Juvenile Justice Outcome Evaluation Report

Bartollas & Miller (2008) states that the future of the juvenile justice system faces a variety of challenges, the population of juveniles under the age of eighteen will increase between 2000 and 2025, about one half of the 1% per year. By 2050, it is estimated that the juvenile population will be 36% larger that it was in 2000. Given this population growth of juveniles in the years to come, it looks like the juvenile justice system will have greater demands placed on it.

Juvenile delinquency has become a controversial issue within the Criminal Justice system. In the United States, juvenile delinquency refers to disruptive and criminal behavior committed by an individual under the age of 18. In many states, a minor at the age of 16 to 17 ½ can be tried as an adult. Once the individual reaches adulthood, the disruptive and criminal behavior is recognized as a crime. However, the criminal justice system has divided juvenile delinquency into two general types of categories that has brought upon controversial issues of inequality and corruption. Yet, putting young individuals in juvenile detentions facilities seems to open the door for them to commit more crimes in the future. Therefore, under certain circumstances juveniles should be tried as an adult.

The criminal justice system approaches young offenders through unique policies to address the challenges of dealing with juvenile offending. They take special care when dealing with juveniles in order to stop them from repeat offending and stop any potential bad behaviour which could result in future. Juveniles have the highest tendency to rehabilitate and most adopt law-abiding lifestyles as they mature. There are several factors influencing juvenile crime including psychological and social pressures unique to juveniles, which may lead to an increase in juvenile’s risks of contact with the criminal justice system.

The act’s framers were concerned with the framework of the juvenile justice system. Believing that they could restrain juvenile delinquency through prevention rather than punishment, they increased the quality of the juvenile justice system. Policy specified that, “kids should be treated as kids” (Ravenell, 2002). However, rising crime rates throughout the late 1970s and 1980s lead to disillusionment with the system. The public became concerned that juvenile justice policy was too lenient. Practitioners scrambled to enact harsher penalties in an effort to slow the rising juvenile crime rates. The new policies restricted lenient punishment such as probation and lead to an increase in incarceration rates (Meade & Steiner, 2010).

Currently to deal with juvenile offenders involved in the youth crime, there are two options available. The first option that prevails to a larger extent is known to us as incarceration while the second option that is slowly gaining trends is known to us as rehabilitation programs. This paper focuses on thorough analysis of both these options and the impact that they have on the offenders as well as the society as a whole. The paper also assesses the viability of these options in order to determine which of these will prove to be more effective and beneficial.

In order to properly address mandatory incarceration for chronic juvenile offender’s criminal activities, it is important to begin with psychological assessments and evaluations. Half of our youths have experienced some type of psychological trauma such as depression, PTSD, personality disorders, anxiety, anger issues, or dissociation, just to name a few (Moroz, K. 2009). In order to determine mandatory incarceration, all of these factors must be considered. I will agree with most of our society that is , if they are a danger to society and serious of the crime, they need to be put into detention, where they cannot cause harm but where they can received the right intervention program and mental health treatment for them, it’s the law. The juvenile justice system is to rehabilitate not punish young offenders. Punishment is not the answer in solving their delinquent behavioral patterns.

Juvenile institutions and programs have changed over time. There are also juvenile programs that necessarily do not punish juvenile’s delinquents but instead help modify their behavior to avoid recidivism. Certain treatments and methods regarding how to deal with these dangerous young offenders were fixed and improved to make these institutions and programs more effective in changing the lives of these young

Treating juveniles like they are adults in any shape or form is completely wrong. Previously I stated that I believed juveniles who commit violent crimes should be tried as adults, but after careful thinking and research, I feel very differently about this matter because they are still children mentally. They do not have the mental capacity to make informed decisions like adults. According to Albow (2014), when we allow our justice system to treat children or adolescence as adults so that we can be more punishing of their acts, we show no commitment to justice. What we show is our own contempt for the truth. Most juveniles between the ages of 14-17 are sometimes incapable of

The goals of juvenile corrections are too deter, rehabilitate and reintegrate, prevent, punish and reattribute, as well as isolate and control youth offenders and offenses. Each different goal comes with its own challenges. The goal of deterrence has its limits; because rules and former sanctions, as well anti-criminal modeling and reinforcement are met with young rebellious minds. Traditional counseling and diversion which are integral aspects of community corrections can sometimes be ineffective, and studies have shown that sometimes a natural self intervention can take place as the youth grows older; resulting in the youth outgrowing delinquency.

There are many similarities and differences between the adult and juvenile justice systems. Although juvenile crimes have increased in violence and intensity in the last decade, there is still enough difference between the two legal proceedings, and the behaviors themselves, to keep the systems separated. There is room for changes in each structure. However, we cannot treat/punish juvenile offenders the way we do adult offenders, and vice versa. This much we know. So we have to find a way to merge between the two. And, let’s face it; our juveniles are more important to us in the justice system. They are the group at they

Serious crimes such as murder, burglary and rape have raised questions as to whether the young offenders should face severe punitive treatment or the normal punitive measures in juvenile courts. Many would prefer the juveniles given harsh punishment in order to discourage other young people from engaging in similar activities and to serve as a lesson to these particular offenders. However, results from previous studies indicate such punitive measures were neither successful nor morally acceptable. Instead, the solutions achieved have unfairly treated the youths and compromised the society status (Kristin, page 1).

Finally, literature on the juvenile justice system often focuses on program implementation and effectiveness at addressing rehabilitation, as well as diversion techniques within the system (Greenwood, 2008). This review audits these problems in detail and establishes them within the bigger struggle in the juvenile justice system to rehabilitate youth offenders.

It is a common believe that adolescents require a special system thru which be processed because they are “youth who are in a transitional stage of development…young offenders that are neither innocent children nor mature adults…” (Nelson, 2012). Because juveniles are in a process of constant development sociologically, psychologically and physiologically, the juvenile court system focuses on alternative sentences and the creation of programs that will offer them rehabilitation instead of incarceration. However, in cases of extraordinary circumstances, the juvenile system shifts from looking at rehabilitation as a first choice to accountability and punishment (Read, n.d). All levels of society are collectively involved in delinquency

Should juveniles get adult jail sentences? In today's society juvenile offenders are facing the law to full force, in two court systems. Not only are they tried in the juvenile justice system, but also charged as adults. The issue of charging juveniles as adults has stirred various views owing to the violent crimes committed by the young offenders. Politicians comment that the best solution is to lock up juvenile offenders for a long time and ignore rehabilitation. However, prior researches on the topic of juvenile delinquencies suggest that trying young offenders in the adult legal system and putting them in adult prisons will only lead to increased crime, higher costs, and increased violence(John & Jiangmin 568).

In recent decades, juvenile crime has become somewhat of a controversy due to the young age and immaturity of these criminals. Incidences of juvenile crime skyrocketed in the 1980s and 1990s, and policymakers pushed for laws that sent children as young as thirteen years old to trial, and even made them eligible for prison sentences. The general public has expressed a common desire to reduce the incidence of juvenile crime and find effective legislation to discipline these youths, but there are questions about these methods. What is more effective, incarceration or rehabilitation? Does criminal punishment intimidate more youths away from a life of crime, and would productive rehabilitation efforts influence these youths to becoming more valuable members of society?