by Mary Dallao

About the author: Mary Dallao is an editorial assistant for Corrections Today, a publication of the American Correctional Association.

Before 19-year-old “Ben” was arrested for a felony, he says no one could tell him what to do. “I’d heard it all before,” he says, “but I really didn’t listen. I was hard-headed. Sure, they brought people to tell me stuff, but I just blew them off because I thought I knew it all. It was always just another person telling me how to live my life.”

Ben’s attitude changed in 1994 when he was sentenced to two years with Colorado’s Youth Offender System (YOS) instead of serving his four-year sentence with the department of corrections. YOS aims to rehabilitate juvenile offenders...