Pros And Cons Of Community Treatment Programs For Juvenile Offenders

There are pros and cons to community treatment programs of juvenile offenders. Personally, I would not want a juvenile treatment program in my neighborhood, and here are a few reasons why.
I have witnessed in my time as a law enforcement professional juvenile treatment programs help some of our troubled youth. However, the treatment program the juvenile offender is attending, must offer something to the juvenile offender in the means of rehabilitation and teaching life lessons. For instance, a ropes course is a program we have used here in Muskogee with our youth. The ropes course is designed to take someone out of their own personal comfort zone and to begin to build trust between the police and the offender. This program has benefited a portion of our youth who were willing to cooperate and take the program serious. There is another portion of the youth who

Treatment facilities have a limited staff and resources to appropriately monitor the juvenile offenders. The juvenile offenders commonly placed into the treatment facilities, are there due to running away from home, delinquent youth, and youth who have suffered trauma bonds and are acting out because of it. In my experience, we have two juvenile facilities that are shorthanded on staff and unable to properly monitor the youthful offenders. This leads to the juvenile offenders fleeing from the facility and hiding out until they are caught and returned.
My main reason for not wanting such a program in my neighborhood, is the increased risk it puts my family in by having youthful offenders in my neighborhood, as opposed to having them at a non-residential location. If such a program were in my neighborhood, I would be concerned with allowing my 10 and 11 year old children play outside, unmonitored, and safety precautions would have to be