Correctional education in juvenile training schools aims to provide individual guidance according to the characteristics and educational needs of juveniles for their improvement and rehabilitation. For juvenile robbery offenders, juvenile training schools also try to correct them focusing on problems related to each delinquency, as well as provide systematic guidance in 5 fields of guidance-life guidance, vocational training and guidance, academic education, health and physical education, and special activities-in order to grant juveniles the ability to adjust to the society and achieve their sound development (see Part 4, Chapter 2, Section 4 ). Part of the guidance for juvenile robbery offenders is introduced below, focusing on guidance corresponding to problems related to delinquency, which is conducted in the field of life guidance.

  Juvenile training schools formulate an "individual treatment plan" with respect to each juvenile admitted in order to implement correctional education according to the characteristics and educational needs of individual juveniles in a planned and concentrated way. An individual treatment plan is formulated through an admission interview and deliberation on treatment in juvenile training schools, on the basis of "treatment guidelines"-proposals of treatment methods by a juvenile classification home that has performed classification on predisposition, and the "recommendation concerning treatment" attached by a family court concerning the treatment of the relevant juvenile. Correctional education on the relevant juvenile is performed based on the plan.
  Individual treatment plan sets an "individual educational goal" as a key goal and includes specific measures to achieve the goal as the "educational contents" and "educational methods." Viewing individual educational goals for juvenile robbery offenders, goals closely related to the delinquency in question are set such as "ensuring that the juvenile understands the seriousness of the delinquency in question" and "increasing the juvenile's sense of atonement toward the victims." More specifically, individual educational goals include (i) those focusing on victims such as "ensuring that the juvenile in question understands the mental and physical suffering of the victims," "ensuring that the juvenile in question understands the feeling of the victims through review of the offense," and "ensuring that the juvenile in question acquires an attitude of thinking and acting in the position of others, (ii) those focusing on problems in the way of thinking and behavioral tendency of the juvenile in question such as "increasing the juvenile's respect for rules," "ensuring that the juvenile in question understands the problems of violence," "ensuring that the juvenile acquires the ability to think and act for him/herself without being overwhelmed by others," and "making the juvenile in question acquire the ability to build a cooperative relationship with others without bluffing," (iii) those related to problems in friendship such as "ensuring that the juvenile in question understands the problems of association with delinquent friends and withdraws from such association" and "ensuring that the juvenile bolsters his/her intention to sever relations with bosozoku and other delinquent groups," and (iv) those related to problems in family relationships such as "ensuring that the juvenile in question comes to terms with his/her feelings about family."
  This way of setting goals indicates that treatment is implemented for juvenile robbery offenders with a focus on increasing their reflection on the delinquency in question and their sense of atonement toward victims as well as alleviating problems that caused individual juveniles to commit robbery offenses.

  In juvenile training schools, the term of education for inmates is divided into 3 phases according to the progress of education-the orientation stage, intermediate stage and pre-release stage. In individual treatment plans, an "achievement goal for each phase" is set to specify individual educational goal. The achievement of the goal is evaluated at least once a month, and the evaluation result is notified to juvenile training school inmates individually for the purpose of making them understand their progress and motivating themselves to achieve the goals.
  The table below outlines part of the individual educational goals for juvenile robbery offenders that correspond to problems related to delinquency, and shows examples of achievement goals for each phase and evaluation at the time of completing each phase of treatment.

Model case in the case of setting "enhancing the sense of atonement through review of the delinquency in question" as an individual educational goal

  As shown in this example, juvenile training schools aim to propose specific goals for juveniles according to their progress by setting achievement goals for each phase of treatment with the intention of achieving the individual educational goal in the final phase.

  As a guidance method for ensuring that juvenile robbery offenders develop a sense of having wronged about offenses they committed and a sense of atonement toward the victims, and have awareness and determination necessary to lead an autonomous life in line with rules in society, juvenile training schools give guidance focusing on individual guidance, such as individual consultation, insight guidance, introspective guidance, and composition on an assigned topic, in the orientation stage. In the intermediate stage, juvenile training schools give guidance by using group work, such as guidance on specific problems, in addition to the said guidance in the orientation stage. In addition, as specific treatment techniques to make such juveniles think of the scene of the delinquency from the perspective of the victims and increase their understanding of and sympathy with the feeling of the victims, juvenile training schools often use role lettering on the assumption of relationships with the victims (making juveniles write letters from the perspective of the victims and thus think from the viewpoint of the victims, as well as making them understand the pain and suffering of the victims and enhance their reflection through the process of writing back to those letters) and group work using notes written by the victims, etc. as educational materials.

  As clearly shown in Chapter 4, there are wide-ranging problems regarding juvenile robbery offenders in terms of the way of thinking and behavioral tendencies, which are related to delinquency, including shortsighted thinking and behavior, the nature of going along with others without making independent decisions, lack of feeling of resistance to violence, and egocentricity without consideration for others. In addition, the location and seriousness of the main problem differs for each juvenile, which means the details of educational goals differ for each juvenile. First of all, guidance starts with giving juveniles motivation for correctional education by leading them to understand themselves and recognize their own problems related to delinquency through the process of reexamining and thinking about themselves repeatedly by individual consultation, insight guidance, introspective guidance, composition on an assigned topic, etc. As for guidance using interaction in a group, guidance on the specific problems mentioned above is often implemented with respect to "relationships with others" and "violence." As for treatment techniques, juvenile training schools implement group discussion, SST (social skill training; rehearsal for various scenes of relationships with others in social life to widen the repertoire of behavioral options and improve the ability to adjust to society), role playing, and role lettering.
  For juveniles who have serious problems in their predisposition, such as emotional instability, and thus need a therapeutic approach in terms of sentiment, juvenile training schools provide psychological treatment, including counseling, occupational therapy, and so on.

  For juvenile robbery offenders, problems in relationships with friends are directly and indirectly involved in their offenses. For example, most of them committed offenses with accomplices, and a considerable number of juveniles got the idea for their offenses from these accomplices, etc. or put priority on maintaining their relationships with accomplices at the scene of offenses. In response to this, there are considerable examples in which alleviation of problems, such as association with delinquent friends and belonging to delinquent groups, is set as an individual educational goal.
  As for these problems, guidance starts with an individual approach to lead juveniles to realize their problems and realize the necessity of alleviating them. On that basis, juvenile training schools provide guidance on specific problems by taking up "association with delinquent friends," "relationships with bosozoku," and "relationships with others," with the aim of making juveniles think of specific ways of alleviating problems in conventional relationships with friends and acquire the interpersonal skills, etc. to enable such alleviation of problems. As for treatment techniques, juvenile training schools use role playing on the assumption of the scene of being enticed by delinquent friends, group discussion, SST, and so on. Needless to say, whether individual juveniles can actually alleviate problems in relationships with friends depends on themselves after release. In particular, juveniles belonging to delinquent groups are expected to need support from those around them to sever relations with such groups in some situations. Therefore, juvenile training schools direct inmates to improve their relationships with friends while being in schools where they can keep a certain distance from association with delinquent friends, and also give guidance on assumption of various challenges and problems that they are expected to face after release.

  As clearly shown in Chapter 4 , it has been pointed out that juvenile robbery offenders have some problems in their relationships with family in many cases, such as parent's lack of guiding ability and the inability to suppress delinquency. Therefore, it is a key issue to enhance the functions of the family which should serve as a basis for the sound social development of juveniles. The situation where a juvenile has committed a delinquency and has been admitted to a juvenile training school has an impact on the juvenile as well as his/her family, including guardian, in many cases. Therefore, such situation often gives an opportunity to review the ways of his/her family. Taking advantage of such opportunity, juvenile training schools make adjustments in family relationships with the use of various scenes and methods. More specifically, juvenile training schools ensure that juveniles think over and review relationships between themselves and their family members through individual guidance, including individual consultation and introspective guidance. Juvenile training schools also implement guidance on specific problems by taking up "family relationships" and "relationships with parents." In addition, juvenile training schools give consideration so as to facilitate interaction with family members through visits, correspondence, etc., as well as work on guardians to cooperate in guidance on juveniles through "guardian meetings" by inviting guardians to juvenile training schools.
  These approaches for adjustment of relationships with guardians conducted by juvenile training schools are called "adjustment and guidance of relationships with guardians" and included in life guidance.

  Many juvenile robbery offenders lack interest in society and a sense of belonging. One type of guidance to cope with such problem is participation in social service activities implemented as part of special activities. This aims to encourage juveniles to participate in society and get new experience and views concerning the desirable relationships between themselves and society. The specific contents implemented differ depending on the school, but many juvenile training schools do volunteer activities in welfare facilities and homes for the aged and cleaning activities in neighboring parks and public facilities. Many juvenile robbery offenders participate in social service activities mainly in the pre-release stage.

  In the above, we gave an overview of the treatment of juvenile robbery offenders in juvenile training schools focusing on the field of life guidance, including guidance on problems related to the delinquency in question. As mentioned in the opening part, treatment in juvenile training schools is wide-ranging, covering vocational training and guidance, academic education, health and physical education, and special activities, as well as life guidance. In particular, vocational training and guidance as well as academic education have great significance in terms of the improvement and rehabilitation of juveniles admitted to juvenile training schools, in consideration of the fact that most of such juveniles have various problems adjusting themselves to vocational life and school life. Needless to say, juvenile training schools also provide juvenile robbery offenders with vocational training and guidance or academic education according to their individual needs and guidance on future career options, including these fields of guidance. This is same for health and physical education as well as special activities; treatment in juvenile training schools aims to achieve the goal of correctional education as a whole through development of systematic treatment based on collaboration of various guidance in these fields of guidance.
  Specific examples are introduced below about the course of rehabilitation of juvenile robbery offenders in the flow of the entire treatment in juvenile training schools.
High school student who was enticed by accomplices and ended up committing street robbery (general short-term treatment)
  The juvenile first lacked awareness of the seriousness of the offense and thus could not develop self-reflection. As a result of repeated guidance through composition on an assigned topic and individual consultation, the juvenile has become able to think about the problem of being easily led by others, and subsequently has become able to think of the seriousness of the offense and damage incurred by the victim. In addition, the juvenile first occasionally showed an attitude of leaving everything to others and buck-passing behavior. Therefore, the juvenile was instructed to work on roles and activities, etc. with responsibility. Consequently, the juvenile has become able to attain a sense of accomplishment by proactively engaging in things and enjoy the sense of fulfillment at being helpful to other people. The guardian had not sufficiently understood the conditions of the juvenile due to being busy with work, but felt responsibility for the delinquency of the juvenile and thus worked out an out-of-court settlement and apologized to the victim. The guardian has also come to earnestly work on helping the juvenile through visits and correspondence. As a result, the juvenile has become able to talk with the guardian without showing bravado. Thus, the emotional interaction between them has improved. Before being discharged from the juvenile training school, the juvenile was determined to return to high school. Furthermore, the juvenile has become able to think of ways of spending leisure time and other matters in anticipation of his own path in life.
Unemployed juvenile who ended up committing robbery after showing bravado to delinquent friends (long-term treatment)
  The juvenile was lonely at home and tried to use his association with delinquent friends, including bosozoku, as an emotional anchor, and thus ended up committing delinquency with intent of being recognized by delinquent friends. In the juvenile training school, the juvenile also showed bravado in front of others immediately after his admission. However, through guidance such as individual consultation in which the juvenile is urged to think over his life in the past and the delinquency in question, the juvenile has come to regret his past life and recognize the seriousness of the delinquency in question, and has also become aware of the fact that he had been turning away from own problems by depending on association with delinquent friends. In communal life, the juvenile has come to work tenaciously on roles and activities, etc. up to the end with responsibility and without being overwhelmed by the surrounding atmosphere. Furthermore, the juvenile could rebuild his self-image in maintaining such life. In particular, the juvenile could build self-confidence due to obtainment of a qualification through vocational training and guidance, and thus started to work on his entire life, including practical training, in a proactive manner. He also started to have incentives and self-confidence in terms of his work after release. Regarding the way of thinking about relationships with friends, the juvenile could also make that sound through SST, meetings, and advice from staff. Moreover, he has become able to think of it in connection with relationships with friends in society in the pre-release stage. It was pointed out that the juvenile would continue to need guidance under probationary supervision with attention paid to the point that he is easily influenced by those around him, even after release, since many of his previous friends live iri the local area. However, relationships between the juvenile and the guardian who had not thought about family members in the past improved through interaction, etc. during his time in juvenile training school. Therefore, the juvenile returned to his guardian.

  Out of juvenile robbery offenders, only a few are discharged as being considered to have completed their education only through juvenile training school (those discharged without probationary supervision). Most are "released on parole" and continue to be subject to guidance by probation officers, etc. after discharge from juvenile training school. Probation offices proceed with adjustment of environments for juveniles after release, etc. from the time when the subject juveniles are in juvenile training schools, in preparation for implementation of guidance. Along with this, probation officers and volunteer probation officers visit juvenile training schools to give consultation to the subject juveniles in some cases.
  Guidance under probationary supervision starts at the time of the parole discharge of the subject juvenile. At that time, materials and information about the treatment of the juvenile in question are taken over from the juvenile training school to the probation office. For example, regarding juvenile robbery offenders, stable work, withdrawal from association with delinquent friends, and problems and concerns about adjusting relationships with guardians are sometimes cited as "points to keep in mind in the future" in providing treatment in society, which are assumed on the basis of the course of treatment of the juvenile in the juvenile training school. Probationary supervision after parole discharge is implemented on the basis of these matters, as well as improvements through treatment in the juvenile training school and problems to be solved, with the aim ofimprovement and rehabilitation of the juvenile in society.