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Key points
- Juvenile offenders may believe they have nothing of significance to change about themselves.
- Juvenile offenders often portray themselves as the victims.
- Those who work with juvenile offenders may find themselves on the defensive and start to doubt themselves.
Three men who recently were running for attorney general of Washington, D.C., pledged to reduce juvenile crime and emphasized the importance of rehabilitation. These candidates urged that, whenever possible, instead of sending juveniles to detention, they should receive mental health services and drug counseling.
The candidates’ position would not appear controversial. However, as anyone who has actually worked in a juvenile detention center or directly provided community counseling to delinquent youths knows, it is far easier to espouse these objectives than it is to actually work with boys and girls who resist counseling or treatment with every fiber of their being. Characteristically, juvenile offenders flatly state that there is nothing they need to change about themselves.
Taking Responsibility
Working with offenders requires that they eventually take responsibility for their behavior. This entails more than a mere acknowledgment that they did something that resulted in their apprehension. Their chief regret is being caught, not for committing the offense.
Youthful repeat offenders lack empathy and have only the most basic concept of injury. They regard themselves as the injured party. I recall one teenager saying, “I know the guy missed his stuff. But I am the one who has to do the time.” Even if a youngster chooses to acknowledge that he has disappointed and hurt his parents or someone else, he likely will continue to do so. Momentary regret over consequences is not the same as experiencing remorse.
A mental health practitioner is likely to hear his youthful client lament how unfairly he is being treated. These boys and girls seethe with anger at a world that does not meet their unrealistic expectations and confirm their inflated opinion of themselves. They pour out their grievances toward parents, teachers, and peers, and denounce others who thwart their plans.
Juvenile offenders have many ways of attempting to minimize culpability. They assert that they are misunderstood and unfairly blamed. They claim others misled them, they did not know what they were getting into, they were defending themselves, or they encountered something that they didn’t anticipate. Overall, their approach is to feed evaluators or therapists whatever they think will satisfy them.
Juvenile offenders can be masters of diversion. They alight on a topic that they think will grab the interest of the evaluator or counselor in order to avoid a topic that they find disagreeable. Henry* persistently spoke to me about his “abusive” father whom he said never listened and did not care about him. The facts were that while his mother worked full time, his father assumed responsibility for supervising him. Henry lied, destroyed property in the house when he didn’t get his way, refused to do homework, and threatened to physically harm people whom he thought had betrayed him. Henry persistently shifted the focus from his behavior to the alleged shortcomings of his father. (In contrast, his brother was not difficult to manage and had an excellent relationship with their father.) My contacts with the father showed him to be nothing like the tyrant that Henry described. Instead, he came across as a mild-mannered, forgiving man who despaired over the path Henry was taking as he skipped school, hung out with kids who were getting into trouble, and ignored attempts to help him consider the potential consequences of his behavior.
The juvenile offender has contempt for the mental health professional unless he senses that the person can “help,” by which he means extricate him from an unpleasant situation. Clark implored me to convince his parents not to send him to a boarding school. To avoid that dreaded possibility, he promised to behave like “a heaven-sent angel” and attend counseling (which he had refused to participate in previously). Like Clark, juvenile offenders have an agenda—to pursue a favorable disposition from the court, persuade their parents to be more lenient, or influence school personnel not to expel them. If the evaluator or counselor indicates that he will not be used for such purposes, he becomes an adversary, someone to overcome.
The juvenile offender deploys a barrage of well-practiced tactics that are intended to keep others in the dark. Vagueness is one. Fog seems to fill the room as the offender responds to very specific questions with “I don’t know,” “Maybe,” “In a sense,” and “You could say that.” Another powerful tactic is refusing to speak. By shutting down, the juvenile avoids incriminating himself. However, silence may have a broader purpose as a control tactic. If he doesn’t talk, the interaction grinds to a halt.
The juvenile offender tailors his behavior to the circumstances. Daniel was referred to me by his probation order. This 14-year-old school truant had been charged with possession and distribution of marijuana and had vandalized property. He was totally unmanageable at home. Getting Daniel to talk was not difficult. He would plop down into a chair and chatter about his parents, especially his mother whom he portrayed as harsh, clueless, interfering, and overprotective. My attempts to get him to discuss what might have prompted his mother to behave as she did were rebuffed. “You don’t understand,” Daniel told me over and over. Accusing others of a “misunderstanding” is another tactic of youths like Daniel. It shifts the focus from what the youngster actually did to the interviewer’s “confusion.” From interviewing his mother, I learned what she and her husband were coping with while raising two other children. She was so fearful that she took her purse to bed to avoid Daniel’s pilfering her money. She was worn down by daily battles over going to school. His mother commented that she would have to hire a detective to know where her son was. When she grounded Daniel, he would ignore her and leave the house.
Daniel did not fight with his mother over attending appointments with me. Once our meetings began, he treated them as though he were playing a game with the objective of deceiving me or getting me off track. One day, I received a phone call from his mother who reported, “Daniel is in the juvenile detention center. I think you will find he now has a different attitude.”
Daniel had seen no reason to change anything about himself. His “problem” was other people. In detention, he had lots of time to think. Daniel said somberly to me, “You were right. Can you help me stay fed up with myself?” (He was repeating a phrase I had used during office visits.) As it turned out, he wanted to do whatever he wanted but not get caught. He commented that going to school, doing homework, and doing what his parents wanted was “like being a dog on a leash.” Faced with the possibility of losing his freedom, he grudgingly acknowledged that he needed to make changes, but he was uncertain as to what they were.
Amenability to Change
Vulnerability or amenability to change may occur when a boy or girl is facing immediate consequences of his or her behavior or fears that worse consequences lie ahead. Even then, it is a formidable task to engage a juvenile offender in the process of change. More than likely, what he wants to change is to be more careful so he does not get caught in the future. Unlike an adult offender who has been in and out of courtrooms and detention facilities, he has not suffered enough consequences to arrive at a point where he believes that he needs to change anything.
The scope of the task of change is far more than abstaining from crime. It entails helping a boy or girl learn to think in a different manner so that he or she eliminates thinking errors that are already ingrained.
A man or woman who engages in “rehabilitating” juvenile offenders must develop a clear understanding not only of what the “rehabilitation” mission entails for the offender but also what will be required of him or her. A counselor will find himself tested again and again. Even if he is not physically threatened, his integrity will be assailed. His view of human nature and his very sense of who he is will be challenged repeatedly. Even with community support and adequate financial resources, a man or woman who experiences this difficult undertaking may feel as though he or she is trying to catch a tidal wave with a bucket.
It is essential for a person entering the field to be aware of the above, not to discourage him but to help him approach his work realistically.
*To preserve confidentiality, the names have been changed.
References
"District's AG Candidates," Washington Jewish Week, June 9, 2022, p. 9
