Criminal Justice System: The Root Causes of Criminal Behavior in the Society's Youth - Term Paper Example

Rumor has it that the root causes of juvenile delinquency and crime are disrespect and irreverence of life, though there are no definitive studies upholding the belief. On its face, it sounds right; but deeper introspection shows that "disrespect" and "irreverence of life" are too broad-based, vague and general. In January of 2005, the Crime and Justice Survey found that nearly a quarter (24%) of males aged 14-17 were either serious or prolific offenders, committing crimes such as car theft, burglary and violent assaults at least six times (and usually far more) in the previous year. The social-science evidence points strongly to the influence of parents as the chief underlying cause of juvenile crime. In England, 27 per cent of prison inmates had been in care and 47 per cent had run away from home as a child. But it's not just broken families. Criminal parents are much more likely to raise criminal offspring: a recent survey found that 43 per cent of prisoners had family members who had been convicted and 35 per cent had a family member who had been in jail. But family breakdown is important, especially when parents contradict each other - thereby providing no clear moral lead - or compete for affection by being lax with their children. Such conflict is more likely in disrupted families, when one parent is absent, or when a new partner or step-parent appears.[1] An answer could be found in the root causes of disrespect and irreverence. Has society targeted the reasons for disrespect and irreverence in search of an answer, or is the singular aim to "get tougher" on social malfeasance an answer in and of itself This paper will take a telescopic look at the root causes of criminal behavior in our society's youth and the legal policies that affect it. It is noted in this work that the purpose of enacting legal policies is to deter crime and reduce the rates of recidivism ("repeat offenders") that peter through the criminal justice system. On closer inspection, the reasons why juvenile offenders commit crimes is not achieved in a vacuum. It is taught-and-learned behaviour rooted in what children see and perceive when they watch adults behave the same way. Many adults disrespect and have no reverence for the lives of others to some degree or another; so children mimick what they see and sense. Youths caught in the system are a portrayal of that which comes from parents and peers, or outside related or non-related other adults. Juvenile delinquency is the stuff of which intrinsically learned self-hatred (a common cause of suicide), or the extrinsic form of taking out self-hatred on others is made. Children often want others to "feel their pain" as badly as they do and therefore commit offenses on some level, whether minor or serious; or whether aimed at attacking themselves or attacking others. Sometimes, but less often, the deviant behavior reflects an attempt to close the missing relationship gaps-to get attention, or to find some comfort or solace in material "things," which they will steal. There is the situation in which the stolen item could have been purchased, but the child or older teen takes a certain delight in the rush of possibly getting caught. Adults have only to look to their own behaviors-'disrespect and irreverence of life'-to explain the root causes of juvenile offenses and ultimately juvenile crime. (Juvenile Crime, 1999)[2] In England and Wales, a minor is anyone under the age of 18, and the "age of criminal responsibility" (or defense of infancy) is age 10. When minors break the law, they are dealt with directly by the Youth Offending Team, which is overseen by the Youth Justice Board. The Youth Offending Team (YOT) is a statutory, multi-agency team that followed the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act (CDA) set up by the English Parliament. In 1998, the CDA implemented the following policies: (1) with regard to anti-social behavior "(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum, or to both; or (b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or to a fine, or to both;" (2) with regard to sex offenses, "Except with the consent of both parties, no sex offender order shall be discharged before the end of the period of five years beginning with the date of service of the order;" and (3) the Ministry of Justice appears to take the stance that parents are to be held accountable for the supervision and maintenance of their wayward children. The CDA of 1998 focuses accountability on what is called a "parenting order." A parenting order is an order which requires the parent- (a) to comply, for a period not exceeding twelve months, with such requirements as are specified in the order; and (b) subject to subsection (five)to attend, for a concurrent period not exceeding three months and not more than once in any week, such counselling or guidance sessions as may be specified in directions given by the responsible officer.[3] The Poor Law system of the early 19th century was a pivotal change in the treatment of juvenile criminals. It was a system in which the government could remove children from what was seen as debilitating domestic environments, where the focus of blame was on lack of parental control.[4] Since that time, current policies seem to reflect the overall need to blame, instead of holding parents accountable for, family erosion, declining morality, fashion, pop culture, television, music and videos for the behaviours of various youthful offenders. In January of 2003, a Home Office research study found that 2/5ths of personal robberies involved young people under the age of 21 as both victims and offenders. An example of this is the June 2004 stabbing murder of 15-year old Kieran Rodney-Davis, of whom it was said that three youths who approached him first asked for his mobile phone in an attempted robbery, which he refused to give to them. In September of 2008, after-school patrols (street teams) literally took to the streets, with a near $60 million budget, to put financial muscle behind the Youth Crime Action Plan. In that Plan was the overseeing of laws regarding curfews and getting and keeping the children of a certain age off the streets after mandated hours. It was to their own safety and the safety of others and with the goal in mind of "stopping crime before it starts." [More on the YCAP to follow.] Following the Crime and Disorder Act of 1998, the treatment of youth offenders within the criminal justice system changed and many new orders were introduced, such as supervision and action plan orders. In 2000, research into juvenile offenders in England and Wales seemed to suggest that there was a reduction in reconviction rates across all offence categories between 1997 and 2000, with robbery at the lowest reconviction rate of 15 per cent. It was also recorded that the greatest fall took place in 1997, down 39 per cent. Burglary and theft were the offence categories with the second and third largest falls in reconviction rates, respectively. As recently as May 2008, however, John Carnochan, head of the Violence Reduction Unit at Strathclyde Police, where knife crime is more than three times higher than in the rest of the UK stated: "It is a truism that putting people in jail doesn't work," he says. "It may make the rest of us feel better, but it was never intended to solve the problem, nor does it." Though increasingly volatile behavior patterns have precipitated a dire need to modify juvenile laws to hasten the jailing and imprisonment of youthful offenders, the common feeling of those who study juvenile crime is that all it does is expose youth to hardened criminals, which consequently does nothing more than breed more crime. It feeds the cycle. With that in mind, the Youth Justice Board announced a "huge drop", down 10.2% in 2007/8 from a 2005/6 baseline, more than twice the target of 5%. This demonstrates, according to a YJB press release, that the "successful joint partnership working between the police, youth offending teams and agencies based in local authorities" is "beginning to have impact". The data, moreover, had carefully been validated against police national computer records.[5] However, Sir Michael Scholar, head of the UK Statistics Authority, stated that the numbers are deceptive, mainly due to smoke and mirror exercises in the way the numbers are handled. Rather than a 10.2% decrease, there seems to have been a 12% increase. It is said that the ISSP, i.e., the Intensive Supervision and Surveillance Programmes, are contributing to the problems rather than helping. Parallel to the U.S. policy on 'zero tolerance,' the UK adapted a strategy called 'no more excuses.' The Public Broadcasting Station's Frontline took to task two questions: "Does treating kids like adults make a difference" and "Does treating juveniles as adults help reduce crime" Northeastern University researcher Donna M. Bishop (2000) states "findings suggest that transfer [to adult criminal status] made little difference in deterring youths from re-offending. Adult processing of youths in criminal court actually increases recidivism rather than [having] any incapacitative effects on crime control and community protection." She also cautions that "Unfortunately, assessments of the extent to which transfer achieves these dual aims are few and recent."[6] Allowing youngsters to drift away into a life of crime puts the public at risk and it undermines any possibility of them developing into fully productive members of society; it also makes a serious dent in the hope of the future for a better society. The Government believes that the purpose of the youth justice system must be on prevention so that the real causes of socially deviant behavior can be removed before the fact and not to wait until after. The Crime and Disorder Bill (CDB) provides a clearer focus on preventing youth offenses by placing a statutory duty on youth justice agencies to tackle the causes of crime rather than to focus on punishing the offender. The Bill introduces statutory local partnerships, led by local authorities, to harness the efforts and skills latent within local communities to help reduce disorder by targeting its root layer. Prevention of offending and re-offending not only enhances the unwillingness to allow excuses for youth crime, but it also recognises that children 'above the age of criminal responsibility' are mature enough, in most cases, to be held accountable for their actions. The law must see that and require youth offenders to make some type of reparations (restoration) to their victims in cases where it can be done. The Bill also reverts to the early 1900s method of taking parents to task for prevention of criminal and anti-social acts. The parenting orders in the 1998 CDA focuses on the intervention of Parliament to help parents steer their children clear of public misbehavior. The primary emphasis of the Bill is designed to move the focus off processing within the system and turning it toward prevention by implementing policies that will deter anti-social behaviour before it escalates out of control. The more immediate need is to prevent and reduce rather than to punish after it's too late. The Bill also enhances enforcement of the child safety order and local child curfew. The Action Plan order is targeted toward a multiple combination of punishment, reparations and rehabilitation with a less adversarial approach. Failing that, the Government's top priority for the Youth Justice Board, becomes making certain that the time it takes from arrest to sentencing is cut in half. In other words, those who continue to offend with impunity and disregard for the help being offered to them will be fast-tracked to imprisonment whenever and wherever necessary. It is an aggressive move that tackles the idea that many youth have that it takes so long to prosecute and punish that they can willfully commit more crimes along the way and not need concern themselves with it "any time soon." In the court of public opinion in England and Wales, the root causes of drug abuse, poverty, lack of general knowledge about the significance of youth crime on the public interest, and too much leniency in the court systems is at the heart of the failure of government policies to make a significant dent in the rates of crime and recidivism. In the 1960s and '70s, 'teds,' 'mods,' and 'rockers' were believed to be at the root of the upsurge in youth offensive behaviour. In the 1980s and 1990s, attention was turned to the failure of the Government to respond quickly and appropriately to rising incidences of juvenile crime. At the same time, the public did not believe that the adult justice system was adequate to address the special needs of youth offenders who could potentially become career criminals without serious intervention. Some of measures put in place in the Youth Crime Action Plan will tackle the use of safeguard laws to remove at-risk youth from the streets at night, street teams youth workers and ex-gang members to tackle young people involved in crime and disorder, the increase of visible police patrols during after-school hours, the expansion of Family Intervention projects, provision of positive activities for young people, and placing youth team workers in police stations in order to deal immediately with and direct the children to the appropriate service at the earliest opportunity. Per Children's Secretary Ed Balls, "The vast majority of young people play an active, positive role in their communities and are a credit to their families, schools and themselves. But there is still a small minority of young people who cause problems in their communities and become involved in crime. This money, available through the Youth Crime Action Plan, will help local areas tackle youth crime, by addressing both the causes of offending and offering the right support to help young people get their lives back on track." In the final analysis, research shows that there is still a common belief that efforts to curb juvenile crime should be aimed at education, prevention and early intervention, which builds on work already underway in many local areas across the country. While it appears that governmental policy changes have had little to no effect in helping to prevent or reduce juvenile crime rates; recent studies show, in a painfully obvious manner, that there is something to be had for choosing rehabilitation over punishment. References 1Civitas, [Internet]. 2005. Classical liberal comment on news and current affairs. Available from [Accessed 3 April 2009]. 2Juvenile Crime, [Internet]. 2009. The History Channel. Available from: [Accessed 30 Mar 2009]. 3Crime and Disorder Act of 1998 (UK Parliament Public General Acts). 4 Geoffrey Pearson. 1983. Hooligan: A History of Respectable Fears, Palgrave: Macmillan. 5JoePublicBlog, [Internet]. 2009. Guardian News and Media Limited. Available from [Accessed 3 Apr 2009]. 6Bishop, Donna. 2000. Juvenile Offenders in the Adult Criminal System. Crime and Justice. Read More