August 2003

The juvenile justice system is too often a revolving door for Oakland's youth offenders. In fact, the recidivism rate for young offenders in Alameda County is more than 70 percent.

But Oakland’s Safe Passages youth offender strategy, known as Pathways to Change, continues to show impressive results in getting young offenders back on track. According to numbers recently released by Safe Passages, 64 youth were enrolled in Pathways to Change in the last year. Amazingly, only 7 of those youth, or 11 percent, have reoffended. In addition to staying out of trouble, more of the enrolled youth returned to school and held down steady jobs. There are currently 20 active cases and the program continues to accept new referrals.

Pathways to Change is based on a successful model developed by the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice. A total of 117 youth have completed either that pilot or current program. Pathways to Change gives young repeat offenders a critical second chance to get back on track and stay out of trouble. The comprehensive program pairs repeat offenders with case managers who serve as mentors and role models while providing on-going supervision through the court process. Case managers develop individualized plans to help young offenders stay on the right path, linking them to resources such as tutoring and job training, alcohol and drug treatment, counseling, and peer support groups. They also connect the families of young offenders to services-so that the youth are blanketed with the supports they need to lead healthy, productive lives.

Eligible youth are identified primarily through the Public Defender's office and screened by the Pathways to Change program director. By gathering background information from a variety of sources, including probation reports, psychological evaluations, police reports, and school reports, the program staff determine which youth are appropriate for the program and what types of services can best meet their needs. The screening process is intense: Only those youth who demonstrate the willingness to attend court hearings and can live in the community under the program's supervision without unreasonable risk to others are chosen to participate.

Youth offenders receive intensive case management by trained professionals they can relate to. Case managers serve as mentors and role models. They often come from similar communities as the young people they work with and have been through the juvenile justice system themselves. As survivors, they are intimately familiar with what it takes to get their lives back on track. Credentials like these help build valuable credibility and trust between case managers and youth. The strong relationships they share become a key factor in giving young offenders a fresh start and helping to steer them away from trouble.

The Mentoring Center (TMC) was recently selected by Safe Passages as the lead agency for Pathways, effective July 1, 2003. TMC is recognized nationally as a leader in the field of mentoring and has served as a regional mentoring think-tank since 1991, providing consultation, technical assistance, and mentor training to agencies and institutions developing and operating youth mentoring programs.

TMC’s executive director, DeVone Boggan, was eager to participate in Pathways. “This is an opportunity to expand what we do, and to participate more deeply in the dialogue of how to serve these youth most effectively,” he says.

TMC will monitor the implementation of the program and provide technical assistance to the case managers and partnering agencies where needed. Boggan hopes to serve 100 youth in the coming year. “We believe that any organization serving this population of kids needs a ‘mentoring spirit’ in order to get good results,” he says. “We connect them with all the services – tutoring, drug treatment and the rest – that they might need, but none of that will stick without a close relationship between the youth and the case manager.

“Our philosophy is, and our experience shows, that it is the relationship that matters the most.”

For more information on this website about Safe Passages, click here. For more articles on this website about youth violence prevention, click here.