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CONTINUOUS EDUCATION
AS AN INSTITUTION OF RE-SOCIALIZATION
OF JUVENILE OFFENDERS
А. А. Alekseitseva
The article considers actualizing notions of re-socialization in conjunction with continuous education as a mechanism for the practical impact on the educational process for juvenile offenders, their characteristics and interaction specificity.
Key words: juvenile offenders, re-socialization, continuous education.
Re-socialization of juvenile offenders is, on the one hand, a process involving interaction of the offender’s personality with the social environment, as well as targeted influence on the inner attitudes of the offender’s personality on the part of basic and specific social institutions and individuals (actors) in the form of a complex of legal, organizational, psychological-pedagogical, educational and other measures taking place at all stages, starting from the moment of committing the offence to the moment of consolidation of stable law-abiding behavior; on the other hand, the result of this process is recovery of the individual (minor) as a socialized member of the society.
The basic specific features of re-socialization of juvenile offenders as a social process are: (a) correlation with the aggregate reasons for juvenile offences; (b) ability to respond to the changing reasons for offences; (c) dependence on the surrounding social conditions; (d) development in time, possibility of division into separate stages, emergence of new social connections between the individual and society; (e) resulting embodiment of social actions, its significant criterion being the final result of the process: the return of a socially adapted person into society, etc. The mechanisms of re-socialization include: (1) the system of family education (traditional mechanism); (2) the system of public education (institutional mechanism), including the institution of education; (3) the influence of the subculture (symbolic mechanism); (4) the influence of the immediate surrounding and significant persons (interpersonal mechanism); (5) reflexion - individual experience (psychological mechanism).
The specificity of re-socialization of juvenile offenders in the present Russian conditions is that re-socialization, in the same way as the previously disrupted process of socialization, generally takes place in the same social conditions, including the conditions of uninstitutionalized, extraeducational space and microenvironment. This circumstance actualizes the re-socializing function of specific social institutions (the education institution, justice institution, order maintenance institution, social security institution, etc.) by off-setting the negative effect of the social environment, forming positive social surroundings for the minor and incorporating him/her into the system of productive activities. The institutional mechanism acts in the process of interaction of the minors with the fundamental and specific institutions of society, with different organizations, both specially created for his socialization/re-socialization, and performing these functions in parallel with their basic functions. There are two ways of optimizing the resocialization of juvenile offenders not isolated from society: (1) improving the
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system of measures within the frameworks of specific social institutions aimed at optimized re-socialization of juvenile offenders as a process; (2) development of the system of measures aimed at optimization of professional activities of a concrete specialist as an actor of re-socialization.
Rehabilitation programs of this kind must be continuous, that is be aimed at a consistent and systemic process of interaction of a juvenile offender with specific social institutions, which results in growing accumulation of the relevant knowledge and experience of socially approved behaviour by him/her, as well as acquisition of the experience of imitating such behavior, the experience of nonconfrontational withdrawal from its norms, etc. Special programs of teenagers training for release are drawn after appraisal of the degree of risk of the juvenile offender for the society, and the progress of changes in his/her personality. Observance of the teenager’s right to education is the principal component of the educational and preventive influence of the personality of juvenile offenders.
The content of educational services is determined by the restraint period and provides for, first and foremost, training young boys and girls for taking exams to receive a certificate of secondary education, and facilitating their reintegration in the society. An important task for specialists teaching young pupils in penitentiaries is creating conditions in which every teenager has the opportunity to demonstrate positive dynamics and progress in reeducation. This aim is achieved by using the strategies and materials which are of interest to young people. These may be references to periodicals popular among young people, musical works and fiction, or vehicle driving rules.
Mentally challenged teenagers with a low learning ability, mental retardation, or emotional disturbances have special educational needs. The plan of work with this category of juvenile offenders presupposes individual courses of educational programs. Therefore, preparation of the teenagers with specific features of mental development held in detention for a return to normal life in society becomes especially significant. The common educational services for such young people in the conditions of penitentiaries are teaching reading and writing, teaching functional skills, preparation for and taking exams to receive the certificate of secondary education, and vocational guidance. Despite the measures taken at the federal level to ensure the well-being of mentally challenged teenagers, representatives of social services and penitentiaries are convinced that in critical cases such minors need special care in the conditions of health facilities
Translated from Russian by Znanije Central Translastions Bureas
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