Justice System Position Paper
The purpose of this paper is to state my belief that juveniles should and can be rehabilitated. The goals and efforts of rehabilitation are to keep the juvenile offenders out of the correctional facility. Peers impact delinquency in several ways for instance; most teenagers follow their friends do to peer pressure. Some juveniles demonstrating behaviors that are inappropriate at times just to fit in.
In some cases the peers that are under the influence of their friends tend to due things that they were taught not to do because they will feel as though they may lose the others as their friend. A lot of juvenile’s offenders don’t have a positive older role model in their life they can turn to so they tend to turn to their peers for guidance and this is how juvenile delinquency begins. In many cases juvenile delinquents are raised by single parents. Some are subjected to an environment that is considered a high crime area in which promotes delinquent behavior.
In some cases when juvenile’s become delinquent they feel as though because of their age there is no real consequence they would face because they are minors. Juveniles have often said “nothing will happen to me because I’m under aged”. Not all juveniles are a menace to society and should not be place in a juvenile detention. There are many cases when juvenile delinquents can benefit from rehabilitation and not be punishing by placing them in a detention facility. In the early days 1800’s, young children the age of seven and older were placed in an adult correctional facility.
These children were incarcerated with criminals who committed murder, robbery, rape, ect… In these early years of incarceration men, women, children and the mentally challenged shared the same space within the correctional facility. The juvenile justice system should focus on rehabilitation The purpose of rehabilitation is to offer programs and therapeutic session in order to assist juvenile delinquents to return to their community. Rehabilitating juvenile delinquents can also deter them from future criminal behavior.
The purpose of the community –base treatment programs are designed to serve the juveniles by rehabilitating them so they are able to live as productive citizens within their community. Within the juvenile justice system there are several community treatment based programs that are made available in order to rehabilitate them before entering back into the community. Juvenile delinquents can receive rehabilitation for drug and alcohol use. They can also receive educational courses in order to help them with life skills.
Rehabilitation is designed to assist juveniles with the help of a professional team to help teens to cope with drug and alcohol abuse, self-esteem issues, and in some cases sexual abuse. The juvenile justice system should focus on rehabilitation for reasons such as; it can deter juvenile delinquent from future criminal offense. Rehabilitations can also be an alternate solution for juvenile’s verses punishment. Rehabilitating a juvenile can also eliminate the amount cost of incarceration. Rehabilitation can allow the juvenile delinquent to understand his or her reason for their behaviors and can deter them from future acts.
Rehabilitation can also help juvenile offenders understand the affect they may have on their community when committing crime. Rehabilitation offers juvenile offenders a new lead on life and implements ways to change their criminal behavior. Why should the juvenile justice system adopt the focus of rehabilitation? The juvenile justice system should adopt the focus of rehabilitation because it would allow juveniles a chance to regain acceptance from the people who live within their community as well as ensuring that each juvenile become successful within society.
The juvenile justice system should adopt the focus of rehabilitation verses punishment for reasons such as, when juvenile delinquents are order by a judge to become rehabilitated they tend to learn from their mistake and attempt to make a life change for the better. Most juveniles who committed to becoming rehabilitated have become successful with deterring from criminal activities. In many cases some juvenile delinquents have grown to be productive throughout their teenage years into adulthood after receiving rehabilitation.
Rehabilitation has an affect on law enforcement, court process, probation, corrections, community service, and intervention programs for example, within law enforcement most juvenile offenders stand a lesser chance committing a second offense. This would allow the law enforcement to focus on new cases of criminal offenders. In addition to focusing on new offenses, law enforcement can utilize the funding that it would take support the process and use it in other areas most needed. “Almost all federal support for juvenile law enforcement activities comes through grants made to states and local agencies. (Rabkin, J. N. , 1998) Most juveniles are recommended rehabilitation during the court process. Until the juvenile delinquent has meet all requirements set by his or her probation officer and or the judge, then he or she must complete all orders that are set in order to be in compliance with rehabilitation. Rehabilitation will affect probation because the more juvenile offenders are placed on probation the more probation offers case load. Juvenile delinquents must report to their assigned probation offer in order to be in compliance with rehabilitation.
In most instance probation officers are assigned to juvenile delinquents who did not receive a jail sentence therefore they are required to check in with the probation officer in order to determine if rehabilitation is effective. Rehabilitation can affect corrections for reasons such as, when funding is made available by grants and other agencies the correction facility can support more rehabilitation services for the juvenile delinquents who in term had to serve time in a correctional facility.
Community service would be affected in a positive way because this would allow agencies within the community to help juvenile delinquents regain their self –esteem by allowing them to complete volunteer work. This helps with building their work ethics as well as confidence. Intervention programs could benefit from the use of rehabilitation because it allows more analysis to be complete on the behaviors of juvenile delinquents. This can also be beneficial to rehabilitation programs as well because it allow the programs to create new strategies in order to better rehabilitate juvenile delinquents.
It has been several arguments that are opposed of rehabilitating juvenile delinquents. Some feel as though juvenile delinquents should face harsh punishment in order to deter future criminal acts. Then on the other side, there has been argument that juvenile delinquents can benefit from becoming rehabilitated through community base programs as oppose to being incarcerated. There are numerous success stories of how effective juvenile rehabilitation has been.
In recent finding judge LaDoris Cordell stated “the juvenile justice system can be applied and modified to deal with the needs of the particular juvenile. ”(Cordell, L. , 2011) In some studies there has been argument that rehabilitation is non effective within the juvenile justice system. In some studies researchers find that most juveniles who commit criminal acts are of those who are poor and in low income homes, they also have a “lack of opportunity lead children to crime, not families that fail to teach value. (P, F, P, A, 1996) A few arguments that are opposing from the other side are that some feel as though rehabilitations are non- effective and has not deterred juveniles from criminal behavior. It has also been argued that incarceration would serve as justice and is more effective than juvenile delinquent attending rehabilitation programs. Some argued that putting the funds that support rehabilitation programs to other use such as “placing it on healthcare. ”(Limbaugh, S. 010)
I will attempt to validate why my argument is stronger than the opposing side, In my opinion I feel the arguments that were opposed to rehabilitation are not as valid as my arguments for reason such as, juveniles that are incarcerated for a long period of time stand a greater chance of becoming institutionalized as oppose to juveniles who are becoming rehabilitated through community programs. Juvenile delinquents who spend a lot of time incarcerated stand a greater chance of becoming depressed, aggressive, and even more violent towards others than before they enter into the correctional facility.
Juvenile delinquents who attend rehabilitation programs have been a positive resolution for young offenders. Most juveniles who were rehabilitated stand a greater chance to become more productive within society. If the juvenile justice system would focus more on rehabilitation services then most juvenile delinquents can concentrate on becoming rehabilitated and not feel the pressure of confinement with in the correctional facility. ” Rehabilitation is the focus of corrections programs for juveniles. ”(T, P, F, J, D, 1999) Evidence to support my claims Community rehabilitation programs are the best prevention for juvenile delinquents.
When providing services to juvenile delinquents it allows juvenile delinquents to regain self confidents when reentering into society as well as it brings about self awareness. In 1996 a report from RAND Corporation which indicated that “early intention programs can prevent as many as 250 crimes per $1 million spent while the same amount spent in prisons would prevent only 60 such crimes a year”. (Adebayo,J. ,A. 2011) In conclusion The purpose of my position paper is to state my belief that juveniles should and can be rehabilitated. The goals and efforts of rehabilitation are to keep the juvenile offenders out of the correctional facility.
The advantage of rehabilitating juvenile delinquents is to deter them from future criminal acts. The disadvantage of juvenile punishment is that some juveniles that are confined to a correction facility as oppose to reporting to a community program risks the chance of becoming institutionalized. The disadvantage of becoming institutionalized can trigger more aggressive behavior than before. In my opinion I feel as though rehabilitation is more effective then placing juvenile delinquents in a correctional facility because juveniles are able to get a new start on life after being rehabilitated.
