Juvenile Justice System: Protecting Youth, Enhancing Rehabilitation - Essay Sample

Introduction

The juvenile justice system is a system of the prosecution that was established many years ago in the United States of America to fundamentally serve the children, through ensuring that the youthful offenders are diverted from the destructive punishment in the adult criminal court. The system was also basically formed to enhance the rehabilitation of such children depending on personal juvenile requirements (Sickmund & Puzzanchera, 2014). More significantly, the juvenile justice system is different from the adult criminal court is several ways including its concentration on the offender as individuals who require more support, but not the criminal that has brought the child into the court. The system encompasses informal proceedings and almost all the decisions are left in the hand of the juvenile judge because the juvenile judge holds the interest of the child and with exceptions of many procedures and rights found in the adult criminal court (Sickmund & Puzzanchera, 2014). The paper seeks to critically analyze the juvenile justice system in the U.S, as well as focusing on the importance of the system, the current problem facing the system and the solution for such problems.

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More importantly, the juvenile justice system mainly focuses on reforms and programs which teach youthful offenders to adhere to the new behaviors and thoughts, with the strategy to avert committing more crimes and offenses in the long-run (Luna & Wright, 2016). The juvenile justice system consists of numerous significant benefits to the people in the United States including protecting the children against sexual and physical abuse since they are kept away from the adult offenders (Sickmund & Puzzanchera, 2014). The system also of more significance as it focuses on the rehabilitation of the young offenders through providing emotional counseling, treatment of substance abuse, as well as ensuring access to education to divert children from criminal offenses and transform them into educationists. Additionally, the system is more fundamental in the life of the people as it also provides special care to particular individuals such as sexual abuse survivors and female offenders.

Additionally, there have been several arguments supporting the juvenile justice system in the United States. Such arguments include; the brain of children committing crimes cannot control their emotions and understand the outcome as compared to the adult brain, therefore such children should not face the same system as of punishment as the adults (Luna & Wright, 2016). More importantly, the rehabilitation of the children is a benefit to everyone in the society as such children would live a productive life when they are again released into society.

Concerning the problems encountered with the juvenile justice system in the United States, as many as two million young people get into contact with the juvenile justice system every year. Suddenly, a good percentage of such children experience a diagnosable mental illness that requires more attention, while some of the children have serious psychological issues (Espinosa, Sorensen & Lopez, 2013). Most such health problems can be treated within the community; therefore appropriate measures should be in place to ensure proper solutions including the formation of a care program that concentrates on the mental health of the children through employing comprehensive community-based activities and support to such children. Such programs will ensure opportunities to develop a proper understanding of the challenges facing the children.

Another problem faced with the juvenile justice system is that the juvenile defenders have the responsibility of protecting the interest of the children in all states of justice including disposition, arrest and detention and adjudication. For efficacy, the defenders should have extra skills such as being familiar with the development of adolescents and skills on community-based services, as well as the capacity to efficiently enlist a parent without objecting to the relationship between the client and the attorney (Sickmund & Puzzanchera, 2014). Suddenly, the defenders lack adequate practice to be able to represent children and lacking skills in adolescent development, as well as lacking access to the juvenile experts, thereby not able to serve the interest of the children. Therefore, the appropriate solution to such a problem should be to provide proper training of new juvenile defenders based on legal standards to ensure that the children who involve in the juvenile justice system are provided with excellent legal counseling and protection.

Similarly, another problem is that children and adolescents often get into problems due to activities that are criminalized since they are younger, and so the activities draw more attention among the adults including running away, truancy and curfew violation (Espinosa et al., 2013). For instance, several cases have been petitioned in the juvenile system, and most of them are due to committing status offenses among the children (Sickmund & Puzzanchera, 2014). As a consequence, children have been evacuated from their homes. Therefore, the best solution to such a problem is to ensure that the state executes family-focused court interventions that are efficient in lowering family caseloads and gives proper support to young people.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the juvenile justice system is fundamental not only to the children who commit a crime in the society but also to every individual and the state because it reduces the rate of crime among people and the rehabilitation enlist a more productive people in the society. The juvenile justice system possesses several benefits in the United States including providing treatment to substance abuse, emotional counseling and access to education which is a critical tool for the development of every country. More imperatively, when proper measures are put in place, the current problems faced in the juvenile justice system such as the mental illness of the children and lack of skills among the juvenile defenders will effectively be solved.

References

Espinosa, E. M., Sorensen, J. R., & Lopez, M. A. (2013). Youth pathways to placement: The influence of gender, mental health need and trauma on confinement in the juvenile justice system. Journal of youth and adolescence, 42(12), 1824-1836. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10964-013-9981-x

Luna, B., & Wright, C. (2016). Adolescent brain development: Implications for the juvenile criminal justice system. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2014-56681-005

Sickmund, M., & Puzzanchera, C. (2014). Juvenile offenders and victims: 2014 national report. https://calio.dspacedirect.org/handle/11212/2182