Youth Justice Policy and Practice - Essay Example

Youth justice policy and practice Name: University: To what extend can young offenders be characterized as children in need? What implications does this have for youth justice policy and practice? A young offender can be defined as a person who has been warned for a criminal offence. Younger offenders can be from any gender and they must have committed a certain criminal offence. Young offenders are dealt with by the criminal justice system in a totally different way from the way the adults are dealt with, Muncie, (2008 pp 109). The age of the young offenders differ from one country to another. In some countries, it is normally the children below the age of eighteen but above twelve years old. Children in need are those ones who are facing problems and they need to be relieved off such problems. The young offenders are children in need because they need protection from the way they are treated. Young offenders are also children in need due to the problem that lead them into committing criminal offences. First, the young may be involved in crimes due to family problems like poverty and lack of supervision from their parents. In addition, they may also commit crimes due to unemployment or pressure from their peers. Aggressiveness and anger is another cause of crime in the youth while others commit crime because of poor social skills and drug abuse. This shows us that young people become offenders because of the problems they have hence they can be said to be children in need. The youth offenders are needy children because those taken to court do not access medical help. They end up suffering from emotional, physical and mental health problems. The youth policy practice thus requires the courts to look at the health of the young offenders before deciding how to punish them, Muncie, (2008 pp 119). Young offenders also have social relationship needs especially when they are separated with their friends and families because of their criminal acts. In addition, they are also needy because they develop a learning disability due to their criminal behavior. Financial problems are a major cause of among the youth. This is because financial problems lead to poverty which drives the youth people in committing criminal acts. Most youth engage in criminal acts due to unemployment and therefore financial problems lead them into committing criminal acts. Individual psychological problems are also major causes of crime among the youth, Godson, B. (pp 213). Many of the youth found guilty of criminal acts tend to have psychological and mental problems like stress. According to the positivist theory, young offenders are also children in need and should be considered needy Godson, B. (pp 225). The youth justice policy and practice works from the point of the young offenders being children in need. The youth justice policy requires that the court to consider the needs of children while pronouncing court rulings. The major aim of the youth justice policy is to curb offending by the youth and children and to prevent the offenders from getting into a youth justice system, Muncie, (2008 pp121). It also aims at providing proper rehabilitation for the youth offenders. The youth justice policy was changed with the aim of changing the conceptualization of the young the young people who commit crimes as well as providing a new way of dealing with them. The point of view of the youth justice policy is that the problem with the youth offenders is that they are in need and so they should be helped to become better adults, Smith, (2005 pp 3-16). The youth justice policy also considers the construction of childhood where they find it good to create a room for positive change. The youth justice policy aims at bringing up positive minded youth children while putting into consideration the need to understand children’s needs. More so, the youth justice policy terms it as being unwise to jail young offenders because this leads to social exclusion and thus making the children more likely to commit more crimes. The youth justice policy and practice has revised the kind of intervention required by the young offenders. To this policy, the children who are victimized are likely to become persistent offenders thus the need to transform to avoid committing more criminal acts. The youth justice policy has youth offender panels that offer the communities of the youth offenders a room to express themselves and ensure that youth who commit crimes change their behaviors to prevent further offending, Muncie, (2008 pp 107). These panels can let the youth speak for themselves and offer an opportunity for transformation. The youth justice policy and practice also holds the youth accountable for their criminal acts and encourages them to change and be integrated to the society thus promoting community safety. We have the youth justice act of 1992 that provides laws for the youth who engage in crimes or who are believed to have been involved in criminal acts, Smith, (2005 pp 16). These laws include the way these offenders should be treated and how their cases can be handled. The youth justice act for example guides the police on how they are required to respond to youth people who commit crimes and it also provides various ways of sentencing the youth. It even has youth detention centers where the young offenders can be taken instead of taking them to the court. It acknowledges the role played by the families of the juvenile children in rehabilitating the young offenders. To the youth justice policy, there should be various ways of punishing young offenders depending on the type of crime committed whether minor or serious crime. The youth justice policy advocates for the rehabilitation of youth offenders and detention should be the least alternative. According to Muncie (2008 pp 120), it is good for the youth justice practitioners to know the context of offending and various social inequalities that lead the youth into criminal acts. It is not good to judge the young offenders unless you have found out why they committed the crime. The United Nations convention on the rights of the child (UNCRC) provides for the protection of the children’s rights, who have committed criminal offences. Godson and Muncie, (2006 pp 91). These bodies are important when it comes to youth justice because young offenders may have human riots and their room to plead for justice denied if there are no bodies to defend them. Through UNCRC, the government also gets involved in protecting and promoting the rights of the young offenders. The treatment of young offenders shows how civilized a country is. It is a crucial thing that shows compassion and humanity in any society. It is normally a symbol that whose key value is moral integrity. The age of a criminal is very important when it comes to youth justice practices. The policy has set the age at which a child is perceived to be accountable to criminal offence. There is uniform dissonance in the many responses made to young offenders depending on the extent to which the youth justice policies stress the need for welfare, intervention, rights rehabilitation and punitive measures. Thus we can say that justice is depends on the crime committed and the need for reformation. The children’s act of 1933 was a parliamentary act that consolidated the existing child protection laws into a single act, Smith, (2005 pp 3). This was done after juvenile courts had been introduced and its aim was to introduce supervision of children at risk. The act also raised the minimum age for execution to 18 years, included the guidelines for school age children employment and set the minimum employment age to 14 and brought to seven and eight the age of criminal responsibility. According to Smith, (2005 pp 10), responding to the crimes children and providing for their welfare are things that we can’t separate. Children offenders are usually children in need and therefore their welfare and the need for criminal justice all work hand in hand. Thus we can say that it is very difficult to separate welfare and criminal justice. The youth justice policy emphasizes on the rehabilitation of the youth offenders because this can help them stop engaging in crimes. The rehabilitation of the young offenders also gives them room for defense and this helps them become useful citizens instead of just sentencing them. Youth justice policy also focuses on probation of the young offenders which aims at persuading offenders to change so as to reduce the harm of crimes to their souls and to their families and the society at large. The youth justice policy also expresses its concern time and again on the juveniles who are taken in prison alongside adult offenders. Its major claim here is that these children are greatly influenced by the adult offenders and therefore young offenders need to be locked up separately for rehabilitation. The young offenders are also children in need because when they are taken to prison with the adult offenders, some are mistreated and even some end up dieing there hence the youth justice policy works towards providing better trial areas for the young offenders. In addition, the youth justice policy also states that young offenders should be in remand centers and should be kept separately with those children who have undergone correctional orders because according to law, we remain innocent till the law proves us guilty. Through the child care and protection law, the welfare of the young offenders is taken care of because here the law says that, young offenders are not supposed to be held for more than forty eight hours before their cases are heard in court to facilitate their transfer into the approved facilities, Smith. (2007). The youth justice policy fights against remanding of juvenile offenders because this limits their possibility for recreation. More so, the life in the remand is at most times inhumane, cruel and it usually deprives the young offenders their right treatment. According to the youth justice policy, children are supposed to be kept separately from the youth offenders because some of the things that happen in the adult prison leave the young offenders traumatized and it becomes very hard to help them overcome the trauma. The youth justice policy is meant to encourage the police to use more soft methods while handling juvenile offending every time it occurs. This has made the police adopt immediate warning as the first way to deal with minor and first offenders. Incase there is a need for further action; the police can refer the young offender to a specialist unit which can even be a rehabilitation centre. The youth justice policy and practice requires the police not to refer the young offender directly to the court. Through, the youth justice policy and practice, there is the need for a children’s court that deals with children arrested for serious crimes. The aim of the children’s court is to ensure that children offenders are dealt with separately from the adult offenders and in the best way possible, Smith. (2007). Most of these children’s courts have command over every kind of offence except the serious offences. The youth justice policy and practice also states that children are not supposed to be deprived off their liberty unlawfully hence the imprisonment of a child should always conform to the law and should only be taken as the last measure when the child is involved in a criminal act, Harris and Webb, (1987). More so, the treatment given to the young offenders should promote the child’s worth and dignity because this will make the child respect the rights of others and this helps reinstate the child into the society and make them more responsible citizens. Guidance, counseling and probation should be put into practice to ensure that young offenders are dealt with in the best way possible. According to the youth justice policy and practice, the courts should have to follow a set of principles when dealing with youth offenders, Smith, (2007). The courts should bear in mind that the young offenders have rights and freedoms that they should enjoy just like the adult offenders and they need to participate and be listened to in the court processes that lead to decisions made about their criminal offences. Young offenders are also required to be responsible for their offences and should be helped with guidance and counseling. More so, the penalty for a young should match with offence that the child has committed and should not be greater than that. According to Harris and Webb (1987), there should be a shared parental role by the state and the families of the young offenders to help bring up these young offenders in the best way possible. This requires the child to be brought up with the child family and the government should support in bringing up children in the appropriate way. The youth justice policy and practice has succeeded in changing the way matters concerning juvenile offenders are addressed. This has been achieved through the several policies that address the issues of the youth like the child act and the children and youth person’s act. The youth justice policy and practice are usually based on the welfare of the youth and not really the criminal justice system. For example, the youth justice board in the UK aims at preventing the youth from committing more criminal acts Wayne Taylor, Rod Earle and Richard Hester (pp 226). References: Godson, B. (2010). Sociological criminology and youth justice. Comparative policy analysis and academic intervention . Volume 10. University of Liverpool. UK Godson, B. and Muncie, J. (2006) ‘Rethinking youth justice: Comparative analysis, international human rights and research evidence’, Youth Justice, volume 6. Chapter 2. Harris, R. and Webb, D. (1987) Welfare, Power and Juvenile Justice. Tavistock. London Muncie, J. (2008) ‘the ‘punitive turn’ in juvenile justice: Cultures of control and rights compliance in Western Europe and the USA’, Youth Justice, volume 8. Chapter 2. Smith, R. (2005) ‘Welfare versus Justice - Again!’ Youth Justice, 5th ed. chapter 1. Smith, R. (2007) Youth Justice: Ideas, Policy and Practice (2nd Ed).Cullompton: Willan. (Chapters 1 to 3) Wayne Taylor, Rod Earle and Richard Hester (2010). Youth justice handbook, policy and Practice. Cullompton. Willan. 1933 Children and Young Persons Act Read More