The foundation for AIM was laid during the summer of 1995, while
Dr. G. Roger Jarjoura, an Assistant Professor at IUPUI School of
Public and Environmental Affairs, was teaching a service learning
course on juvenile justice. As part of that course, he required
his students to spend some time working with juvenile offenders
at the former Plainfield Juvenile Correctional Facility
(commonly referred to as the Indiana Boy's School).
While working with youth at the Plainfield Juvenile Correctional
Facility, Dr. Jarjoura and his students became aware of two
facts:
1. The boys were being released from the facility without
having developed a plan for their life after incarceration (How
does that saying go: If you fail to plan, you plan to fail!).
2. Many of the boys were coming back to the facility within a
relatively short period of time after released.
Based on these observations, Dr. Jarjoura designed and piloted a
project utilizing college students as mentors to help prepare
and facilitate the successful transition of juvenile offenders
back home.
By the fall semester of 1996, AIM had formed a partnership with
the Indiana Department of Correction (IDOC) and began recruiting
our first group of mentors to serve juveniles housed at
Plainfield Juvenile Correctional Facility. At the same
time, a rigorous
evaluation of AIM was designed and implemented in which youth were
randomly assigned to one of three treatment conditions: the
full AIM program; only AIM support prior to their release, but
not after; or no contact with AIM at all. During the entire
calendar year of 1997 we maintained this strategy. This design
has served us well as we now have over four years of follow-up
data on hand that effectively demonstrates that AIM makes a
significant difference in the likelihood of reincarceration.
In 1998, we opened up AIM to all youth returning to the
Indianapolis area from the Plainfield facility—if they were
interested in having assistance, they were eligible to receive
services. In the summer of that year, we introduced a new
strategy of team mentoring. Mentors were assigned to teams and
so were the youth. This allowed for a somewhat more natural
selection process to take place, as the youth were able to
figure out which of several mentors they could best related to.
It also meant that there was more continuity for the kids, so
that if one mentor left the program, there would still be the
maintenance of a core personality among the team. With this new
strategy in place, we went from maintaining a roster of about 20
mentees at a time to a list of 120 at any given time.
In October 1998, we hosted a luncheon at the Madame Walker
Theatre to kick off a campaign to raise public awareness about
AIM and to raise money for the program. The luncheon featured
keynote speaker Judy O’Bannon and the debut of our self-produced
video on reentry from the youth’s perspective. Over the next
several months we would work closely with members of the faith
community to build up support for the program.
During
2000, AIM became a site for AmeriCorps members. Coinciding
with this, AIM expanded state-wide to serve youth returning to
counties throughout Indiana. AIM also opened its first
support center.
In
2005, Dr. Jarjoura developed the AIM Training Institute to
provide training and technical assistance in on best and
evidence-based practices in the areas of mentoring and reentry.
At that time, AIM also began to look for a temporary host while
it transitioned into an independent 501(C)(3) organization.
AIM transitioned to be hosted by the Indiana Juvenile Justice
Task Force, Inc. in 2007.