An Empirical Portrait of the Youth Reentry Population

• Author: Howard N. Snyder
• Published date: 01 January 2004
• Date: 01 January 2004
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1541204003260046
• Subject Matter: Journal Article

10.1177/1541204003260046ARTICLEYouth Violence and Juvenile JusticeSnyder / AN EMPIRICAL PORTRAIT

AN EMPIRICAL PORTRAIT OF THE

YOUTH REENTRY POPULATION

Howard N. Snyder

National Center for Juvenile Justice

Nearly 100,000 juvenile offenders are released annually from custody facilities

following adjudication or conviction, arguably all candidates for reentry programs.

Their numbers increased substantially over the 1990s. These youth have spent a great

proportion of their teenage years in custody. Most are male, minority, and nonviolent

offenders. About half lived primarily in a single-parent family while growing up. About

one fourth has a sibling, and about one fourth has a father who has been incarcerated.

Most have not completed 8th grade, compared to one fourth of similarly aged youth in

the U.S. population. Excluding alcohol, two thirds report regular drug use. Two thirds

of committed males have a mental health disorder and the rate is higher for females. The

article concludes that the justice system cannot rely on others to provide the needed

services if it ever hopes to control its own workload and reduce the problems caused by

these youth.

Keywords: reentry; juvenile corrections; juvenile justice system; aftercare; juveniles

in custody

Reentry is all the rage these days, but no one has the foggiest idea about the number

and characteristics of youth who could benefit from reentry programs. This article attempts

to add an empirical foundation to the discussion by highlighting some basic conceptual

issues involved in defining the youth reentry population and presenting from available data

estimates of the magnitude and characteristics of those youth who reenter society from

some type of secure confinement. The article also discusses the need to provide reentry

services to more youth than those released from secure confinement (e.g., foster care).

The primary focus of this work is on juveniles returning to the community from

placements within the juvenile justice system. An argument could be made for a more

expansive definition of youth that would include all young adults released from adult

institutions in the definition of the youth reentry population. The volume of these potential

youth reentry candidates from adult facilities is high: Approximately 445,600 persons

entered state parole in 1999 and about 73,000 (or 16.4% of all new paroles in 1999) were

39

Author’s Note: This work was supported in part by the National Juvenile Justice Data Analysis Project, a

cooperative agreement (#1999-JN-FX-K002) between the National Center for Juvenile Justice and the Office of

Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Points of

view or opinions expressed in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official

position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, Vol. 2 No. 1, January 2004 39-55

DOI: 10.1177/1541204003260046

© 2004 Sage Publications

younger than age 25 (Hughes & Wilson, 2003). These young adults may share many of the

same problems of older juveniles and may have many of their same needs. However, this

article limits its focus to the reentry population that is the primary responsibility of the

juvenile justice system. An investigation into the characteristics of the young adult entry

population will have to wait.

Conceptual Issues

Before developing an empirical portrait of the youth reentry population, one must

first consider who should be the candidates for these programs. Most would agree that the

prototypic juvenile candidate is a youth adjudicated (or convicted) of a violent crime who is

being released from a commitment (or incarceration) facility after a relatively long stay.

These youth are unambiguous targets of reentry efforts for two reasons. As a result of their

actions (or more directly as an inference from the decision to commit), they have been

judged a threat to public safety and they are likely to be unable (or unwilling) to thrive when

they return to their home communities. It is also assumed that their inability to function

successfully in their home communities may have been aggravated by their relatively long

stays in a commitment environment. So the question before us is, “Beyond the prototypic

candidate, should juvenile reentry programs cast a wider net—or, more specifically, should

other youth leaving long-term facilities be given reentry services?”

Consider the two criteria noted above (i.e., public safety and reentry deficits). Youth

other than officially recognized violent offenders are a threat to public safety. It is well

documented that juvenile offending behavior is a little specialization overlaid on a great

deal of offense versatility (Farrington, Snyder, & Finnegan, 1988; Klein, 1984; Snyder,

1988). Therefore, most nonviolent chronic juvenile offenders have the potential to commit

a violent act given sufficient time and the proper situation. Most youth in long-term

commitment facilities have gradually stepped their way through the dispositional options

available in the juvenile justice system; it can, therefore, be assumed that most committed

youth are chronic offenders and pose a threat to public safety. But what about the

nonchronic, nonviolent offenders leaving commitment facilities? These youth were

committed because their problems were judged to be so great or their threat to public safety

(or their own safety) so high that less restrictive options were considered to be inadequate.

So it is fair to consider these nonchronic, nonviolent committed offenders also to be

juvenile reentry candidates. In all, then, an argument can be made that all youth for whom

the justice system has determined there to be a need for a relatively long period of

confinement are candidates for reentry services.

The exact period of confinement needed to elevate a youth to reentry candidacy is

hard to operationalize. Many youth in the juvenile justice system experience some form of

short-term incarceration that on its own is not normally viewed as indicating and/or

increasing a youth’s need for reentry services: a few hours in a police lockup; a few days in a

local detention center awaiting an adjudicatory hearing; or a few weeks in a diagnostic and

evaluation center following an adjudication and disposition ordering commitment to a state

juvenile justice agency (which may or may not lead to long-term commitment). Also, the

actual place of confinement seems irrelevant when determining reentry needs; in many

ways, 6 months in the state’s juvenile training school is indistinguishable from 6 months in

an urban detention center awaiting trial. Although the reentry criterion is generally linked

with time (e.g., 1 year), conceptually the criterion should not be simply time in placement

40 Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice