Considering the use and usefulness of juvenile detention: operationalizing social theory

Detention can be a tool provided the juvenile caseworker. Current use depends largely upon professional judgments operating within a framework of laws and broad guides. Overuse and misuse would indicate that practitioners need more helpful guides for sound detention. Failure to recognize the impact of detention upon children and their families prohibits employment of sound, principled casework approaches. Objective research and evaluation of the effects of detention is needed. It may be that the use of juvenile detention should be diminished. Meanwhile, social casework experience suggests methods and techniques useful to those willing to adapt. In Respect to Intake: 1. Only the most seriously disturbed children should be detained in the first place. This requires stringent intake policies. 2. Every effort should be made to work with the children in the community and in their own home if possible rather than sending them to detention. Detention as a Helping Process: When the detention community is fulfilling its philosophy and stated purposes in helping adolescents, the following contributions are possible: 1. A system of controls or limits to protect both the child and the community while insuring the child's legal rights. 2. A life experience which enables the child to be studied in his physical, social-emotional, and spiritual dimensions. 3. Resources such as a program, personnel, and facilities especially equipped and oriented to meet both the normal and special physical, social and emotional needs during a time of crisis in the child's life. 4. A sociological climate conducive to working on the problems of the detained child through understanding, acceptance, consistency, limits, structure, and individual and group counseling which together provide emotional security and first aid and enable the child to have constructive experiences contributing to personality growth. 5. A sound and integrated detention program outlining and specifying the limited treatment goals for each child. If the detention community is to provide a sociologically healthy climate, and discharge its responsibilities to the child, the community, and the law for protecting both the best interest of the child and the community, then opportunities for furthering the child's growth and development must be made available; and the nature and quality of the detention experience rather than its limited or extended duration, must be the primary consideration.