Ebook: Where Are All the Young Men and Women of Color?: Capacity Enhancement Practice in the Criminal Justice System

This book calls attention to criminal offenders and ex-offenders in urban environments. Rather than providing a prescriptive correctional supervision model, Delgado argues that effective work can be achieved by applying the capacity enhancement, or strengths perspective, approach to practice that enables these individuals to better capitalize on their strengths and social workers to better serve urban communities.

When it comes to social work practice in community outreach programs, in juvenile detention centres, in prisons, in parole and probation programs, and in the inner cities, Melvin Delgado asks the question: Where are all the young men and women of color? Although many urban residents, especially persons of color, are or have been involved in the juvenile and/or criminal justice system, the topic of criminal offenders and ex-offenders has been much neglected by the human services literature. This book stands as the only work to discuss correctional supervision and the needs of individuals in a nonprescriptive manner, marking a shift toward a capacity enhancement, or strengths perspective, approach— specifically what are the strengths of individuals and how can they capitalize on them? Delgado includes a section of reflections from the field that applies capacity enhancement principles and methods to case studies.