1 )ealing with Troubled Youths 35in crimes traditionally associated with juvenile offenders (Gavin, 1997). The St.
Petersburg Police Department in Florida decided to implement a truancy interdic-
tion program in hopes of minimizing the relationship that exists between truancy
and delinquency. The ultimate goal of this initiative was to reduce the opportunities
for youths to get into trouble by informing parents to encourage their children to
stay in school.
A large number of truancy interdiction programs implemented by most law en-
forcement agencies involve picking up truant youths and returning them to school
through the involvement of their parent or guardian. Participating police depart-
ments are usually concerned with who is ultimately responsible for the interdiction
and what to do W^7 ith the students once they are picked up. Uniformed patrol offi-
cers are most often responsible for the interdiction. This is primarily because each
uniformed patrol officer is in charge of a specific geographic area where they arc
cognizant of what is going on in that region. Other interdiction personnel involved
with investigating truant youths include juvenile officers, school resource officers,
and detectives.
One of the first obstacles the St. Petersburg Police Department faced was what to
do with the truant youths once officers apprehended them. Because St. Petersburg
was a large jurisdiction, the time it took officers to personally return the child to their
school consumed too much of their time and took away from other duties needing
attention. The St. Petersburg police officials recognized the potential problem this
would pose and realized that having officers return the truant youths directly to
school would not actively involve the parents in the problem. They decided to
establish a centralized truancy center where the truant youths waited for their parents
to pick them up, ensuring that the parents took an active role in the situation.
Once the truant youths arrive at the center via the patrol officer, a receiving
officer or a juvenile detective contacts both the school and the parents and proceeds
to tend to the youngster until the parents or guardians arrive. If the youngster is on
probation, the juvenile officer notifies the youth's case worker immediately. The
initial process was intended by program developers to be very brief in nature so that
the patrol officers could get back to patrolling.
It is the responsibility of the parent or guardian to return their child to school.
When they arrive at the center to pick up their child, the juvenile detective presents
the parent or guardian with an accurate record of their child's attendance in an effort
to make them realize the seriousness of the truant behavior. The parents are also
presented with a letter signed by the chief of police and the school superintendent
stressing the importance of ensuring that children go to school as well as a copy of
the state statute mandating school attendance. The parents are advised that the law
requires them to have their child in school and that failure to do so is a criminal act
(Gavin, 1997), Before the child can be readmitted to school, their parent or guardian
must bring a referral slip with the child to school. This, then, notifies school officials
that the child was in custody. Many times, guidance counselors and school officials
use this as an opportunity to meet with the child and parent or guardian.