Problems of the Juvenile Justice System - Essay Example

Problems of the Juvenile Justice System The juvenile justice system is established to punish and rehabilitate young persons who commit criminal offences. The system recognizes that though teenagers often hurt other people and their property, they do not have full legal responsibility of an adult since they may be still in the process of learning about their role in the community. The system therefore aims at intervening early in delinquent behaviors in order to prevent the young people from committing criminal offences when they become adults. The juvenile justice system in its effort of correcting the behaviors of adolescents encounters numerous challenges that make its work to be difficult. Juvenile recidivism, which is the act of the young people who have gone through the rehabilitation process to commit the same offences they had committed before, has become a common trend in juvenile retention centers. Research shows that though the juvenile arrest rate has dropped by almost 50 percent in the last two decades, there is a challenge of increasing number of juvenile arrests who commit the same offences they had committed before once they are through with the rehabilitation process (Western, Weiman, Pattillo & Muse, 2004). For example there have been several incidences in various states of United States of America where adolescents who have gone through the juvenile correction centers to end up being arrested with similar offences when they attain eighteen years of age. This trend shows that that the juvenile justice system is not effective in correcting the bad behaviors among adolescents and thus it fails in its mandate. The failure may also be attributed to the use of ineffective programs that are incapable of properly imparting the right values to the adolescent victims. There has been a challenge on the metrics to use to track the outcomes of youth who have undergone through the juvenile system since there is no agreed upon measurement system of recidivism. Several metrics such as behavioral health improvement, employment attainment and skill development all of which are important in ensuring youth’s long-term success have been used in the past. These metrics have however not been applied effectively since most of the juvenile correction agencies do not measure youth outcome beyond whether they commit future delinquent acts. Policymakers and juvenile justice agencies have furthermore failed to use the above metrics to measure the outcomes of youths after they are through with the supervision period. This failure of poor tracking system has contributed to recidivism since it renders the entire juvenile system to be incapable of helping the youth have a productive adult live. There has been failure during the process of analyzing recidivism data to not take into consideration the risk level of the population being measured, which is important (Springer & Roberts, 2011). This is because the rates normally differ mainly based on the population in consideration since a high risk youth released from a juvenile center is more likely to experience higher recidivism rate than a low risk youth from the same center. Other related important factors such as youth demographic groups, placement type, facility, service provider, length of stay and youth service needs have normally been ignored when analyzing the recidivism data. As a result of this failure policy makers and other concerned groups have been making wrong conclusion on the performance of the various correction facilities. According to the 2006 edition of current population reports published by the U.S Department of Commerce, there are over 70 million persons under the age of 18 years in the United states which is more than a quarter of the total population (Florencio, 2008). The publication further shows that over 1.5 million of these youths engage in criminal activities while an estimated 700,000 belong to illegal streets gangs that are involved in all sorts of criminal activities. This large number of youths who usually find themselves in juvenile courts coupled with the insufficient number of juvenile correction centers has led to overcrowding of the few available facilities. Over the past few years, almost all juvenile correcting facilities have faced this problem of overcrowding where they receive a larger number of victims than they can comfortably manage. This has resulted to the victims receiving ineffective services from the facilities and hence most of them have ended up not being properly transformed. For example, the New Beginnings Youth detention center in United States, which is built to a house sixty people, has been reported in the past to be accommodating more than eighty youths (Cauvin, 2010). Overcrowded juvenile facilities are a major challenge to the juvenile justice system today in America and generally in all parts of the world. As a result, there has been a lot of criticism to the juvenile system from human rights and activist groups because of their inability to offer enough services to the victims. This has directly or indirectly affected negatively the performance of the rehabilitation system since it is difficult for any organization to perform effectively when there is a lot of opposition. There is thus need for the concerned parties to enact the right policies and programs that will solve this problem exhaustively. For example the government and other charity organizations that fund these programs can increase their findings so as to enable the juvenile system enlarge its accommodation facilities. The racial discrimination that characterize juvenile system in America greatly affect young people since the youth from minority races are over represented at the various levels of the justice process. Juvenile courts were established based on the recognition of the fact that though children may commit criminal offences, they are different from adults and should only be rehabilitated and not imprisoned like adults (Siegel & Senna, 2012). The juvenile system was thus aimed at avoiding the tendency of a young person being branded a criminal, rapist, molester and other demeaning names through the correction process it is supposed to offer. However, for majority of the black Americans and Hispanic children who are involved in criminal activities, the juvenile justice system serves as a feeder system into adult courts and consequently prisons. Furthermore, among the youths under the age of 18 arrested in 2006, African Americans were arrested at a greater rate than the white youth and generally than any other demographic group. The African American youths were arrested at 2.1 times the rate of the white youths arrested because of various offences such as violent crimes, drug abuse, murder and robbery among other crimes. Racially biased juvenile justice system has severe implications because the main aim of the system is to reduce the level of adults who engage in criminal activities regardless of the race. A key pillar of the system is the separation of children from adult prisoners since the children are minors and have not therefore fully developed to be completely responsible for their actions. Therefore placing a lot of emphasis on the Black and Hispanic youths will only lead to a generation of many black and Hispanic adult criminals hence the system will not have solved the problem. Over representation of the minority youth in terms of race in the juvenile justice system seems to increase after arrest according to the past trend in the juvenile system in various places across the globe. The minority youths tend to be held at intake, detained before hearing, have their petitions filed, be adjudicated negligent and be held in confined cells more often than their white counterparts. Unfair confinement of young Hispanics has been witnessed in the past in each of the four states in America with largest population of Hispanics that is California, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas (Barak, Leighton & Flavin, 2010). In these states, minorities represented over forty percent of the juveniles held in the correction centers despite the fact that they represent less than fifteen percent of the total juvenile population in the country. Furthermore, a research conducted in the past revealed that when juvenile criminals were alike in terms of age, gender and seriousness of the preceding records, the offenders from the minority groups were more likely to receive more harsh punishments. All these examples demonstrate the racial biasness against the minority groups that has prevailed in the juvenile justice system for a long time. The juvenile justice system contributes either directly or indirectly to the young people committing more crimes rather than reducing the crime rate. The system is believed to be criminalizing and mistreating the juvenile victims through the manner in which it operates and responds to the children. The environment in some of the juvenile correction centers are almost the same as those of adult prisons and because of the adversities the young victims undergo in the process of rehabilitation they end up being worse than before. This is because harsh conditions for a developing child are likely to affect how the child views the world and since such a person may feel unloved, he will often result to violent methods as a way of retaliating. The juvenile justice system policies originate from the fear of teenagers and government failure to recognize children as having political and social rights just like adults who are recognized legally. The society has developed a negative perception about the youth since most of the adult today associate young people with unlawful acts and other activities that are related to rebellion. The negative perspective can be attributed to the small number of minors who engage in unlawful activities and become highly publicized by the media. On the other hand the government has failed to come up with well-defined guidelines on the rights of the youths and there has thus been confusion on the activities the youths are allowed to engage in. Parents, teachers and other people who deal with young people do not know well what the law requires of the youth and what morality demands from the young people. The justice system is thus flawed since its policies are not effective in rehabilitating the juvenile victims and the policies are based on biased information about the young people. Due to this, the youth who commit criminal activities lack legal counsel in court and therefore end up being given harsh punishments, which they cannot effectively handle. All sorts of mistreatments ranging from rape to violence are reported to be taking place in several juvenile jails in the United States of America and in majority of countries worldwide. These injustices contribute significantly in turning troubled youths into failed adults and hence encourage the life cycles of violence, poverty and despair to prevail in the country. It is thus evident that unless the juvenile justice system is reviewed, majority of the common social problems that characterize most of the states in America will continue prevailing. The various lawmakers at different levels have failed in instituting proper legislation to ensure there is just and effective juvenile justice system. This is evidenced by the damage caused to the society by the juvenile system, which has failed in its role of transforming defiant youths to be responsible adults (Church, 2014). The various groups of lawmakers and enforcers such as police officers, judges in courts, prosecutors and politicians have all contributed to the failure of the system (Singer, 2013). For example, most of the juvenile detention facilities in United States are characterized by sexual abuse where one in every ten detained children becomes victim of sexual abuse. Most of these abuses are connected with the staff of the juvenile facilities who are the people who are supposed to be protecting the children. These kinds of abuses are preventable if there is a proper legislation system in the country that will offer harsh punishments like life imprisonment to the staff that are found to be sexually abusing the detainees. Young offenders need responsible adults who have the wisdom and skills to convince them of the negative consequences of their activities and thus transform them to be responsible adults. Unfortunately, the current juvenile system rarely provides these offenders with people they can establish meaningful relationships with and look up to. Instead harsh officers who punish the young people even when they commit reasonable mistakes, which any other person can commit, characterize the system. The various legislators have thus failed in their mandate and they need to come up with various policies that will restore effectiveness of the policies enacted. Over the past years there have been several reforms that have been enacted in a bid to solve the challenges in the juvenile justice system but they have not been very effective since majority have failed in the implementation stage. This is coupled with the fact that many politicians, prison officials, judges and prosecutors have not grasped the difference between dealing with an adult prisoner and a child who commits criminal offences. Most of these officers believe that all offenders generally should be punished for their wrongdoings and they thus fail to grasp the important concept of rehabilitation. This lack of clear grasp on the importance of rehabilitating child offenders by affecting the relevant values and skills has contributed significantly to the inefficiency of the system. Therefore, unless the lawmakers review the system, the child offenders will continue sitting in a locked room without being transformed and hence once released they will return to do the same activities that caused them to be detained before. It is evident that several problems that face the juvenile justice system and only operative involvements that influence the strengths of families and communities to change disturbed youths are key to an effective juvenile justice system in any country. Youths who go through the rehabilitation process and fail to be transformed may endure in the criminal justice system throughout their lives since they will keep on committing the same offences. There is therefore a need for the government and all concerned agencies to commit themselves to coming up with long term solutions. References Barak, G., Leighton, P., & Flavin, J. (2010). Class, race, gender, and crime: The social realities of justice in America. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield. Cauvin, H. (2010). Juvenile detention center overcrowded. The Washimgton Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/06/AR2010120607347.html Church, W. T. (2014). Juvenile justice sourcebook. New York, NY : Oxford University Press. Florencio, R. (2008, April). Juvenile Delinquency Current Issues, Best Practices, and Promising Approaches. Gpsolo. Siegel, L. J., & Senna, J. J. (2012). Juvenile delinquency: Theory, practice and law. Belmont [u.a.: Wadsworth. Singer, M. (2013). Prison rape: An American institution?. Santa Barbara, California: Praeger. Springer, D. W., & Roberts, A. R. (2011). Juvenile justice and delinquency. Sudbury, Mass: Jones and Bartlett Publishers. Western, B., Weiman, D. F., Pattillo, M. E., & Project Muse. (2004). Imprisoning America: The social effects of mass incarceration. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Read More