The Future of Juvenile Justice, Essay Example

Juvenile Delinquency in United States is at a crossroads today, and needs the implementation of new measures to quickly effect major turnarounds in order to prevent millions of young people from becoming criminals or be lost permanently.

Juveniles today are committing acts like vandalism, prostitution, drug abuse, gambling, forgery, fraud, property theft, purchasing liquor, loitering, behaving disorderly in public, committing sexual offences, and running away from their homes, that if they are not brought under control, as soon as they exceed the 18 age limit, they will become hardened criminals (Lundman, 1984)

According to Lundman (1984), police arrest nearly 2 million juveniles every year, the make arrest rate for violent crime index as of 2008, was 4.6 times that for females, and the Caseloads in the Juvenile Delinquency Courts are four times what it was in 1960.

The situation stems from the fact that the present system has not been working to effect the required solution, in that according to Justice Policy Institute (2009), there are approximately 93,000 people held in juvenile justice facilities across the US, and 70% of these facilities are state funded post adjudication, residential in type accommodations are averaging $240.99 per day for each juvenile (Justice Policy Institute, 2009)

The authority responsible for changing the lives of these people and reduce the $5.97b national debt, are only serving the accommodation needs, and practically nothing else, because the present programs do not work, as according to National Center for Juvenile (2011), in 2009 an estimated 1770 children has died as a result of child abuse or neglect, and nearly 1.7 million juvenile delinquency cases are being disposed of annually.

A chronic situation exist in that according to the National Center for Juvenile Justice (2011), persons ages 7-17 are more likely to be victims of suicide as they are of becoming victims of homicide, students are more apt to become victims of serious crimes away from school than when they are on their way to school, and1 in every 5 of all violent crimes with juveniles occurs between 3.00 P.M. and 7.00 P.M. on school days (National Juvenile Center for Justice, 2011).

A high percentage of these juveniles that are presently ward in the correctional system and those to come, are more likely to become criminals, due to the fact that as of 2009, 45 states and the District of Columbia has concurrent Jurisdiction Provisions that gives prosecutors discretion to file certain cases involving them in juvenile or criminal courts (National Juvenile Center for Justice, 2011).

Additionally, according to National Juvenile Center for Justice (2011), more that ¼ or 27% of all persons arrested for robbery with aggravation as of 2008 were under the age of 18. This once these juveniles gets in to the system, they can be easily have their cases transferred by prosecutors to the criminal courts, where due to the poor education and lack of finance to acquire the best legal defense, condemned many to adult prisons for perhaps several decades.

A change is therefore definitely needed in status quo and this has to start with the development of a workable objective

Objective

What is required is a new approach that has an objective that canaffect a national turnaround in theUnited Sates Juvenile Justice System within five years, so that meaningful societal changes in terms of reductions in the level of juvenile activities, community crime rates, greater coordination of efforts between police, probation officers, community leaders, parents and guardians towards juveniles, and the number of accommodating facilities.

Proposed Changes

This objective will warrant strategic changes be proposed, and these include,

1. Abandoning Traditional Delinquency Prevention Efforts including scare tactics and using diversions, routine probations, expansion of community treatments, and using incarcerations last resorts as new strategies
2. Moving expenditures away from large congruent facilities to community based alternatives
3. Implementing Life Skill 95 program nationally (McShane, Williams, 2003)

The traditional method has proven statistically to have a dismal failure in many respects, especially in terms of the improvement in the quality of life of the juveniles. Research has shown according to McShane, Williams (2003) that even the use of scare tactics has produced more juvenile delinquents than those rehabilitated over the years.

The proposal to use diversions, routine probations, expanding the community involvements, and using incarcerations as last resorts will be able to provide more humane aspect of the system, and be able to greatly improve the self esteem and quality of life of the juveniles (McShane, Williams, 2003).

• Reduce cost
• Improve detection rate  of juvenile delinquency behavior

• Increase training and supervision standards of correctional and probation officers.

The overall objectives of this aspect of the planned proposal will include; increasing the number of probation supervisions, involving more parents or guardians and juveniles in all the rehabilitative decision making processes, drastically reducing the jail population over a five year period, and reduce number and frequency of violent crimes in particular crime in each state through more effective socialization programs.

The success of the plan will be determined by periodically measuring, the of last resort incarcerations utilized,the prevailing crime rate in society compare to previous periods, jail population changes, juvenile rehabilitation rate and the rate of educational enrollment and employment.

The objectives of Plan B of the proposal will be to increase the number of community alternatives  by at least 5%  in each state annually, strategically market the concept and its benefit to taxpayers, children, community safety, and cost reductions to state and national leadership over a 3 year period to gain greater acceptance and cooperation, seeking to achieve significant reductions in the juvenile population in facilities within 5 years , achieve legislative  and financial approval for the project where necessary, and

increase community employers’ awareness by advertising and promotions using rehabilitated juveniles and other tried and proven methods.

Success will be measured by evaluating whether the increase the number of community alternatives by at least 5% in each state annually, was achieved, the response levels to the marketing program via questionnaires, the level of reductions in the juvenile population in facilities within 5 years, and the number of legislative  and financial approval for the projects obtained

The objective of the Life Skills 95 Program (developed from Operation New Hope Los OSOS), will be to improve overall lifestyles choices (social, education, job training, and employment), reduce juvenile involvement with negative peer associate, significantly reduce criminal activity, the need for drug  and alcohol dependence in each locale, and

Stabilizing and eventually reducing to vey minimum levels the juveniles’ lengths of parole, by improving basic social skills (McShane, Williams, 2003).

Performance will be measured by lengths of juvenile parole achieved, the reductions in criminal activities and dependence on alcohol and drugs, the number of job trainings and employment provided as a result of the program, and the number of juveniles penalized as a result of negative associations, compared to previous periods.

The status of Juvenile Delinquencies, it is hoped after the application of these very scientific measures, will experience drastic changes in all areas. The Government should be able to reduce its annual expenditures, the courts system realizing massive reductions in its case overloads, schools should report more environmentally conducive atmospheres for children to acquireeducation, communities and local employers observingsignificant improvements in the crime rates and the quality of rehabilitated personnel applying for positions respectively, and finally the obsolete state facilities being utilized for more economically profitable activities.

Reference

McShane, M.D., Williams, F.P.  (2003). Encyclopedia of Juvenile Justice Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks , CA pp. 148, 221-235

National Center for Juvenile Justice (2011). National Overviews  www.ncjj.org/08/16/11

Lundman, R.E. (1984). Prevention and Control of Juvenile Delinquency. Oxford University Press Inc. New York, NY  p.8

Justice Policy Institute (2009). The Cost of Confinement: Why good juvenile justice policies make good fiscal sense? www.justicepolicy.org/images/upload/09_05_rep , 08/15/11