Offenses committed by juvenile offenders are quite common. In the case provided, a young boy, Tony, is involved in drug abuse, which resulted in a commission of traffic offense. After analysis by the juvenile officer, it was noted that Tony is addicted to alcohol and bang as it is not the first time he has used them. Due to his tender age, the boy should be treated differently from adult offenders.
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The most appropriate are the drug treatment programs. In these programs, the patients are put under care for about a year or so (Brezina & Agnew, 2015). For Tony, the integrated treatment model would be beneficial. For the residential treatment model, Tony would be engaged in a supportive therapeutic relationship and be encouraged to replace the bad behaviors with pro-social ones (James et al., 2013). The facilitators help the young people to draw appropriate conclusions and come up with solutions. Some of these skills include; mindfulness skills, emotional regulation skills, distress regulation skills, moral reasoning skills and social skills (Brezina & Agnew, 2015). The moral reasoning skills would assist him to arrive at concrete and mature decisions.
Functional family parole focuses on the creation of good environments within the family where the youth resides (James et al., 2013). The program officers would work with the entire family and point to them the roles they have played in the boy’s behavior and the roles they need to play in the treatment process. When the entire family is focused, Tony will recover without difficulties.
Another program that could help Tony is the adolescent community reinforcement approach. This program helps young adults with substance abuse problems (James et al., 2013). In these programs, victims are provided with an adult who listens and advises them (Brezina & Agnew, 2015). As the mentors interact with the youths, they teach them how to make the right choices in their lives, identify their unique talents and utilize them to change their behaviors.
In the treatment program, Tony’s parents should be incorporated. This is because their behavior of substance abuse has influenced the boy’s behavior. If Tony is forced to live away from home, when he returns home he might go back to drug abuse.
Some of the addiction recovery programs include:
- Alcoholics Anonymous: This is where people with alcoholism problems assemble and share their experiences and give hope to one another. They encourage and help each other to recover.
- Narcotics Anonymous: This is a program that encourages all kinds of drug abstinence. People who are recovering from drug abuse meet and encourage one another.
- Rational Recovery: This is a program that is tailored to help people with drug abuse problems to recover on their own. Counseling materials and instructions on how to stop addiction are printed and given to victims.
These recovery programs apply techniques that are explained by assimilation theory that was proposed by Ausubel. The theory focuses on meaningful learning. This theory incorporates the cognitive and affective techniques. According to this theory, meaningful learning, learning is related to prior experiences, information is retained for long, and the lessons are used to solve problems (Novak, 2015).
- Brezina, T., & Agnew, R. (2015). Juvenile delinquency. The Handbook of Deviance, 313.
- James, C., Stams, G. J. J., Asscher, J. J., De Roo, A. K., & van der Laan, P. H. (2013). Aftercare programs for reducing recidivism among juvenile and young adult offenders: A meta-analytic review. Clinical Psychology Review, 33(2), 263-274.
- Novak, J. D. (2015). Ausubelian Theory of Learning. In Encyclopedia of Science Education (pp. 104-111). Springer Netherlands.