No duh moment - Bad Crowd: Why Juvenile Detention Makes Teens Worse

[Jeep789]

Time
By MAIA SZALAVITZ Maia Szalavitz – Fri Aug 7, 8:10 pm ET

Parents have always warned teenagers against falling in with the wrong crowd, those kids they consider bad influences. Now a new study of juvenile detention in Montreal adds to the evidence that Mom and Dad may have a point.


Researchers found that rather than rehabilitating young delinquents, juvenile detention - which lumps troubled kids in with other troubled kids - appeared to worsen their behavior problems. Compared with other kids with a similar history of bad behavior, those who entered the juvenile-justice system were nearly seven times more likely to be arrested for crimes as adults. Further, those who ended up being sentenced to juvenile prison were 37 times more likely to be arrested again as adults, compared with similarly misbehaved kids who were either not caught or not put into the system. (Read "Getting the Juvenile-Justice System to Grow Up.")


"It's much worse than we would have expected," says Richard Tremblay, a psychology professor at the University of Montreal and a co-author of the study, which was published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. "By having them live together, they form relationships. It's more likely to increase the problem."

More: http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090808/hl_time/08599191483700


I wonder if the same applies to prison? :dunce:

[EmeraldCityGrl]

1. I think it does apply to prisons that's why work programs that

allow prisoners to live in the community under supervision would be so much more effective socially and economically.

[Are_grits_groceries]

2. I taught school,

and I hated it when a kid was sent to juvie for an evaluation or for a stay. They came back so much worse and with lots of new tricks.

[Mythsaje]

3. Well, no fucking shit...

Rather like sending non-violent offenders to prisons full of the nastiest, meanest motherfuckers around. They come out more fucked up than they went in. Imagine that.