Troubled Teens Resources

Can violent juvenile offenders be rehabilitated? If there were enough schools for troubled teens, military teen boot camps and rehabs - not to mention funding - could you actually extract the killer from the teen who murdered a family, or the juvenile rapist who slit the throat of their victim?

That debate is ongoing, with one side insisting that violent juveniles can be rehabilitated, the other side stating that returning these youths to society, at any time, would place innocent people at risk.

The comments following the article excerpted below paint a clear portrait of how deeply divisive the issue of violent teens is.

“According to a new report produced by the Equal Justice Initiative (a non-profit group dedicated to helping prisoners denied fair treatment by the system), American prisons are home to 73 inmates locked up for life for crimes they committed when they were 13 or 14. Bump that age limit up three years and we have 2,225 prisoners locked up for the rest of their lives for crimes they committed when they were 17 or younger.

These crimes aren’t minor — and the nature of our violent culture is an entirely different story — but some of the children confess under duress or, worse yet, are developmentally disabled. They languish in lockdown, without hope.

But are they proof that these children can’t be rehabilitated, that they can’t benefit from help and that they are beyond redemption?”
(source)

The juvenile offender in Cicero will be making their acquaintance with the type of discipline that resembles what is meted out in boot camps.

Next time a Cicero youth is caught vandalizing property, carrying illegal drugs or tagging a home with graffiti, police may tell the child to drop and give them 20.

The town approved an ordinance at its Tuesday board meeting that creates a police-administered “boot camp” where non-violent juvenile offenders could be sent for rehabilitation.

“Hopefully boot camp will put a little fear into them as to what is expected of them in society,” said Rolando Hernandez, deputy superintendent of internal affairs with the Cicero Police Department. “It’s a great idea and … will be a good program for the town.”

Teens will be presented with 50 hours of boot camp type drilling and instruction, divided up into several four hour Saturday sessions. Included will be mentoring, anger management classes as well as two hours of intense physical training.

It is hoped such intervention will deter the teens at risk from involvement in teen age drug abuse or other criminal activities in the future, as well as give them a tie to the community by applying some of that intense physical labor towards town clean up and other volunteer work.

“Police and court hearing officers can suggest the boot camp, on a case by case basis, to youth found in violation of administrative ordinances. Schools and parents can also recommend a child’s participation in the program, Hernandez said.”

(source)