Two Different Juvenile Justice Programs - Assignment Example

? Two Juvenile Programs This paper examines two programs useful for young offenders of certain crimes, which helps bring offenders back into society to become useful citizens. Crimes committed by young offenders, are on the rise in this country and this could be directly attributed to economic and social factors within the family unit. Most offenders come from low economic status levels, with little to no support from teachers or family members. This encourages young people, under certain types of stress, to move into committing criminal activities for a variety of reasons. Some of it may be economical, such as wanting to have something and therefore, committing a robbery to get the money for it. Other reasons appear to be a factor of ‘boredom’ with one’s life. Remedial programs must address these problems with the young offender and most likely, his or her family’s involvement as well. Introduction While some of us may remember the days when television shows promoted family life to be like “Leave it To Beaver” and family problems were relatively simple and easily solved, our world today is far more complex and stressful. Family life is far from being ideal although some may manage to make it that way. Typically, families have two, or only one, full-time working parent, with children who must be managed and taken to ballet or sports classes. There is hardly enough time to really set proper foundations for good morals, proper social etiquette in dealing with others, and teaching children how to evaluate what they see in the media (Atella 2012). Early problems can also be observed first in the school setting when children are put on disciplinary actions of one sort or another. Some children also get left by the wayside by parents and schools to fend for themselves and, without efficient judgmental thinking, can get caught up with others in less than savory activities, such as gang, drugs and commission of robberies (Hitchcock 2013). When children get caught, then justice must find ways to help children learn their lesson about committing crimes against others and what the consequences will be (Peak 2012). Zero tolerance is not always the answer. Some judgments made by the courts allow for children, according to their age, to participate in community services and pay back restitution to their victims, while others must participate in rehabilitative programs that, hopefully, show them the error of their ways (LIC 2013). Others, such as in the case of murder, and based on age such as in the late teen years, may well have to serve trial and punishment as an adult. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention conducted a research project which came up with the Balanced and Restorative Justice Model, suggesting early intervention programs that could be instituted in communities to help at-risk young people avoid being lured away into a criminal life (LIC 2013). Rehabilitative programs were also promoted for those youthful offenders in order to help them understand the consequences of their actions, not only for themselves, but also how the crime affected the victim’s life afterwards. 1. Two juvenile programs are the Project CRAFT (Community, Restitution, and Apprenticeship-Focused Training) and the Juvenile Offenders Learning Tolerance (JOLT) program. The first program arranges for offenders (rural and urban) to learn a trade in some type of program that builds social and job skills, such as building houses. Offenders become apprentices in the early stage of their learning a trade which can be used to get a job once they are out of school (NCWD 2013). It also provides the Home Builders Institute (HBI) with needed workers for the homebuilding workforce. Offenders receive academic instruction and on-the-job training in learning how to build within the residential construction industry (NCWD 2013). The program also services, aside from offenders, those youth with disabilities, rural and urban youths, out of school youth, and minority youths. Currently, 10 states have implemented this program from time to time and they are Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas (NCWD 2013). The JOLT program is concentrated on those offenders who committed hate crimes, based on race, gender and sexual orientation, handicaps, and national origin. How people view others is part of a moral characteristic that may come from family influences or some type of life influence where a person feels that his or her life is threatened whenever a target person is seen or encountered (Atella 2012). Remedial intervention can include intensive training where both the offender and the parents attend so that they can learn skills in communication and anger management. They also learn how to break down prejudices about others. 2. The goal for both of these programs is to first, take up time away from potential street activity, and keeping the offenders from falling back into the criminal community. The main goal for the Project CRAFT is to provide a sense of worth in learning a trade which allows the offender to later get a job and become self-sustaining in a positive manner (NCWD 2013). The goal for the JOLT program is to instill awareness that all humans have a right to be here in whatever orientation they chose, and that offenders have no right to attack anyone because of who they are as humans (Hitchcock 2013). It is also about overcoming perceptions and prejudices about other people and understanding why they feel the way they do, and learning to overcome those thoughts (Steinberg et al. 2003). 3. In the situation of Project CRAFT, this program has shown to be very successful in incorporating youthful offenders into a workforce situation which also provides a sense of self-worth which may have been lacking previously (NCWD 2013). Offenders are given adult responsibilities in their apprenticeship as trade workers, providing encouragement that they are worth saving. The alternative is, of course, is they will end back out on the streets again with little to any hope of surviving well. Tools learned for such jobs are designing changes in building, material estimations, and workflow management and processing of building projects (NCWD 2013). The JOLT program is not always so successful, due to the nature of changing a person’s thinking which can be very ingrained, particularly if it is family-related and radicalized. If the young person’s environment is surrounded by such thinking, not only in the immediate family, but also extended family and the offender’s friends, then this can be pretty hard to overcome (Steinberg et al. 2003; Atella 2012). 4. The Project CRAFT is the more successful program as it provides benefits to the offender on many levels, such as imprinting a sense of self-worth by learning tools of a trade which allow for the ability to get a job. The program also encourages an offender to think for him or herself and to help out in solving problems that come up within a job aspect (NCWD 2013; Steinberg et al. 2003). Along with the ability to learn trade skills, offenders are also assisted with their education whereby they can work towards graduating from high school or at least getting their GED. Students will spend about six months in the program, logging in 840 hours. Nearly 25% of that time is spent in classroom instruction with the rest of the time being spent learning job skills and how to do their craft (NCWD 2013). When offenders leave the program and receive their trade certificate, they are also followed for six months after graduation to ensure that the offenders are maintaining what they learned. 5. The most important aspect in accomplishing change for these offenders in any program is the ability to perhaps find a mentor who the offender can trust, who will provide encouragement and be willing to communicate with the offender as needed. Making changes out of a familiar living pattern, usually a negative one, is sometimes very hard to do without some type of external reinforcement. A mentor and certainly, a new group of friends who are headed the same way, are positive reinforcement for a young offender (Steinberg 2003; Atella 2012). These opportunities are not always found in the home environment or, more particularly, in the old group of friends who got the offender into trouble in the first place (Hitchcock 2013). In general, youthful offenders commit crimes for a variety of reasons, which mainly come from a living environment that includes family members and friends who are also leaning more towards criminal actions themselves (Peak 2012). While hard economic times provide many difficulties, there are ways to promote better thinking processes and showing at risk youth invaluable ways to spend their time in doing things which enhance themselves, rather than falling into bad habits and criminal actions. Conclusion The young offender is becoming a much larger issue in the American society and, addressing the problems that encourage or promote criminal actions as more exciting than leading a normal life, must be addressed quickly. Since the Martin-Zimmerman trial and verdict, it would seem that there are countless stories in the news about youthful offenders committing violent murders and other crimes, such as robberies. The recent shooting of an Australian student who was out jogging, who was shot by three teenage boys, is a larger sign that there are problems in family structures that must be addressed quickly (AP 2013). When three boys say they were ‘bored’ and then decided that killing someone would be fun, there is an obvious indication that there is a very big problem going on in our society (Steinberg 2003). It also means that people will be fearful to walk up and down their streets, bicycle around, or even go shopping, because they do not know when someone will just drive by and shoot them for no reason other than they were there. This event also presents a question about how young offenders perceive themselves in a society where the punishment they receive is to do remedial time and community service (LIC 2013). For those who commit murders, it must be understood that the harshest penalties will be imposed, regardless of age, as the loss of life from such offenses demands that the full price be paid. If young offenders feel that they can get away with murder because they are underage and will not receive a trial by jury, then perhaps that must change in the future. For others who commit lesser offenses, there is always hope that their lives will be changed around if given a second chance to make something of themselves. Resources Allen, J.M. & Sawhney, R. (2009). Administration and Management in Criminal Justice: A Service Quality Approach. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. AP. (2013). 2 Teens Charged with Murdering Australian Baseball Player Just Because They Were ‘Bored’: Cops. New York Daily News Online. Retrieved from Atella, J. (2012). Insights: Juvenile Justice. The Minneapolis Foundation Online. Retrieved from Hitchcock, W.D. (2013). Zero Tolerance and Juvenile Justice: A View from the Bench. Alaska Justice Forum Online. Retrieved from LIC. (2013). Juvenile Programs. Legal Information Center (LIC) Online. Retrieved from NCWD. (2013). Project CRAFT. National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability (NCWD) Online. Retrieved from Peak, K. J. (2012). Justice Administration: Police, Courts, and Corrections Management, (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Steinberg, A., Brooks, J., & Remtulla, T. (2003). Youth Hate Crimes: Identification, Prevention, and Intervention. American Journal of Psychiatry, 160: 979-989. 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