Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity

by Andrew Solomon

While nearly three-quarters of people working with juvenile delinquents believe effective ways exist to treat the problem, only 3 to 6 percent believe that the juvenile courts are helping. Our lack of sympathy for these pariah children keeps successful treatment out of their reach. Aside from the common prejudice that therapeutic interventions are excessively soft on the criminal, the justification for withholding such treatments is often that they are ineffective and exorbitantly expensive. Neither justification has merit. The cost of jailing a minor ranges from about $20,000 to $65,000 per year. Prisons with more programs experience less violence, which reduces some expenses, but the major financial benefit lies in curtailed recidivism. A crime gives rise to enormous knock-on costs, including loss of property, trial expenses, health-care costs from injury, and psychological liabilities sustained by frightened victims.