USA JUSTICE
Cover Story

How communities are keeping kids out of crime

Cities and states are moving away from locking up juvenile offenders, offering treatment and other programs to prevent them from becoming hardened criminals

By Stacy Teicher Khadaroo, Staff Writer
FEBRUARY 15, 2015

… For decades, many states and localities handled adolescents with the same old-school approach they used for adults: Lock ’em up so they can learn a lesson – even for minor offenses. Some still do. But as more places adopt the ethos found in Lucas County, the number of incarcerated children has been declining dramatically.

… social service agencies can provide “wraparound” services to manage that same person in the community for about $75 a day, estimates Youth Advocate Programs Inc. (YAP), which offers such services in 17 states.

In a national YAP study of 3,523 young people ages 11 to 18, 86 percent remained arrest-free while in the program and 93 percent continued living at home, evaluators at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice found.

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