The social survival kit: Alternative-to-incarceration programs for adolescent offenders in New York City

Beginning in the 1820s, the original goal of the juvenile justice system in New York City was to 'train' youth to be productive citizens as they entered adulthood. There was a much needed recognition that children should be prosecuted differently than adults. The intent of what would later be called the 'Child Saving Movement' was to educate adolescent offenders rather punish them because they still had the capacity to change. More than a century and half later, the juvenile justice system has gone away from its reformatory roots, now blending more and more with the normative sanctions of the adult criminal justice system.;Today, a small group of community based "alternative-to-incarceration" programs in New York City are attempting to resuscitate the spirit of the Child Saving Movement by advocating the release of juveniles of the court system with the promise of fully rehabilitating them inside of their own communities. By deferring a prison sentence for up to year, alternative-to-incarceration (ATI) programs have been argued by many to be far greater in reducing recidivism, preparing young men and women for productive prosocial living, and contributing to public safety in at-risk communities.;The following research is a culmination of two years of ethnographic investigation inside of four ATI programs for youth in New York City. The results include a detailing of the social mechanics of these organizations and the discovery of their distribution of a 'social survival kit': a set of social tools used to facilitate sustainable living in a deprived social structure. These programs emphasize a counter to the 'structural deprivation' that exists in high volume in the communities producing court-involved youth. Each program has its own unique version of the 'survival kit', as they each have to address a unique set of circumstances.