Why do courts order teens into therapy?

I guess it’s a last resort before they impose a custodial sentence which inturn could lead them down the wrong path.
Therapy may work for some and turn them into model citizens,it also save a lot of money and appeases the dogooders in society.

For my cousins (little ones), it was because they were abused. No one ever knew what was going on, they lived away from everyone in the family – most of our family is on the east coast, they are in Washington State.

If you are talking about juvenile court – it could be to learn how to deal with anger – I’ve seen that before. I have a friend that is a DA, she says the juvenile court system tries to find ways to help children, especially when they are new to the system, find ways to teach them the skills they need to cope with life.

One of my employees at a country club I worked at, had a son that seemed wonderful. He had anger issues and authority issues. He got very angry with her decision, he set fire to an empty lot near their condo. He was sentenced to community service, therapy and had to attend several fire safety classes, along with restitution.

As far as cost, if he went to a county appointed therapist – there was a fee, but more of a nominal fee. You pay for everything – including probation services. It’s not free – at least not where I am.

Some of it is also due to peer pressure. In anycase, it’s not an excuse. Unfortunately it’s the way society is.

The court would rather sentence a teen to therapy and not have to deal with him or her as an adult criminal than sentence a teen to probation or jail time and have a repeat offender.

The real reason that kids do things is probably best discovered by therapy—that’s part of the reason the court sends them there.

Therapy is probably the only part of the juvenile penal system that has a chance to change their lives for the good.

Community service can do good, but it depends almost entirely on who they meet and work with. The whole service deal not should not focus only on returning service to the community (as in paying a debt) but also (and mainly) about why it is better to give than to receive (i.e live selfishly). This is a lesson that is learned best by working along side someone who has a heart for giving.

I agree with steelmarket. Therapy can prevent a one-time juvenile offender from become a repeat offender and can potentially save them from future jail time.

When the court mandates treatment for a teenager, a decision has been made by the judge, probation officer and/or court psychologist that the family is not managing the teenager’s behavior adequately.

Courts usually order therapy for adolescents who are misbehaving but appear to be capable of turning things around. Delinquents who have demonstrated a pattern of habitual offenses with little remorse are less likely to be treated. Many judges genuinely care about teenagers, and want to help those who are likely be helped.

Teenagers misbehave for a variety of reasons. Maybe it’s a call for help. Maybe it’s a sign of mental illness or substance abuse. Maybe it’s a way of acting out as a protest against something occurring in the family. Unfortunately there are many possibilities.

I remember being told once that “when people can’t learn, they need therapy, not school”.
This made sense to me. If a kid is trying to figure out how to be a person in the world,
but something is preventing that learning, he needs help thinking about THAT, before he can continue to address other questions. “Learning how to learn”. Once someone helps him understand how to learn, and frees him to do so, he can go ahead and figure out what he wants to know about dating, computer science, jobs, nutrition, auto mechanics, drugs, school, driving, art, religion, politics and so on.
Bad juvenile behavior is usually an effort to figure out what works within a situation that doesn’t support learning.
I really respect what mccabe noted above: “delinquents who have demonstrated a patern of habitual offenses with little remorse are less likely to be treated”. This is perhaps tragic, but if people are sociopathic at any age they need to be put in time-out so the rest of us can live in peace.

I think I may have left out something from my question. This question arises out of another discussion in which a couple of people mentioned being in court-ordered therapy, and then the therapy being a total waste of time. Both client and therapist were just putting in time. The client, because they had to, and the therapist because they were getting paid. It sounds like some therapists in this situation either are in over their heads, or they are flat out stealing.

Two cases don’t prove anything, but they certainly raise questions. So part of what I was wondering was why courts order therapy, when, in some cases, it doesn’t work.

Oh, I think I know. I work at a university where they study these things. Or they try to. In fact, the justice system is extremely resistant to studying outcomes of various interventions. Each judge has their own favorite interventions, and far too often, they use them, whether or not they work. I’ll bet that some judges, in fact, fancy themselves to be expert therapists, themselves.

So anyway, I was also hoping for more stories from folks who have been in court-ordered therapy, and what happened.

@daloon: Therapy only works if the person in therapy wants it to work and is willing to put in the effort, and if the therapist is competent at what he or she does. It can’t be done unilaterally on either side.

Courts order therapy because in some cases it does work. Judges would rather order therapy that might work and produce a positive benefit for the kid than order community service or jail time that are not likely to produce a positive benefit for the kid of any sort.

If the therapy works, the kid is better adjusted and more successful, and doesn’t wind up back in the criminal justice system. If the therapy doesn’t work, the kid reoffends, but that would have happened anyway with community service or jail time.

A young gentleman I knew was joking with friends at school, and made the comment “they’re on my list.” One of his friends said “What are you going to do, shoot ‘em?” Laughing, he replied “Heck yeah!”

Unfortunately, he was overheard by another student, who relayed the partial conversation to a teacher.

Shortly thereafter, a police officer had arrested him, the school had expelled him, he was placed in juvenile detention, then placed on house arrest for two months pending a court date, and eventually exonerated.

During those two months, he saw a court-appointed therapist, who eventually testified on his behalf in court.

The therapy did help with the trust issues and depression caused by the ordeal, though.

People ordered into therapy can benefit from it if they sorta secretly wished someone would listen to them in the first place.
Therapists can learn how to make court-ordered therapy feel like the safe place it’s supposed to be. Only those therapists should have clients sent to them by the courts.
But is anyone keeping track?