2012 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

A Comparative Study of the Juvenile Justice System in Japan and America : Focusing on the Practice and Evaluation System

Research Project

Project/Area Number	23730549
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
Allocation Type	Multi-year Fund
Research Field	Social welfare and social work studies
Research Institution	Waseda University
Principal Investigator	MIYAKO Norihiro 早稲田大学, 教育・総合科学学術院, 助教 (60549129)
Project Period (FY)	2011 – 2012
Keywords	司法福祉 / 更生保護
Research Abstract	The purpose of this research is to clarify the alternative education system for youth at risk such as truancy, drug and alcohol abuse, delinquency, pregnant in Sonoma County, California. The United States continued working hard to guarantee public education for diverse students such as race and ethnicity, religion. As a result, historically, various educational alternatives are developed in the United States. However, there are few studies that clarified the alternative education system for at-risk youth in detail because it is very complicated and different by states and school districts. Focusing on Sonoma County, California, this paper is tried to draw the structure of alternative education system in detail. At first, it is outlined the educational alternatives using the report by public organizations such as California Department of Education and Sonoma County Office of Education etc. Through the analysis of these reports, it is cleared that there are two aspects of the alternative education system as "school district level" and "county level" in each county. Secondly, it is defined the school district level of educational alternatives as "In-School Suspension", "Independent Study" and "Community Day School". Thirdly, it is focusing on the county level of the alternative education system, especially "Community School Program" and "Court School Program". They are cleared by interview and document research. Multi agencies for example Probation Department, Human Services Department, Office of Education, and community based organizations (CBO) are collaborated for at-risk students in Community and Court Schools. That is to say, the Community and Court School system is established as the multi-agency resources. Finally, through this analysis, it is defined that the alternative education system as multi-agency resources has significance for juvenile delinquency prevention and treatment. At the same, it would be mentioned about problems of that system, too.