Indicator: 51 - Youth Success After Leaving Juvenile Justice
System
Why This Is Important
Families, young people and the professionals and volunteers who
work in the juvenile justice system all hope that young people who
enter that system do not become repeat offenders. Committing a repeat
offense increases the odds that youth will also experience other
negative outcomes and injure the quality of life in their community.
Where We Stand
States use various definitions of "recidivism" (the tendency
to repeat criminal behavior). The definition used by Maine's Department
of Corrections (MDOC) is "the proportion of juveniles who have
been adjudicated for the first time, who are adjudicated of a second
offense during supervision or within one year of release from MDOC
supervision." Youth who are rearrested but not re-adjudicated
are not considered recidivists. MDOC uses the one-year time frame
because it is unlikely to have any influence over a youth who has
been released from its supervision for more than 12 months.
Using this definition of recidivism, the 574 youth aged 10 to 18
who were first adjudicated in calendar 1998 for a juvenile crime
had an initial recidivism rate of 28% as of January 1, 2001. Since
relatively few of the youth adjudicated in 1998 had been released
from MDOC supervision by the time of the Department's initial report,
the recidivism rate for youth first adjudicated in 1998 will likely
rise further over time as more of those youth leave state supervision.
The initial MDOC report on youth recidivism also provides other
basic information on the youth who were first adjudicated in 1998.
Over four-fifths (81%) were male. Almost all (90%) were white, with
just over 1% from various minorities, and 9% of unknown race. About
four-fifths (78%) were between 14 and 17 years of age. Just over
three-fifths (61%) were adjudicated for property offenses, and 3%
for drug offenses. Nearly half (46%) were prosecuted for misdemeanors,
29% for felonies, and 25% for crimes of undetermined severity.
Data Source and Context
In 2001, the Department launched a new statewide recidivism database
for juveniles under its supervision. Initial data from this source
(described briefly above) was released in the Department's 1998
Juvenile Recidivism Baseline Report, the first in a series of
annual reports that will examine juvenile recidivism data in Maine.
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