenile justice system (Miner-Romanoff, 2015, pp. 34-36). By explaining

this information to the at-risk youth it “indicated that the intervention group significantly

increased knowledge and understanding of two aspects of the juvenile justice system” (Miner-

Romanoff, 2015, pp. 36-37). This means that this group now understands the risks of

criminological behaviors.

Therefore, because of the results from research and the success in the decrease of youth

crimes many court systems are funding at-risk youth programs to help reduce recidivism and

incarceration of youth when they become of age. One such court in Allen County, Ohio, due to

the statistics and help from the Ohio Juvenile Justice System, has decided “to begin two new

programs aimed at curbing the number of young people in the court system and mentoring those

coming out of the system” (Kelly, 2015, p. 1). In other words, the states, courts, and individual

Departments of Juvenile Justice systems are concluding that these at-risk youth programs are a

success and have decided to fund more around the country like the one mentioned above.

Discussion

In 2016, Gase et al.’s research explained that “Additional efforts are also needed to…

effectively respond to truancy” (Gase, DeFosset, Perry, & Kuo, 2016). What this means is that

the schools need to come up with some kind of solution to implement district or perhaps state-

wide. With that in mind, Karen Miner-Romanoff’s (2015) research suggests and supports that

“similar educational programs…need to be developed …to help educate at-risk adolescents to

the consequences of their criminal behavior and reduce the current large numbers of youth

jailed” (Miner-Romanoff, 2015, p. 41). In other words, an attempt needs to be made to teach

adolescents about truancy and ways to prevent further consequences by providing targeted

treatment.


Reasons for Truancy. Moreover, Gase et al.’s (2016) research emphasized the

importance in finding appropriate treatment- helping the youth to overcome delinquency. With

that being said, it is important to understand and stay patient with the individual student when

they have a problem; although most problems can be solved by taking with an approved staff

member, rather than letting the issue build up more over a course of time.

Another source, Nichols et al. (2016), reveals in their results that there is another factor

that plays an important role in the reason why students skip school – parental incarceration.

Therefore, making such factors as parental incarceration are very important and play a key role

in helping to understand each child’s home situation and family background; so that counselors,

psychiatrists, and other mental health staff can make sure that the individual youth do not follow

in their parent’s footsteps – getting in trouble with the law.

In connection, Laura Kann’s et al. (2014) report explains that there is a priority health-

risk with adolescent behaviors and habits. This report, supported and published by the Centers

for Disease Control, states that there are “six categories of priority health-risk behaviors among

youth and young adults” (Kann, et al., 2014, p. 1) and these include behaviors related to violence

and injuries, tobacco use, alcohol and drug use, sexual behaviors, dietary habits, and lastly,

physical activity; this may explain reasons and contributions for at-risk behaviors by adolescents

and teens.

The Centers for Disease Control also explains that mortality rates of youth and young

adults are contributed mainly by physical fighting, current cigarette use, and current sexual

activity and has not changed with the result of a suicide attempts when treated by a doctor or

nurse, and using or have used marijuana, and having drunk alcohol or used drugs before last


sexual intercourse (Kann, et al., 2014, p. 1). In result, teens and young adults have either died in

result or have exhibited extreme criminological behavior in regards to/ or in effect of

unintentional injuries, violence on self and/or others, and underage drug and tobacco use.

Effects of At-Risk Programs on Youth. In developing at-risk youth programs throughout

the country, the hope is that crime rates in adolescents would decrease- because of the

knowledge the youth would have regarding the Juvenile Justice system- and at-risk youth would

be able to integrate fully back into educational programs and receive a higher level of education.

Therefore, by having an increased knowledge of the Juvenile Justice system the results

indicated that the students understood the major consequences of criminological actions and

behavior and attempted to decrease the rate of incarceration with this group of students. The

research suggests that this is the first step to encouraging youth to “greater positive legal

socialization, and adherence to legal norms” (Miner-Romanoff, 2015, p. 41); however, it is not

certain that these results will necessarily take to that direction of normality with these groups of

individuals.

Other sources suggest a greater adherence to legal normality with youth, in meaning that

funding from courts, states, and the juvenile justice centers is contingent on rehabilitation and the

ability of the youth to integrate back as a viable member of society. Therefore, much research

views the results as moving in the right direction. In the article by Sarah Hockenberry (2016),

she proved that the there is a downward trend starting from 1997 and moving at its all time

lowest in 2013. The prediction is that because of these intervention programs, that the trend of

juveniles in residential placement will continue to decline throughout time.


Conclusion

Although Florida law dictates that students absent for more than 15 days in a 90-day

calendar period are considered to be habitually truant, staff in the individual schools need to

investigate more into the reasons why students are not coming to school. The problem comes

when administration steps in and automatically goes to the legal rather than counseling. Students

have a variety of different problems and going right into the legal makes the problems worse,

especially if the problem is at home – child being physically abused, verbally abused,

emotionally abused etc.… As research suggests, there are always underlying reasons for the

child’s behavior, it is important to explain to the child that counseling is always available and

that if he/she needs to talk there is always support.

At-risk youth programs have been shown to be a great success in curbing the trend of

unjust moral and criminological behaviors in youth. As research suggests, informing youth about

the juvenile justice programs and key factors of intake helped youth to understand their own

behaviors and perhaps their own triggers of regression. However, these programs are not 100%

effective when it comes to reducing recidivism in every individual. Some youth are told about

these types of programs too late and therefore, are incarcerated because of their immoral and

criminological behaviors in society.

As research suggests, there are always underlying reasons for the child’s behavior, it is

important to explain to the child that counseling is always available and that if he/she needs to

talk there is always support. The at-risk programs can help to counsel the students after they have

committed a truancy violation or exhibited criminological behavior(s).


One source, by Mary A. Terzian et al (2011), titled Preventing Multiple Risky Behaviors

among Adolescents: Seven Strategies, suggests that there are seven strategies to treating at-risk

behaviors: (1) support and strengthen family functioning, (2) increase connections between

students and their schools, (3) make communities safe and supportive for children, (4) promote

involvement in high quality out-of-school-time programs, (5) promote the development of

sustained relationships with caring adults, (6) provide children and youth opportunities to build

social and emotional competence, and lastly, (7) provide children and youth with high quality

education during early and middle childhood (Terzian, Andrews, & Moore, 2011, pp. 3-7). In

other words, promoting strong, caring and positive relationships with your child/children or

student(s) can help to prevent at-risk or criminological behaviors in the future


References

FLDOE. (2016). Attendance and enrollment. Retrieved from The Florida Department of

Education: http://www.fldoe.org/how-do-i/attendance-enrollment.stml

Gase, L. N., DeFosset, A., Perry, R., & Kuo, T. (2016). Youths’ perspectives on the reasons

underlying school truancy. The Qualitative Report 2016, 21(2), 299-320.

Hockenberry, S. (2016, May). Juveniles in residential placement, 2013. Retrieved from PR

Newswire: http://www.ojjdp.gov/pubs/249507.pdf

Kann, L., Kinchen, S., Shanklin, S. L., Flint, K. H., Hawkins, J., Harris, W. A., . . . Zaza, S.

(2014). Youth risk behavior surveillance —United States, 2013. Rockville, Maryland:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Kelly, C. (2015). Juvenile court receives funding for new programs. TCA Regional News.

Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1647463241?accountid=35796

Legislature, F. (2015). The 2015 Florida statutes. Retrieved from Online Sunshine:

http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?

App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=1000-1099/1003/Sections/

1003.26.html

Miner-Romanoff, K. (2015). Juvenile justice education for at-risk high school youth: a pilot

program. Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 26(1), 22-48. Retrieved from

http://www-tandfonline-com.prx-keiser.lirn.net/doi/pdf/10.1080/10511253.2014.922594

Nichols, E. B., Loper, A. B., & Meyer, J. P. (2016, June). Promoting educational resiliency in

youth with incarcerated parents: the impact of parental incarceration, school


characteristics, and connectedness on school outcomes. Journal of Youth and

Adolescence, 45(6), 1090.

Terzian, M. A., Andrews, K. M., & Moore, K. A. (2011). Preventing multiple risky behaviors

among adolescents: seven strategies. Child Trends, 1-12.

analysis for the reasons why youth are place in at-risk programs

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