Psychologist Role In Juvenile Detention

Running Head : Juvenile Detention

Juvenile Detention

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Juvenile Detention

Certainly there is no more central question in this study and probably more difficult to answer . Yet it is important to see the nature of detention as clearly as possible and to understand the problems that have impeded efforts at definition . It is important , because on the interpretation of the term depend all those vital differences which set off the juvenile delinquent from the adult criminal at the one

extreme and from the non-offender at the other . In theory at least and , to a large degree , in fact , the delinquent child is dealt with differently from the criminal : in the conduct involved the court and its methods employed the treatment philosophy , purposes , and methods applied and in the individual 's status , reputation , and civil rights in the community after adjudication

No less significant but far more difficult is the distinction between the delinquent and the individual who has no conflict with the law Official detention usually implies involvement with the police detention , court handling , damaging associations , semipunitive correctional treatment , and a role and stigma that are ineradicably injurious--notwithstanding all the idyllic euphemisms to the contrary that embellish the literature on "rehabilitative therapy " One must decide to whom these measures need to be applied and also who , in the name of justice , should be exempt from them . Incidentally , the student of the problem would like to know what phenomenon it is that he studies its frequency , what is being done about it , and what should be done about it . It is a major thesis of the present work that , to a considerable extent , ineffective dealing with young deviants arises from the failure to determine and classify their problems and then to apply treatment that is appropriate to such careful classification

If we examine the enormous number and variety of studies that have been made of detention during the past three decades--and we have virtually been deluged with every conceivable type of study during this period--we find that either implicitly or explicitly the point of view which has just been stated is attaining recognition . Psychiatrists are not as prone , however , to recognize what has become evident as a commonplace fact to social scientists and social psychologists . We still find that psychiatrists , particularly those of the Freudian school , are apt to regard maladjustments as principally organically derived and to assume a generic or universal quality for all children , regardless of social class , or ethnic , economic , and cultural background . The way in which the concept of rejection is universally treated by psychiatrists is a case in point . There are as many varieties of rejection , all with differing impact , as there are differently structured and organized family types

What most of these studies have attempted to do is to examine concomitant or associated factors recurring either in detention in general or in some one of its specialized types . Very few of the studies...