Intermediate Sanctions Intermediate Sanctions With overcrowding in the juvenile facilities there was a search for some kind of program that would provide the most serious of the juvenile offenders a community based intensive supervision as a substitute to incarceration. The Office Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) responded to this need by funding Post adjudication Nonresidential Intensive Supervision Programs, a project that is overseen and run by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD). They wanted to identify and assess the intensive supervision program. They wanted to provide a program that kept juveniles out of long term facilities and possible give them a better chance and not committing crimes again. (OJJDP 1994).
| Should Juveniles Be Tried As Adults | | | Michelle Rogers | 10/5/2014 | | The whole purpose of the juvenile court system is to guide and rehabilitate adolescents/children by providing direction to those convicted of crime. The courts should be focusing on rehabilitation, while the state should act as a parental figure rather than a prosecutor or judge. Taking a parental approach would help channel youth in appropriate directions instead of simply punishing them for their mistakes. States deliberately give harsher sentences to teach adolescents/children a lesson. President Mark Soler of the Washington, D.C., Youth Law Center points out that adolescents/children are required by law to be incarcerated separately from adults.
However, the language and form of punishment used to rehabilitate and punish children differs greatly from that used in adult courts (Siegel, 2009). The juvenile court system serves two major functions; keeping juvenile offenders away from the society and rehabilitating or correcting them. Correction helps to hold juveniles accountable to their action by helping them to realize the wrong they have done. In addition, correction facilities help to educating, and imparting social skills among juvenile offenders. Through the correction function of juvenile court system, young offenders are influenced to realize their potential by helping them to build acceptable vocational and interpersonal skills.
Assess the Usefulness of Risk Factors in Managing Youth Offenders. This essay will be attempting to explore the usefulness of risk factors, when it comes to managing young offenders. It will begin by defining the key terms ‘risk factors’ and ‘youth offenders’ before outlining some of the most important risk factors commonly connected with young offenders. It will then attempt to examine the ways in which these particular risk factors are used to identify and then manage those young people who commit crime. The essay will be looking at these risk factors and their effects with particular reference to the Youth Justice System, in addition to other agencies.
It will also discuss how focusing on rehabilitation instead of punishment will affect different aspects of society and the criminal justice system. The juvenile justice system has had its ups and downs. In some years it was thought that having harsher punishment for the juveniles was the ideal answer. During the Clinton administration, crime rates rose for juveniles and congressional leaders demanded tougher treatment for juvenile felons, including more incarceration in both adult and youth correctional facilities (Krisberg, 2008). Although President Clinton passed bills to push for harsher punishment for juveniles before it could go into effect, the juvenile crime rates dropped.
The government has taken notice and legislation has commenced that requires the use of government prevention programs to help assist the states in reducing crimes. The Government places a strong emphasis on preventing juvenile crime and rehabilitating young offenders using diversionary and restorative justice programs rather than the traditional criminal justice system (NSW, 2012). The idea is to stop juveniles from committing crime before they actually do. They want to put a stop to juveniles who commit crime by creating special programs that teach them that committing acts of violence are normally a sign of future criminal behavior. Educating communities and children about the dangers of substance abuse and violence, the behavior will decline.
One of the most significant differences is the intent of the two systems; the focus of the juvenile justice system is on rehabilitation and future reintegration, while the goal of the criminal justice system is punishment and deterrence of future crime. In juvenile court rulings, decisions often take psychosocial factors into account along with current offense severity and the youth’s offense history. In contrast, in criminal proceedings, the severity of the offense and criminal history weigh most heavily in sentencing outcome. Upon release, those who pass through the juvenile justice system receive parole-like surveillance along with reintegration programs, reflecting the belief that juvenile behavior can be changed. Those released from prison receive surveillance which serves to monitor and
Treatment can not only help a juvenile offender get past the actions that caused him/her to be an offender in the first place but also can help the juvenile from repeating the same mistake again. There are many different treatment options available for juveniles I believe the decision should be based on the nature of the crime that they committed. A juvenile delinquent crime where I live, which is the state of New Jersey, is considered anyone under the age of 17 that commits a crime. There are many different types of crimes in the United States and outside of the more serious ones such as murder and rape. Smaller crimes by juveniles can be tough to judge because they can be based on so many different factors.
The issue of youth justice evolved into the concept conferencing, which can be considered as an option if a young person has committed an offence that is covered by the Young Offenders Act 1997 (cwlth), but is too serious to be dealt with by way of police warning or formal police caution. The point of this is to keep young offenders out of the criminal justice system and rehabilitate them instead of sending them to juvenile detention for periods at a time. (b) Explain the problems in the current criminal justice system with reference to that issue The main problems in the current criminal justice system can be seen as: • the failure to address social and economic dimensions of juvenile crime • inadequate legal frameworks • high level of violence and abuse from police The failure to address the dimensions of juvenile crime arose due to a number of reasons, but common to a few key points. Firstly, in reference to the social issues, the general public and local communities did not feel as though the juvenile offender really understood how the crime they committed impacted on everyone; including the
By Jamie Makey 9/18/13 Juveniles think, act, and understand life differently than adults. Juveniles respond differently to circumstances in their lives. Juveniles do not have the same rights and responsibilities that adults have. They often are not mature enough to understand the consequences of their actions. The law does recognize these differences, but, a Juvenile, like an adult, makes the choice to commit a crime or not.