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Our group chose to summarize "Young People Talk about Transitioning from Youth

Detention to the Community: Making Good", written by Tim Moore, Morag McArthur, and

Vicky Saunders, "Youth Offender re-entry: Models for intervention and direction for future

inquiry" written by Laura S. Abrams and Susan M. Snyder from the Department of Social

Welfare, University of California, Los Angeles School of Public Affairs and Coming back

home: The reintegration of formerly incarcerated youth with service implications written

by Elizabeth K. Anthony, Mark D. Samples, Dylan Nicole de Kervor, Silvina Ituarte, Chris Lee,

and Michael J. Austin. These articles gave us insight onto the challenges that young people face

while transitioning into the community upon release from custody. Through each of these

articles, we were able to learn more about the risk factors for young people, protective factors,

and what is needed for youth to successfully reintegrate into the community, on both an

individual and community level.

Throughout these three articles, there was a common theme; resources given to young

offenders are not sufficient in successful transitions into the community. The youth justice

system overall needs to look at what supports youth are being given, and assess the adequacy of

these supports and how they are addressing individual needs. In each of these articles, we were

able to see that there are many barriers that young people face in their journey towards success.

Some of these barriers included lack of community resources for services such as mental health

and education, stigmatization, becoming institutionalized, and having a lack of support systems.

We were able to see that often times these barriers are classified as individual risk factors,

however, these barriers can also be viewed on a neighborhood-level (Abrams & Synder, 2010).

Community supports are essential for a youths reintegration into society. Every aspect of

their re-entry into the community relates to their neighbourhood, living situation, peer social
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networks, and adult supports. It is also a major risk factor to young people when they are

released from custody they return to their otherwise "toxic" home environments. From a young

age these children are being conditioned to a "criminal lifestyle" because many of these young

people come from genetic predispositions to drug and alcohol abuse, and have parents who are

involved in the criminal justice system themselves.

After being institutionalized, these youth adopt negative labels, in turn making them feel

that they are more connected to the lifestyles and peer groups that they have been a part of while

in jail. We were able to see throughout the articles that these youth had become institutionalized.

Once released into the community, these institutional methods for dealing with everyday issues

are not available. These youth become dependent on the facility and their workers to take care of

them. This and the lack of independent living skills is a huge barrier for the youth that

are transitioning back into society as they are also expected to live independently if they are

above 18. We noticed that the system lacks programming and the life skills training necessary to

prepare these young people for the "real world". Many of these young people also deal with

great challenges in their personal mental health. While in Custody, these young people are given

various Mental Health resources and are treated immediately for their disorders. Once being

released into the community, they are expected to set up outpatient services on their own to

maintain their mental health. This is a huge stressor for young people as they have many

challenges to overcome and often self-care isn't a priority for them. We noticed that within the

Youth Justice System itself, there are many easily accessible resources for young people, but

many of these resources are not available to them once they are released into the community.

Without these supports, these young people become extremely vulnerable to reoffend.

Another issue that we found to be prominent throughout the articles was the lack of
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educational programming for young people upon release. This issue is directly related to poor

planning or resistance from schools to support the young people's return (Moore, McArthur, &

Saunders, 2013). While incarcerated, young people are given educational programming that

often is not carried on upon release, or is solely up to the young person to maintain. It would

benefit these young people to have opportunities to be a part of a school community and make

positive connections to people around them through group work and sporting teams (Moore et

al., 2013). This issue connects to looking at the community as a whole instead of each youth's

individual needs. If the community had educational supports for young people that were easily

accessible, these young people would be more motivated to attend school. Because it is so hard

for young people to connect with schools and because they have so many other challenges to

overcome, education "falls through the cracks". Having easily accessible education would also

give young people something meaningful to do during the day. Being released into the

community and having freedom is sometimes too much for young people who have spent a

majority of their adolescence locked up. It has also become apparent that most of these youth

already had pre-existing educational neglect or learning disabilities (Abrams &Synder, 2010).

When you put both of these disadvantages together with the disruption of being incarcerated, you

get low rates of GED/high school diploma attainment (20%) (Abrams &Synder, 2010).

Alongside with the educational problems, finding a job after incarceration seems to be a major

challenge. There is a massive stigma against youth who have a criminal record, causing lack of

job availability for ex-offenders (Abrams &Synder, 2010).

Another common theme throughout these articles was a lack of planning for a successful

transition. Many Youth Justice facilities just want to support the youth while they are

incarcerated, they don't think about these young people's futures or feel that it is their duty to
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plan for a successful future. These youth aren't given the opportunity to plan for their own

futures, and often feel they have no control over their lives. Another risk factor for young people

when looking at the issue of poor planning, is that these young people are not being given the

opportunity to share what they feel that they need to be successful as stated in the "Young People

Talk about Transitioning from Youth Detention to the Community: Making Good" article.

Without people acknowledging the needs of youth after being incarcerated they will never be

able to have a successful reintegration into the community. The juvenile system needs to

understand that without focusing on youth from the start of their entry into the system, their

chances of reoffending become very high. The juvenile detention system needs to identify

the specific needs of this population in order to create supports for the youth and to encourage

them to not commit the same crimes or want to come back, but instead get better and have

supports within the community to better their lives.

In conclusion, throughout these articles we were able to prove that youth are not being

given the sufficient resources needed to successfully reintegrate into society after being

incarcerated. We were given a sense of how the young people themselves feel, what is essential

to helping young people reintegrate, and the direct needs of the youth in the juvenile system

along with complications that come with being in the system itself. We were given insight onto

successful inventions and ways that we can help young people such as advocating for youth so

that their voices are being heard, looking at young offenders on a community level as opposed to

only looking at individual risk factors, and pointing out discrepancies within the overall system

that need to be changed. All of these articles combined taught us how we can increase

opportunities for youth to break the crime and incarceration cycle.

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As a group, we are passionate about this topic because all three-group members work

with young offenders in detention facilities. From our experience in the Youth Justice Sector, we

have each seen several young people continuously reoffend. This has caused us to wonder what

these young people need to be successful and the specific resources and supports that they need

to lead to positive change. These young people are being socially excluded; agencies know what

these young people did, not why they did it. They are convicted criminals, and to many

Government agencies, their opinions are not valid, they are nothing more than their criminal

record number. Through our project, we hope to spread awareness of the challenges that this

client population face, and show people that young offenders aren't necessarily always bad

people, but children that are faced with immense challenges. As Child and Youth Worker's, we

strive to make sure that young people's voices are heard. We work to advocate for young people

who have been institutionalized, and make sure that they are involved in their transition. We feel

that no one knows what young people need to be successful better than the young people

themselves. With better reintegration plans and stronger supports for young people we would be

bettering the community as a whole. There would be less young people incarcerated in

Government Detention facilities, turning into less young people transitioning into the Adult

Detention System. This would impact Youth Workers, Police, Child Welfare agencies and many

more. We hope to reach some of these people through our social change project and educate

them on the importance of supporting these young people and changing their lives for the better.
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References

Moore, T. & McArthur, M. & Saunders, V. (2013). Young People Talk about Transitioning from

Youth Detention to the Community: Making Good. Australian Social Work, Vol. 66 (No. 3), 328-

343. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0312407X.2012.752020

Abrams, L.S., Synder, S.M. (2010) Youth offender reentry: Models for interventions and

directions for future inquiry. Children and youth services review (Elsevier Ltd.) 32, (12), 1287-

1795. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/sicence/article/pii/S0190740910002240

Anthony, E.K., Samples, M.D., Nicole de Kervor, D., Ituarte, S., Lee, C., Austin, M.J. (2010).

Coming back home: The reintegration of formerly incarcerated youth with service implications.

Children and Youth Services Review (Elsevier Ltd.) 32, (10), 1271-1277. Retrieved from

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740910001271