| Spring 2006 |
Volume
12 No.1
|
| Introducing Community Service Learning |
| Spring 2006 |
Volume
12 No.1
|
| Introducing Community Service Learning |
|
Introducing Community
Service Learning
This innovative, new juvenile-justice approach applies principles of school-based service learning, balanced and restorative justice, and law-related education to update and improve traditional, court-ordered, mandatory community service. Charles Degelman Carolyn Pereira Scott B. Peterson Introduction There is much controversy over whether punishment or rehabilitation is more effective at reducing recidivism rates. Societies have always maintained the right to punish people for breaking rules, but, dating back to the 19th century, justice reform advocates have successfully planned and implemented efforts to rehabilitate offenders and reduce recidivism by teaching them to be productive members of society. Mandated community service has raised both interest and controversy regarding its potential to rehabilitate offenders and reduce recidivism. According to the American Bar Association, mandated community service, “requires the respondent to help the community….”[2] This simple definition hides a broad array of interpretations.Mandated community service is prominent in most criminal- and juvenile-justice systems. With mandated community service, the court orders adult or youthful offenders to complete community-service hours. They often refer respondents to community-service agencies to provide and oversee such service assignments. These agencies can include local non-profits and government agencies including park and rec departments, a street-maintenance department, or a social-service agency. Mandated community service addresses a broad array of sentencing needs. Ordering an offender to perform community service might result in reduced fines or probationary periods. Offenders may be given a choice of approved community agencies or ordered by the court to perform certain services or work for certain agencies. For example, a litterer might be assigned to a street-maintenance department to clean roadsides. Other justice practitioners believe that mandated community service is ineffectual for both the offender and the community. They claim that little or no teaching or learning goes on in the process and that any oversight that might provide learning opportunities at community-service agencies is often minimal and difficult to control. In fact, many justice practitioners view mandated community service simply as punishment and see little restorative value in it. Others believe that mandated community service can have value as a rehabilitative sanction. They argue that mandated community service gives offenders a method to “give back” to the community they have harmed and thus has a restorative or rehabilitative effect on offenders, victims, and the community. When properly administered, supporters believe that mandated community service is restorative and demonstrates to the community that the courts can be both humane and effective. Regardless of conflicted opinions about its effectiveness, mandated community service will continue to play a significant role in the American justice system. Given that fact, how can mandated community service be made more effective in (1) providing balanced and restorative justice (BARJ) to offenders, their victims, and the community and (2) in reducing critical recidivism rates? Mandated Community Service and Youth Courts In the last decade, youth courts have grown in popularity in U. S. juvenile justice systems. In 1996 there were about 70 youth courts in the United States. Today, over 1100 are registered with the National Youth Court Center (NYCC).[3] Statistics from the NYCC reveal that 99 percent of all youth courts use community service as a respondent sanction. Youth courts have registered promising drops in recidivism rates when they apply community service as a sentencing option. A national study[4] conducted by the Urban Institute found that youth courts using community service reduced recidivism rates more effectively than did standard sentencing options, e.g., incarceration or probation, used by more traditional juvenile-justice courts. According to the Urban Institute study, several factors may have contributed to reduced youth-court recidivism rates. Youth courts often promote volunteerism, thus more effectively connecting young people to their communities; young people often give more credibility to authority figures who are their peers, as is often the case in youth courts; youth court participants tend to develop problem-solving and decision-making skills, helping them interact positively with adults, their peers, their community, and society as a whole. While the Urban Institute study could not isolate specific factors contributing to reduced recidivism rates in youth courts, the popularity of community service as a youth court sentencing option, combined with significant rate reductions suggest that community service might play a positive role in lowering recidivism rates. The Allegheny County “report card” described on page xxx suggests that even outside of youth courts, mandated community service can help reduce recidivism rates. Given its potential for rehabilitation and reducing recidivism rates in youth courts and other juvenile justice settings, how might mandated community service be made more effective in the juvenile justice system?Community Service Learning Recently, youth courts (and other juvenile-justice programs) have borrowed from educators to refine the theory and practice of mandated community service. Called community service learning (CSL), this justice-oriented, community-service model applies goals, principles, and methodologies of (1) school-based service learning and (2) court-based restorative-justice principles and strategies to court-mandated community service. Educators have long known the value of community service as a learning tool. Service learning is a school-based teaching strategy that links the skills and knowledge students learn in the classroom to issues, needs, or problems they identify in their school or community. A working definition of service learning was written into law in the National and Community Service Trust Act of 1993. This act identified the following elements of service learning:
What is the difference between mandated community service and service learning? If students remove trash and debris from an urban streambed, they are providing a community service. But when students in a science class study the causes and effects of water pollution, remove trash from the streambed, create a plan to share the results of their research and practice with residents of the neighborhood, and develop strategies for reducing local pollution, they are engaging in an educational process as they provide a service, hence, the term service-learning. With service learning applied to the same project, students might learn about water quality and laboratory analysis, develop an understanding of pollution, learn to present science-based issues to the public, and practice communications skills by speaking to residents. It will be even more powerful if they reflect on their personal growth in the context of the project and develop career interests in science, the environment, public policy, or other related areas. In short, service learning combines service with learning in conscious, carefully thought-out ways. Finally, service learning stresses another component that is highly relevant to justice settings—reflection. According to the Service-Learning Clearinghouse, reflection in service learning can be defined as “the use of creative and critical thinking skills to help prepare for, succeed in, and learn from the service experience, and to examine the larger picture and context in which the service occurs.”[5] Reflection in a justice setting can help offenders realize they have vital connections to their community and a useful role to serve within it, thus promoting positive knowledge and skill development, factors that can help reduce recidivism. Reducing Recidivism Recidivism looms as a critical factor for most justice systems. Recidivism fails in its efforts to make the community safer or to rehabilitate offenders, victims, or the community. It indicates failed attempts at rehabilitation and has costly implications for the courts because such failures require that repeat offenders be reprocessed through the justice system. Recidivism is widespread. In a 2002 study of recidivism[6] released by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), 67 percent of inmates released from state prisons in 1994 committed at least one serious new crime within the following three years. This report, a product of the largest recidivism study ever conducted in the United States, revealed that “[t]he younger the prisoner when released, the higher the rate of recidivism.” Eighty percent of underage prisoners were re-arrested, compared to 45.3 percent of prisoners aged 45 or older. A 2006 study[7] released by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) found that 55 percent of convicted juvenile offenders were re-arrested within 12 months of release from incarceration or other court jurisdiction and that the more often a juvenile was re-referred, the higher the percent of youthful recidivists (up to 77 percent). Both juvenile and youth courts have attracted attention in the justice community because—among many other benefits—the use of community service has shown potential to reduce recidivism rates. In a 2003 “report card” released by the Allegheny County Juvenile Court,[8] community-service outcomes registered high success rates. Of 1485 total cases closed in Pittsburgh’s Allegheny County, 1028 (69 percent) of young offenders were ordered to complete a community service sanction; 97 percent of them successfully completed their obligations. Perhaps most significant, 87 percent of these offenders did not recidivate while under the court’s supervision. The Civic Mission of Schools A second, school-based model has potential to reduce
recidivism by
reintegrating offenders back into society. Called the Civic Mission of
Schools,[9]
this research-driven educational model recognizes that individuals do
not
automatically become responsible citizens; they must be educated for
citizenship. Community service is featured as one of six basic
recommendations made by the Civic Mission of Schools. It suggests that schools and, by proxy, juvenile-justice groups,
can help develop competent and responsible citizens by providing
opportunities
for community service that allow participants to engage in meaningful
work to
address real community needs and reflect upon their activities. Introducing Community Service Learning (cont'd) Origins In 2002, Youth Service America (YSA) convened “The Working Group on National and Community Service.”[10] The group, comprised of professionals and practitioners from justice systems, schools, non-profits, community groups, and religious centers gathered to determine if court-mandated community service can serve as an effective rehabilitation tool for youth. Through discussion, presentations, and reports, the YSA working group determined that mandated community service can be viewed as either educational or punitive. Punitive models, they posited, tend to focus on correcting a wrong someone has committed. Educational models tend to explore how the act affected victims, the community, and the offender, enabling young people to grasp the consequences of misbehavior. They also found that educational community-service models tend to provide offenders with opportunities to “give back” to those most impacted by crime—their victims and the community at large. Conversely, they found that mandated community service, as it is described and implemented by many justice systems was more closely aligned with the punitive model than it was with the educational model. They argued that the punitive implications of mandated community service can alienate community volunteers and service providers, two vital elements of most court-based, community-service models. Participating representatives from the OJJDP agreed that applying school-based, service-learning to the needs of youth courts might reduce recidivism. They also knew that, regardless of varying opinions about its effectiveness, mandated community service plays a significant role in the American justice system and will continue to do so. Given that fact, they asked, how can mandated community service (1) stay within court-stipulated guidelines; (2) be made less costly and more acceptable to volunteers and community service organizations; and (3) benefit offenders, their victims, and the community?
CRF and CRFC both have extensive experience in the design, field-testing, training, and evaluation of service-learning methodologies that help develop civic capacities in young people. OJJDP engaged CRF and CRFC to develop a practical manual to help youth court facilitators plan and implement meaningful community service-learning (CSL) sentencing options for respondents. The manual was to accomplish this goal by applying school-based, service-learning principles and methods to court-mandated community service.
To begin with, CRF and CRFC developers drew upon a well-tested, problem-solving framework in which students or community members:
Obviously, justice organizations with broad agendas and limited resources cannot put the kind of attention into a service-learning project that schools can. However, the completed manual, called Giving Back: A Community Service-Learning Manual for Youth Courts,[11] was designed as a straightforward, practical guide to help youth court facilitators and participants:
Giving Back methodologies give youth court practitioners and participants easy methods to help them (1) define community and identify community problems and their causes and effects; and (2) provide a choice of three separate community-service options. Option One covers volunteering at an existing agency. Option Two, “Building Your Own,” offers tools and techniques for planning and implementing a community service-learning project from the ground up. Option Three features 26 short community service projects—many supplied by youth courts—that can be done quickly and simply in a day. As presented in Giving Back, CSL incorporates many principles and strategies of balanced and restorative justice (BARJ). According to the Giving Back model, community service learning can: (1) help respondents in a potentially broad spectrum of justice settings; (2) understand the legal and judicial system and educate them about the specific laws they have violated; (3) understand the impact their actions have on others and attempt to repair any harm they have done; (4) develop a personal stake in the well-being of their communities; (5) and help them understand the future consequences of arrest and conviction.Using CSL techniques listed in the Giving Back manual, youth courts paint out graffiti; patrol and maintain skateboard parks; help elderly residents with vital tasks that are difficult for seniors to complete; develop and conduct presentations about the causes and effects of youth-related crimes such as shoplifting and alcohol or drug abuse; spend time with children at a local homeless shelter; attend adult court sessions and report their findings back to youth court participants; adopt and maintain a local cemetery; volunteer at a local animal shelter; and more. The list and its benefits to both the community and youth court participants is both long and varied. Applying Restorative Justice to CSL In addition to reducing recidivism rates, community service learning (CSL) demonstrates potential to support principles of restorative justice. To transform community service from its narrower, punishment-oriented nature, many justice professionals apply the goals and principles of restorative justice to court-mandated community service. According to the National Youth Court Center, “restorative justice addresses crime and problem behavior by recognizing that crime harms victims and communities. Restorative justice focuses on repairing harm (and restoring broken relationships) caused by crime through active involvement of the offender, victim, and the community.”[12] Restorative justice offers guidelines[13] for juvenile justice professionals, enabling offenders to make amends to their victims and community and increase offender skills and competencies. It involves the larger community in processes in which individual victims, the community, and offenders are all active participants. These guidelines could be helpful in extending community service learning to a broader range of justice settings. For the CSL model to be effective in reducing recidivism, raising civic awareness, and improving the well-being of communities, it must be properly applied. The broad range of possible justice, tribal, community, and government settings listed above demands that a smart, flexible strategy be developed to implement community service learning. Theorists and practitioners at the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) have set up an implementation model for applying goals and principles to as many settings as possible. According to the OJJDP’s “Implementing the Restorative Justice Model,”[14] jurisdictions implementing a community service-learning model could benefit by considering the following questions:
In order to adapt CSL to specific settings, the OJJDP Guide also suggests that planners be able to:
The OJJDP Guide advises that ‘there is no single blueprint for this model. For change to be meaningful, implementation of the approach should be guided by the needs of each jurisdiction and its community members.”[15]
Project Profiles: Two Youth Court Community Service-Learning Projects Detailed profiles of youth courts that have developed CSL components can be found at Service-Learning NETWORK's Project Profiles. Next Steps: How Community Service Learning Can Grow We have seen how court-mandated community service can include goals and strategies developed by school-based service learning and how youth can integrate a learning component into their community service. We have also seen that more traditional juvenile-court settings have shown promising results with community service. If the concept is working in some juvenile justice systems, could a broader range of juvenile-justice practitioners embrace CSL? First, the success of CSL in youth courts indicates potential for applying it to a broader array of justice settings including adult and juvenile courts; probation departments; and courts with special circumstances such as American Indian, Alaska Native, and Tribal Justice offices. Other organizations that deal with respondents and who might benefit from applying CSL include the U.S. Departments of Education and Labor and Health and Human Services. The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) also promotes a strong citizenship component and, in certain circumstances, requires that disciplinary measures be applied to transgressions that occasionally occur within CNCS program implementation. For this expansion to be successful, the courts must lead the way. They must ensure that agencies and individuals that provide community service and oversee court-mandated community-service sanctions thoroughly understand community service learning, in order to support CSL goals and objectives. Partnerships Developing strong court-community partnerships can help strengthen CSL projects and programs. School-based learning models demonstrate how strong, sustainable partnerships might be developed between the courts and the service providers in the community.
Dr. Barbara Jacoby, a noted expert in the service-learning field says in Building Partnerships for Service Learning[16] that “…service learning must be grounded in a network…of authentic, democratic, reciprocal partners…schools, community service providers, and community members.” In their article “Promoting and Sustaining Civic Partnerships”[17] Lawrence Bailis and Alan Melchior, well-known researchers in the service-learning field, suggest that sustainable partnerships with community agencies are most effective for supporting school- or community-based service-learning efforts. Bailis and Melchior define sustainable partnerships as “those that are intended to continue beyond the specific service-learning project that spawned them.”[18] Court-community partnerships can also create a vital link between the courts, community-service agencies, and the community at large. We are living in a time when adults are often suspicious of youth and have low opinions of them. Simultaneously, declining civic participation among young adults reveals that they feel alienated from their communities and often withdraw from participating in this arena [Please see the Project Profile on the East Harlem Youth Court.].Partnerships can serve as a bridge between young people and the community. For respondents and volunteers, working with active citizens can give them a sense of validation within the community and strengthen belief in their personal effectiveness. For community members, community service learning helps them understand the contributions that young people, even charges of the court, can make to the well being of the community. Sustainable partnerships require agencies to build relationships that can last over years, long after the initial project has been completed. This agreement also allows partners to (1) get to know each other better than during a one-time or year-long project; (2) avoid wasting time and energy on repetitive searches, introductions, and project growing pains. With sustainable partnerships, courts using community service learning can focus on developing activities that are more responsive to the needs of both their courts and the community partners who are providing the service. Evaluation and Reflection Evaluation and reflection become critical components in developing truly meaningful community service learning programs and projects (Please see Project Profiles.). Giving Back: A Community Service-Learning Manual for Youth Courts[19] offers reflection and evaluation components. “Stop and Think” reflection activities allow respondents to analyze what they are learning and how their community-service experience impacts their own skills, attitudes, and behaviors. In the Stop and Think component, respondents are required to write answers to questions describing what they have learned from each activity. With Giving Back’s “Check Points” component, respondents are required to submit their completed project handouts to supervisors for signatures. At this point, supervisors can evaluate respondent progress with interviews and written respondent reflection exercises. Conclusion Community service learning (CSL) is a flexible, rehabilitative process that combines the best of school- and community-based methods and experience. Properly designed and implemented, CSL provides a well-tested means to identify real community needs and come up with ways to address those needs with the active participation of the courts, businesses, non-profits, local government agencies, offenders, victims, and concerned citizens.
With community service learning, respondents can explore their potential as citizens by helping communities meet their educational, public safety, human, and environmental needs. With community service learning, respondents become resources who provide service, rather than recipients who are always in the role of being served. Hopefully, by planning and implementing well-designed goals, outcomes, procedures, and partnerships, justice practitioners can help young offenders become better citizens while they give back to the community. Community service
learning can encourage youth to become civic-minded. By repairing harm
done to
the victims of juvenile crime while offering both offenders and youth
volunteers opportunities to exercise and increase important life skills
such as
decision-making, problem-solving, listening, communicating, evaluating
public
policy, participants will “buy in” to their communities and not be so
predisposed to repeat their misbehavior. Charles
Degelman is the Editor of Service-Learning NETWORK, a publication of
Constitutional Rights Foundation, Los Angeles.
Carolyn Pereira is the Executive Director of Constitutional Rights Foundation, Chicago. Scott B. Peterson is a Program Manager at the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquincy Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice. #
# #
[1] “Reentry Trends in the United States,” Bureau of Justice Statistics, Washington, D. C. 2002. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/reentry/definition.htm
[2] Fisher, Margaret, Youth Court: A Handbook for Student Volunteers, American Bar Association, Chicago. 2003. [3] “Facts and Statistics,” National Youth Court Center, Lexington, KY. 2005. http://www.youthcourt.net/Resources/Facts_and_Stats.htm [4]Butts, Jeffrey et al “The Impact of Teen Court on Young Offenders” Urban Institute. Washington, D.C. 2002. <http://www.jbutts.com/pdfs/410457.pdf>. [5] RMC Research Corporation, “Reflection: K-12 Service-Learning,” Service-Learning Clearinghouse. Washington, D.C. 2003. < http://www.servicelearning.org/resources/fact_sheets/k-12_facts/reflection/>. [6]Langin, Patrick A and Levin, David J. "Recidivism of Prisoners Released in 1994." Bureau of Justice Statistics, (NCJ-193427) Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. 2002. < http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/rpr94.pdf>. [7] Snyder, Howard N., and Sickmund, Melissa. Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 2006 National Report. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Washington, D.C. 2006. < http://ojjdp.ncjrs.gov/ojstatbb/nr2006/index.html> [8] Rieland, James, “Balanced and Restorative Justice in Allegheny County Juvenile Court.” Allegheny County Juvenile Court, Pittsburgh. 2003. [9] Civic Mission of Schools, http://civicmissionofschools.org/ [10] Felix, Andrea, “Court Mandated Community Service: Is It an Effective Rehabilitation Tool for Youth?” The Working Group on National & Community Service/Youth Service America. Washington, D.C. 2002. [11] Degelman, Charles, “Giving Back: A Community Service-Learning Manual for Youth Courts,” Constitutional Rights Foundation. Los Angeles. 2003. < http://www.crf-usa.org/YouthCourt/GivingBack_home.html>. [12] National Youth Court Center, Lexington, KY. <http://www.youthcourt.net/Resources/FAQ.htm#5> [13] Bilchik, Shay, et al, “Implementing the Restorative Justice Model,” OJJDP. Washington, D.C. <http://ojjdp.ncjrs.org/pubs/implementing/>. [14] Lipkin, Rachel, ed., “Implementing the Restorative justice Model,” OJJDP NCJ 167887 Washington, D.C. xxx date xxx [15] Lipkin, Rachel, ed. Op cit. [16] Jacoby, Dr. Barbara, (Ed.) Building Partnerships for Service Learning. Indianapolis. Jossey Bass. 2003. [17] Bailis, Lawrence N and Melchior, Alan. “Promoting And Sustaining Civic Partnerships.” Service-Learning Network 10:1 (2004): 1-5. < http://www.crf-usa.org/network/net10_1.pdf>. [18] ibid. [19] Op. Cit. Giving Back # # #
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