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Corrections is facing a work force crisis, as are many other fields in the public sector. Changing demographics are leading to a dwindling number of motivated, qualified workers entering and remaining in the corrections field. This reduction of potential employees is coupled with the challenges that agencies face in a dynamic field, where the number of clients is increasing and policy and practice are continuously evolving. The field is facing a serious question of how to keep up.
The American Correctional Association is meeting this challenge with its Building a Correctional Workforce for the 21st Century project. This includes both adult and juvenile corrections, and has begun to identify the work force needs and concerns regarding front-line workers in both arenas. This begs the question: Is it appropriate to consider juvenile and adult correctional workers as one work force? While both groups fulfill a critical public safety role, juvenile justice is additionally charged with a child welfare role. The potential of the work force to nurture the positive growth and development of children, or conversely to place children in harm's way, adds another dimension to the consequences of a work force crisis in juvenile justice. Thus, it is worthwhile to consider this work force as a separate entity.
Juvenile Jusitice Workers
There is little specific information available on the juvenile justice work force. Aggregate data on the number of workers in the field, their education and experience levels, average salary, and demographic information are generally best-guess estimates. This is the case for several reasons. Juvenile justice often is not considered a field on its own, which discourages the collection and tracking of data on the work force. The Bureau of Labor Statistics1 does not maintain a job classification for juvenile detention workers or juvenile probation officers, so no specific trend or forecasting data are available at the national level. In many cases, individual agencies maintain work force data for their own population, but no comprehensive efforts have been undertaken to compile and analyze this Information.
However, three initiatives have shed some light on the state of the juvenile justice work force. The first is ACA's 21st century work force effort, which is aimed at developing a strategic plan for the correctional work force and draws...