Capstone Summary

Philadelphia Prison System

As we all know, the incarceration of youthful offenders charged as adults has become an increasing and disturbing trend across the nation and within the city of Philadelphia. While this has been the case, we have not been adequately prepared to provide these youth evidenced based rehabilitative interventions while they are in our custody. The problem I am currently addressing regarding youth in custody within the Philadelphia Prisons System (PPS) is the currently utilized assessment tool (Unified Assessment Form). Though this tool has enabled appropriate assessment of our adult offenders, it does not adequately assess juvenile-specific issues or provide a means by which treatment interventions can subsequently be designed and implemented. Should this occur, it has the potential to increase our capacity to contribute to the rehabilitation of our youth and reduce their likelihood to continue delinquent behaviors in the future.

Conducting proper assessment is necessary in identifying factors that drive youthful offenders to offend and/or reoffend. At this time here at the PPS we are currently researching various assessment/screening tools that could be implemented as a means to assess whether a youth is at relatively low, moderate or high risk for reoffending. The PPS is in need of an accurate assessment tool that targets interventions to reduce the likelihood of reoffending. The PPS implementation of a juvenile-specific assessment tool could provide a standardized method of collecting relevant and important data for our youthful offenders.

The first step we will be taking is to research and identify a workable assessment tool that adequately addresses juvenile-specific issues.We will also continue building our collaboration with Youth Sentencing & Reentry Project which is a non-profit organization which addresses issues of sentencing, treatment & reentry. Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church Mentoring Program which is a faith based program that addresses the needs of mentoring and tutoring for at risk youth who are in out of home arrangements.

“The National Center for Juvenile Justice (NCJJ and the American Prosecutors Research Institute (APRI) embarked on two separate, but closely linked, initiatives to advance the cause of performance measures for juvenile justice. NCJJ, with direction and funding from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD), developed a set of outcome measures and a data collection strategy designed to measure Pennsylvania’s system of balanced and restorative justice for juveniles, APRI, with funding from OJJDP, built on performance measures development initiative in Pennsylvania”.

The PPS will integrate Performance Measurement for productivity, effectiveness, quality, and timeless for each project incorporated. Our inputs will be to effectively provide training for our front line staff to help monitor recidivism rate, the level of offense with understanding performance measures; as well as to create processes that will give families the opportunity to have a voice at our table.

Success in this regard will help the PPS identify areas of need among many of the youth in our system. Once the assessment tool is implemented well, it can suggest effective treatment interventions for this special population as well as produce outcome measures that gauge intervention effectiveness. Most importantly, it can enable and assist in our overarching goal of helping to rehabilitate the youth in our care.

Reference

Thomas, D (2006) How Does the Juvenile Justice System Measure Up? National Center for Juvenile Justice