Juvenile Detention Center Effects on Futures of At-Risk Youth by Jennifer L. Turner MS, Walden University, 2014 BS, University of Maryland University College, 2011 Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Forensic Psychology Walden University August 2019 Many juvenile offenders return to the justice system after serving their incarceration sentences. Detaining youth has a negative impact on their mental health, education, employment, and ability to secede from a criminogenic life course. Identifying detention center effects on youths' futures can provide further insight on why the current approach does not successfully deter youth from secondary delinquency. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore future effects on incarcerated youth. A qualitative research design using a phenomenological paradigm was used to investigate study constructs. Labeling and social learning theories served as theoretical frameworks. Labeling theory was used to describe impact on youth after they receive a label of juvenile delinquent. Conceptualization on learned criminal behaviors in incarceration environments was made using social learning theory. Data was collected from personnel directly involved with juvenile incarceration, release, and rehabilitation. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were used for data collection. Coding software, bracketing, and concept mapping were implemented for data analysis. Detention centers attribute to a decrease in abilities required for youth to become functioning society members. Implications for social change include enhancing knowledge for professionals working to rehabilitate juveniles in effort to increases ability for future success. Participants specifically noted a lack of collaboration and understanding on how to implement evidenced-based practices into juvenile offender rehabilitation. Collaboration between the JJS, detention center staff, parents, and community programs is necessary to address this social problem.

BACKGROUND:  This is an ethnographic study of two communities coming together to serve at-risk youth in St. Augustine, Florida. Compassionate St Augustine (CSA) is a non-profit organization grounded in the Golden Rule that promotes compassion-based practices in schools, businesses, faith communities, and government. The Youth Academy is a high-risk residential juvenile facility housing 70 boys between the ages of 13 and 19. The two joined forces to bring opportunity, healing and hope to these boys and over the last two years, CSA has had over 30 ongoing classes, programs, events and workshops at the academy – teaching everything from Qi Gong to how to properly butter your bread. AIM: My overall aim is to study spiritual activism to inspire action and create a shift in collective consciousness. In this specific setting, I examined what spiritual and/or humanistic factors motivate transformation, what impact happens from the spiritual activism and how does it change the future? THEORY: I examine these questions through the lens of spiritual activism, using ethnographic social science theory. In ethnography, it is important to present a full picture, to use description and quotations. It was important to me to give these at-risk young men their voice, to share their quotes and the pictures they took to give insight into their lives. After the inductive study of ethnography, I applied a deductive study to my observations through a framework of existential health theory, thus doing an abductive study of the spiritual activism and its impact.   METHOD: I spent five weeks doing participatory observation in classes, meetings and events. I conducted semi-structured interviews with students, activists and staff. The boys also participated in Photovoice, taking pictures to show aspects of their life and transformation.     RESULTS: I found the program components of meditation & Alternatives to Violence Program, music, art & etiquette, compassion & service and restoring health equity & social justice created changes the existential health dimensions of these young men. They received tools to transform their current life and their futures.        CONCLUSION: The goal of the CSA program at the Youth Academy is to help change the mindset of the young men and improve their quality of life. The overall goal of spiritual activism is to create an individual transformation in hearts and minds in order to create a collective consciousness shift in worldview. Both involve changing people existentially – changing how a person relates to themselves, to each other, to the world and to life. How we relate to existence determines how we define existence. CSA is helping to fulfill the Youth Academy’s vision of offering these underprivileged young men a true academy – a learning environment filled with opportunities for growth, exploration and healing that will give these boys a new chance to define who they are from a place of wholeness. They are a clear example that restorative justice is what is needed to help heal these young men, to help bring more social justice to society in general and to bring health equity to future generations.

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<p>This study examined three schools / namely a Public, Ex model C, and a Youth juvenile rehabilitation school. A non-experimental survey design was used for this study. The sample consisted of 47 educators across the three types of schools. Data was collected by means of two instruments: a demographic questionnaire, and the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) consisting of three subscales namely / Emotional Exhaustion, Depersonalization, and Diminished Personal Accomplishment. It was hypothesised that due to the stressful nature of work in disadvantaged and resource lacking schools, as well as the unstable and unsafe environment in certain schools, burnout among educators in Public and Youth juvenile rehabilitation schools will have a higher prevalence rate than educators in Ex model C schools. The study also aimed to identify which various educator demographic variables correlate with high burnout levels. Correlational results of the study found no significant relationships between the three subscales of the MBI and certain educator demographic variables across the three types of schools. The results of an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) test revealed a borderline non-significant difference in the Emotional Exhaustion subscale between the Youth juvenile rehabilitation school and Public schools. Post Hoc comparison tests suggested Public school educators in the sample had the highest levels of burnout in terms of Emotional Exhaustion across the three types of schools, while educators in the Youth juvenile rehabilitation schools showed the lowest levels of burnout in terms of Emotional exhaustion. The results of the present study were discussed from the perspective of the Conservation of Resources theory, suggesting resource depletion as a central facet to burnout and how prolonged stress leads to burnout. Future qualitative studies exploring the etiology of burnout was thus recommended.</p>

<p>This study examined three schools / namely a Public, Ex model C, and a Youth juvenile rehabilitation school. A non-experimental survey design was used for this study. The sample consisted of 47 educators across the three types of schools. Data was collected by means of two instruments: a demographic questionnaire, and the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) consisting of three subscales namely / Emotional Exhaustion, Depersonalization, and Diminished Personal Accomplishment. It was hypothesised that due to the stressful nature of work in disadvantaged and resource lacking schools, as well as the unstable and unsafe environment in certain schools, burnout among educators in Public and Youth juvenile rehabilitation schools will have a higher prevalence rate than educators in Ex model C schools. The study also aimed to identify which various educator demographic variables correlate with high burnout levels. Correlational results of the study found no significant relationships between the three subscales of the MBI and certain educator demographic variables across the three types of schools. The results of an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) test revealed a borderline non-significant difference in the Emotional Exhaustion subscale between the Youth juvenile rehabilitation school and Public schools. Post Hoc comparison tests suggested Public school educators in the sample had the highest levels of burnout in terms of Emotional Exhaustion across the three types of schools, while educators in the Youth juvenile rehabilitation schools showed the lowest levels of burnout in terms of Emotional exhaustion. The results of the present study were discussed from the perspective of the Conservation of Resources theory, suggesting resource depletion as a central facet to burnout and how prolonged stress leads to burnout. Future qualitative studies exploring the etiology of burnout was thus recommended.</p>

Magister Psychologiae - MPsych / This study examined three schools; namely a Public, Ex model C, and a Youth juvenile rehabilitation school. A non-experimental survey design was used for this study. The sample consisted of 47 educators across the three types of schools. Data was collected by means of two instruments: a demographic questionnaire, and the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) consisting of three subscales namely; Emotional Exhaustion, Depersonalization, and Diminished Personal Accomplishment. It was hypothesised that due to the stressful nature of work in disadvantaged and resource lacking schools, as well as the unstable and unsafe environment in certain schools, burnout among educators in Public and Youth juvenile rehabilitation schools will have a higher prevalence rate than educators in Ex model C schools. The study also aimed to identify which various educator demographic variables correlate with high burnout levels. Correlational results of the study found no significant relationships between the three subscales of the MBI and certain educator demographic variables across the three types of schools. The results of an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) test revealed a borderline non-significant difference in the Emotional Exhaustion subscale between the Youth juvenile rehabilitation school and Public schools. Post Hoc comparison tests suggested Public school educators in the sample had the highest levels of burnout in terms of Emotional Exhaustion across the three types of schools, while educators in the Youth juvenile rehabilitation schools showed the lowest levels of burnout in terms of Emotional exhaustion. The results of the present study were discussed from the perspective of the Conservation of Resources theory, suggesting resource depletion as a central facet to burnout and how prolonged stress leads to burnout. Future qualitative studies exploring the etiology of burnout was thus recommended. / South Africa