Corrections Telecommunication and Technology
F. Warren Benton, Ph.D.
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Correctional programs for juveniles are a very important part of the justice
system, because of their potential effect on the youth of today and the
citizens of tomorrow. Many juvenile justice programs, especially those at the
local level associated with family courts, are integrated with related social
service and education programs designed to help troubled youth. This makes
sense because children in trouble with the law frequently have related
problems with their families, schools, and communities.
This column reviews sources of information on the internet about juvenile
justice.
ERIC, the Education Resources Information Center is a federally funded information network for
access to education literature. At their web site, you get access to the
largest education database in the world, including more than 850,000 records
of journal articles, research reports, curriculum and teaching guides,
conference papers, and books. Their focus is on education, not juvenile
delinquency or juvenile justice.
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) is the
federal center for juvenile justice programs. Their site concentrates on their own
programs, grant programs, and training initiatives. A particularly interesting
site is OJJDP's Comprehensive Strategy initiative. The top page is a
general presentation of a strategy for "preventing youth from becoming
delinquent by focusing prevention programs on at-risk youth and improving the
juvenile justice system response to delinquent offenders through a system of
graduated sanctions and a continuum of treatment alternatives." The strategy
is then structured according to objectives, and within each objective
resources are presented including internet links, listings of publications,
and program model examples. The site illustrates a clever use of the hypertext
concept to explain a policy initiative.
OJJDP also maintains an interesting journal, Juvenile Justice, published
electronically at Juvenile Justice (for
the December 1997 issue). Other issues are also online, but I could not locate
a general index. This is a journal that needs a home page!
The Council of Juvenile Correctional Administrators maintains the Juvenile
Information Network. This
site has the potential to become a central resource. It includes a bulletin
board that could be used for some interesting cyberspace discussion about
emerging policy issues. However, at this time it lacks participants, and their
index of links could be expanded.
The National Criminal Justice Reference Service maintains a web site with
online publications about juvenile justice.
These are more than 30 full-text publications in several formats, covering a
wide range of current issues.
Finally, a site with a legal focus, the ABA Juvenile Justice Center is
maintained by the American Bar Association. The most interesting and
timely part of this site is the federal and state legislative updates. They
are revised monthly, and follow political and legislative initiatives in
juvenile justice.
Another problem is that many juvenile justice agencies are part of overall
state correctional agencies. Their parent agencies may have web sites, but the
part of the site that deals with juvenile justice is not listed separately.
Other sites relate to general children's services programs such as adoption or
welfare, not related to traditional correctional functions. The following is a list of the agencies that I could find.
The best state site I found is the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice.
However, I am not ready to give it a "Five-Star Award" because the site needs
some top-level work to pull together the internet resources that are available
for juvenile justice in Florida. This site's problems illustrate the missed
opportunities that are typical for juvenile justice web sites generally:
Despite these criticisms, Florida's site is ahead of the pack. While juvenile
justice agencies are often leading innovators, with respect to the internet,
juvenile justice is far behind adult corrections. Most of the sites are
general agency descriptions, lacking the management and communication features
of the best adult sites, and failing to take advantage of obvious links to
other internet resources within their states. I hope that some constructive
criticism will challenge juvenile justice professionals to achieve in
cyberspace the same level of professional excellence that they maintain in the
operation of their programs and services for youth.
Juvenile Justice on the Internet
by F. Warren Benton, Ph.D.
Copyright Corrections Managers' Report, April/May 1998
The Big Picture: Schools, Families, and Communities
A useful set of internet links related to juvenile justice should start with
the big picture, general child welfare-oriented sites.
The goal of the Children's Defense Fund (CDF) is to "educate the nation about
the needs of children and encourage preventive investment in children before
they get sick, drop out of school, suffer family breakdown, or get into
trouble." The CDF maintains Links for Child Advocates. This site includes links to
related organizations concerned about children, as well as sources of data,
and other resources.
Narrowing in on Juvenile Justice
A site that provides more focus on juvenile delinquency and juvenile justice
is maintained by Professor Cecil Greek of Florida State University, at
Cecil Greek's Juvenile Justice Links. This site includes
listings on topics such as "school crime" and "gangs" and "truancy."
State Agencies: Where Are You?
I normally expect to find excellent resources within the sites maintained by
state agencies. However, juvenile justice agencies are hard to
find on the internet. There is no comprehensive and well-maintained listing of
agencies. Probably the best effort is by the Council of Juvenile
Correctional Administrators, called the Juvenile Information Network. However, their listing is not
up to date.