What happens to youth after leaving juvenile justice or prison?
These youth are probably the most disadvantaged: they typically lack a high school degree, they have no or little work experience, they are likely to return to peers who were bad influences, and they often have strained family ties. • About 100,000 young adults aged 18-24 will be released from prison (adult) in 2004. About 1 million individuals aged 18–24 were under probation supervision in 2002. (Uggen & Wakefield, chapter 5, On Your Own without a Net, forthcoming University of Chicago Press) • Civic involvement: youth are more disconnected and distrustful of others (social trust), mainly because of an institutional mismatch, not because youth are simply opting out. What does this mean for civic participation and a healthy democracy? How do social trust and social isolation interact? Declines in social trust have been linked to increases in materialist values as central life goals. Materialism, in turn, has been linked to poorer physical and mental health. Plus, many of the skills emp
